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Fished Huntington yesterday with Billy. Launched from the new boat ramp (after carrying the Porta-bote 75 yards or so to the water). Moved out from the dam and the catching was hot at daybreak. Dropped one rod over the side and started casting a Kastmaster. Wanted to catch them vertically but the tiger trout wouldn't have anything to do with that, but were more than willing to hit my silver Kastmaster. Got to fish a tiger boil for about 15 minutes -- which was great fun. We didn't have the great day that TubeDude and Flycasting did, but we managed to land around 25 fish (only two were caught vertically jigging), lose many more to long releases. The largest fish landed was just over 14 inches. I believe I had a much larger fish on but it got off of my barbless hooks before I got to see it. There were some tooners fishing and a few fishing from the bank. Two of the tooners were dragging pop gear and worms. They caught a few, but the fishing was slow for them. One tooner was dragging a fly with a fly rod and seemed to doing ok. One gentleman fishing from the shore was fishing whole minnows on the bottom, and he said that he had caught around a dozen in about 5 hours of fishing. Hard to tell how the fishing will be through the ice up there this winter. We went from one end of that lake to the other and saw very few fish on the fishfinder. Most of the fish may have been holding near the surface and thus would not show up on a fishfinder. I was able to mark a few honey holes to try ice fishing of a few areas that were holding concentrations of fish.
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[cool][#0000ff]Glad you got into some fishies. It is a hoot when they are active on top.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I share your concern for the potential ice fishing situation. Two of us covered a large part of the lake with sonar last week and our observations were pretty much as yours are. Not nearly as many fish as in times past. Even when we did find fish there were no large schools, and there were more singles and small groups than what you would call schools.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]We did mark quite a few fish cruising between top and bottom, and maybe a high percentage of the fish are in a suspended mode rather than foraging near the bottom as in many past trips.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I guess we will have to wait for the lake to freeze and the happy horde of drillers to hit it in order to see whether it will be any better or worse than in years past.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]If nothing else, our combined experiences of the past week should show that the fish are active and feeding...and that they can be caught by a variety of lures, flies, baits and techniques. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Did you see any larger fish caught by ANYBODY? I lost one fish on our trip that might go 20 inches, but the largest either of us brought to net was only about 16 inches. I think there has been a lot of harvesting.[/#0000ff]
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I never saw anything larger than the ones that we caught, but I didn't speak to everyone who was fishing. That said, I will take catching a 14 inch tiger trout over a 21 inch cutt from Strawberry any day. Those fish sure are good fighters and can put on a great aerial show.
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[reply]I never saw anything larger than the ones that we caught, but I didn't speak to everyone who was fishing. That said, I will take catching a 14 inch tiger trout over a 21 inch cutt from Strawberry any day. Those fish sure are good fighters and can put on a great aerial show.[/reply] Wow Kent I never thought I would hear you knock those revered Strawberry cutthroats like that! J.K. It's true though, tiger trout are impressive fighters.
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Kent,
Sounds like a great day to me. I still remember our outing to Huntington at first ice last year wtih Billy. Good times. Thanks for the great report.
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[black][size 3]Glad to see you got some of those trout. Was the water much lower than when we were up there ? [/size][/black]
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[black][size 3]I'm thinking about an overnighter with the pups this week up in that area. Was it cold enough for anything to look icey yet ? How warm was it during the day ? [/size][/black]
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The water was within an inch or two of what it was when we were up there before. We had to break through some ice that was maybe 1/4" thick to access the water for about 10 feet out from the shoreline by the dam. It finally warmed up enough to be comfy but not before about 3 PM or so. There was a slight breeze that also made it feel colder than it actually was.
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[black][size 3]10 feet of 1/4 inches of ice ? I bet that was fun. Did you have Billy in the bow of the boat with an ice chisle or spud bar during the launch ? Or, does Port-a-boat make and sell an ice breaker bow attachment ? [/size][/black]
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[size 3]By comfy, did you mean somewhere above blizzardy cold conditions ?[/size]
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