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Spent a couple beautiful days on the water at Starvation over the 4th. My hunting buddy and his family came over from Elko. He has 2 boys, an 11 year old and a 16 year old that is autistic.
The older boy doesn't like to get up too early so we let him sleep late the first morning while dad, I and the younger boy headed out. The weather was fantastic after enduring the scorching triple digit temps in the valley for the previous week plus we arrived to overcast skies and 67 degrees with a 5mph breeze, [cool]
The boys had never caught walleye so that was the main focus but they wanted to catch other species as well. We tried throwing cranks and jigs early and picked up a couple fish but nothing too hot so we decided to start covering water trolling.
By 11:00 Jeff had put 8 walleye, 4 rainbows, uncountable small mouth, and a 27 inch brown in the boat. The weather was still great so we called big brother and got the whole crew out on the boat including my wife and the boys' mother as well. The fishing continued to be amazing with the second boy also completing the Starvation Slam at about 3:00 with his final fish being a beautiful 23 inch brown.
I'd only personally scored the slam once myself and was amazed we were able to do it twice in the same day!
We fished another day and a half and did well each day but no more browns. It was a great time and the boys really enjoyed the experience. Young Jeff even caught a 12lb carp that smashed a perch Shad rap on the surface as we were letting it back out after clearing weeds from it! I've caught carp many times on artificials, especially jigs, but this fish had the front treble burried in it's mouth. There was no doubt he thought he was getting a perch breakfast!..
Starvation water temps are running around 67 in the morning to just over 70 in the afternoon. I imagine with no wind they may even climb higher in the afternoon on the surface.
We caught fish all over the lake, mainly pulling over the tops of the weeds.
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Did you get a picture of the 27 inch brown?
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That's one pretty golden walleye. You should of seen my golden musky I caught on a fly rod that too me out far and wide, where ever it's heart desired that day.
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[#0000FF]Nice report. Sounds like sushi.
Question. Any perch caught by you...or anybody else you saw? I don't know anybody who has caught more than a couple on any trip yet this year. And they have not shown up on sonar in any of the usual spots.
There were reports of large numbers of dead perch washing up on shore not long after iceout. There were all sizes so I don't believe it was just a post spawn mortality thing. Just when the perch were starting to get some size again.
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TD, we didn't fish for perch for more than about 5 minutes one day and picked up a couple 10 inchers in the weeds Indian bay. I will say though that I have been seeing big perch schools on sonar and mostly very deep. A couple weeks ago I found several very large schools on bottom in 115 to 125 feet of water. One school started at the bottom in 125 feet and topped out at 85 feet. I did not fish for them as I was looking for other things at the time. I have seen quite a few smaller pods in 35 fo 50 feet of water in Rabbit. Not sure why they are so deep acting like winter time and not thick in the weeds like is normal for this time of year.
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[#0000FF]It has been a wierd year. The ice stayed on longer and I suspect the perch spawned a bit later. So it is just about time the young of the year start showing up in big schools in the weed beds. That is usually what gets the perch shallower and more active.
But it is surprising they are still staying so deep. I have not been fishing anything deeper than 30-40 feet. However, I did mark some fish on the bottom in over 50 feet when cruising across the outside channel in Bunny Gulch. Didn't stop to fish them though. A little later I saw some fish in 40' and dropped down a couple of jigs. Turned out to be school of rainbows. Fun, but not perch.
Indian Bay is next on my list of launch spots. I usually do well there through the summer.
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I haven't seen or heard of any winter kill on perch at Starvation this year other than what you stated. You'd think that if it was really significant we'd have heard more about it? Maybe it happened early before much fishing was going on? As good as the fishing was last winter from the reports there should be alot of really nice perch in there right now I personally have not fished for them this year as of yet. Wish I had more info for you. I'll be looking forward to a good report from you nailing them in Indian bay.
The water has been dropping pretty steadily there over the last few weeks, but doesn't really seem abnormal for this time of year, so not sure if that might be pushing them deep?
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[#0000FF]Starvation is too deep and too well oxygenated by inflows and green weed beds to have any kind of "normal" winterkill. But there have been post iceout perch dieoffs in other reservoirs in the past few years...like Jordanelle and Rockport. Never did get a CSI analysis of the corpses from DWR biologists but the speculation was that it was due to parasites or virus that mainly attacked the perch.
Perch have been mostly dinks the past couple of years but toward the end of last fall they were showing up in the 8-10 inch range...with some bigger. There were lots of that size pulled through the ice too...with a few up to almost 14 inches. The best I have seen in years.
I have 3 or 4 spots around Indian Bay that almost always produce some footlongs or better. If I can keep the stupid smallies, wallies and slimers off my jigs. It's all good.
I keep a fishing log which includes notes on water levels, temps and observed effects on fishing. The water did not stay at high water mark very long this year and is being sucked out fast by the water users in this dry year. But so far I do not see it being drastically worse than in most past years. The water drops far enough most years that it leaves a lot of the shallower weed beds high and dry. That's a good time to fish near them for the walleyes and other fish that are chowing down on the displaced young crawdads. Had a great day on walleyes near the end of September last year fishing in only a few feet of water up in what was left of Rabbit Gulch. I was not even using crawdad pattern jigs but every fish I kept for the knife had "bugs" in their innards.
It is a puzzlement about the perch staying deep. Most years I can count on hammering large fish in fairly shallow water...12 to 15 feet deep. I have only caught a few small ones and one footlong this year. All of those came from at least 30'. And I have checked that spot you and I fished a couple of years ago and have only found a few silly slimers hanging out there. Maybe someday.
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[#0000FF]Don't you wish that all of life's problems were like that?
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Your success must be from the new boat. Can't be you.
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Good call Mike, I was acutally thinking about sending Lund a thank you letter. [:p]
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