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Sorry boys, I couldn't find the perch in numbers willing to cooperate.
Caught one small dink in 26' and saw one large school in 104' but was on my way in when I saw the deep school and did not try for them.
The RB's saved the day for my friends 8 year old son. Caught the majority while trolling a KKC silver dodger with a pink squid at the 25' range. Tipped with 1/4" bits of worm.
The next hot bait was a floating rainbow Rapala long lined with no weight. Speeds at 1 mph.
Excellent day on the water!
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Thanks for the report, one question. Have you ever caught perch in 100 ft of water before? It sure has been a good years for bows there.
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I have caught them in 70 feet before. Coming from that deep they better be keepers because they arent going to be too happy if ya know what I meen........Fishon
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I have not caught perch that deep before.
I was just trolling in to the launch and saw them on the fish finder.
You are right about the bows this year. I attribute it to the lake not freezing last year, therefore not being over harvested.
I am crossing my fingers it does not freeze this year either, can you imagine what those 20 inchers in there right now will be like next year! It puts Strawberry to shame.
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What? Starvy froze last year and I sure hope it freezes this year. I'm pretty sure the harvest of rainbows during the open water season far exceeds that for ice fishing. Rainbows were stocked to be harvested. I attribute the good numbers of bows over 20" to stocking and lake productivity. Surely not because there was less harvest during last ice fishing season.
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I fished the same spot, the same time of the year last year and had basically the same results, lotsa big bows all the same size. If it freezes (like it did last year)you get to catch them all year, plus you get lots of hard deck perch. So I don't think the hard deck will affect the bow population too much, just my opionin tho.
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I stand corrected about the ice last year. It was my understanding the bays froze but not the center. Sorry about that.
We will have to agree to disagree about the effects of ice fishing on a rainbow fishery.
I think allowing ice fishing for trout was the single biggest mistake we made in our production of double digit bows in Utah waters.
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Don't know if they've checked recently, but at one time, when they were considering a four fish limit during the winter at Strawberry while allowing 8 fish during the summer, they figured that the ice fishermen accounted for 15% of the harvest. I'm pretty sure that the percentage has increased, but I'm not sure it has that much of a negative effect.
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Sorry to hear you didn't get into the perch, but as you said the rainbows are worth the trip. IDid you try the area we iced fished last winter? I had good luck in that area in late August.
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Hi Gary,
I heard you had an awesome bass trip to the big pond down south.
I did not try where we ice fished last year. I had an 8 year old that had never fished before and he was having so much fun trolling for rainbows I did not spend enough time looking for perch. The lake is way low and spots I fished last July were high and dry.
Take care, Shane
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