Pelican Lake 1/17/2011

[wagdog]

I decided to finally take the plunge and head to Pelican Lake for some bluegill and bass. I picked up BigFishTaco at 3:15 AM yesterday and we headed out. We had a few goals in mind.
1. Don't die so our wives will let us go again.
2. Catch a largemouth through the ice.
3. Catch a 10 inch gill through the ice.
4. Have a good time.

We got to Pelican around 6:00 AM with 6 degree weather and stared out into the dark wondering where we should fish. After doing some exploring, we found a couple of places on the east side where we could pull off, unload, and get to fishing. Drilled a few test holes and we were in 4 feet so we moved until we found 8.5. I dropped down a teeny jig along with my sonar to see if any willing fish would show up. They did. The screen went bazonkers (technical term) marking fish. BFT punched some holes and we got to work. I kept seeing larger fish near the bottom cruising through smaller "balls" of fish on the sonar so I dropped down a jigging spoon and was rewarded with a 16.5 inch largemouth. That dude was puking baby gills as he came up through the hole. Definitely a lot of fun on a light action ice rod with 4 lb test and the drag getting a work out.

A few minutes later I hear BFT telling me to come see this bluegill. He's lipping it like a bass and yes Virginia, it is a little over 10 inch gill. We now that it was 7:20 AM we had already found what we wanted to catch so we left. Yeah right. I caught a couple more willing largies on the spoon and some nice gills too. Bigger lure, bigger gills seemed to be the formula. We used TubeDude glow worms, spoons, and bream bug plastics. You could not have asked for better weather. I really thought there would be more folks out there yesterday but we were alone on our side of the lake. When we left it was a tropical 30 degrees. Fun was had by all (yet another goal accomplished) and we didn't die...apparently[][]
Thank you TubeDude and Packfan for all of your tips. They were essential to our success.
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[fishnate]

Glad you guys found some fish concentrations. The water has risen well over a foot since we were there the previous weekend and it seemed to scatter or move the fish to different locations. We had a rare rough day of locating fish in and around our usual hotspots. We tried from 5 to 11 feet and didn't find any good schools, just apparently broken schools with occasional fish moving through. From what we could tell by people vacating earlier than usual and others moving a lot, it appeared that others were having similar issues. I'm just glad I only have a 20 minute drive so I can try it again another day. It will be more like revenge!
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[trfishin]

[cool] Nice catch wagdog and BFT Im glad you guys were able to get both things checked off your list and man thats a nice bass and bluegills. I bet you guys will be heading back really soon for some more of that kind of fishing.[]

I talked to another angler that I met out on the ice last year he had an underwater camera and I got to watch it for a little bit and there were some bass cruising by but didnt even look our way at anything we tried.

It was really cool to see them down there and the bluegills eating up our plastics. Makes a person really want one of those underwater cameras they are really cool Now if I can just talk my wife into one that will be great.[]
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[PACKFAN]

Glad you had a great trip, and glad I could help you out.
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[wagdog]

We will definitely be back. I'm strangely addicted to bluegill, crappie, and other warm water species. What can I say? My first memories of catching fish all by myself were bluegill and channel cats. Guess I never grew up. In years past had I been told by anyone there were largemouth like that in Utah (except for Lake Powell), I would have called the person insane. My family would come up here in the summer to camp around Kamas and all we ever saw anyone catch was a trout. I know Utah is a trout state but man, there is good fishing for warm water species too. My Dad is doing his part to educate his co-workers down in Texas. He always shows them the pictures I send of the fish we catch here in Utah.

I keep hearing about your plastics trfishin. I've seen a few pics of them when they are worn as "lip jewelry." Good lookin stuff. If you ever need a beta tester...[][]
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[clipripper]

nice bass. i have never been there so last saturday my friend and i decided to vernture away from our normal trout fishing and try something different. we headed to pelican and what a hoot catching all them bluegills never had any fishing like that before. in about 3 hours we managed about 50 with the largest about 11" never did catch any bass but it was a fun change of pace. maybe next time we can get a bass or two never have caught a large mouth either and next time i will definatly take my 9 yr. old she would have a ball with them blue gill.
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[Springbuck]

I'm glad you got into them, too. I drove out Sun night with my daughter, slept in the car, and battled all day to get 20 medium gills. I thought I had talked to everyone on the lake that day practically, and nobody was having a fantastic day, just O.K.

We fished the east side first about 150 yards from a group of about 15 guys and only a few guys out of all of us caught more than a couple. Everybody went home about 10:30. Then we went to the boat ramp about noon and finished off on a little afternoon bite between 1 and 3 pm.

I keep making that 3 hour drive trying to hit it like you guys did... One of these days...
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[wagdog]

Thanks! We saw more bass early in the morning and then more cruised through later in the afternoon. I marked several on my sonar but didn't entice that many. I guess it is hard to compete with the abundant forage there.
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[wagdog]

We were on the east side but no one was close to us. Maybe we were further south. We were in the two red quickfish 3 tents that were right next to each other.
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