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Well after being out of the fishing circle for a month because of archery shoot and knee surgery I finally was able to fire up the boat and rip wallie lips again.
Started out pretty slow but once I found them and the way they wanted it I ended up with about 20. Unfortunately most of them were on the smaller side. The biggest one I kept was about 4lbs. and also kept 3 at about 16 inches for supper. There sure are some nice bass down there too. Every time I brought a bass in he would spit crawdad pieces at me. Didn't get any perch this time.
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Good job on the eyes. That place is crawling with crawdads. We caught 180 bugs in 4 hours with three traps last Monday. Had a awesome boil with friends that night.
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Nice work 2dogs. What kind of depth did you catch them in? It has been on my list to catch a walleye on my fly rod for quite some time but I just haven't made it up there. Thanks for the report!
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I love crawfish. Do you guys trap them? I would like to learn how to trap them, just have never done it before.
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Flyguy, I caught them right on the rocks at shoreline down to 15ft. Right now you should tear them up in the bays with a #3 sinking line and a leach pattern. Also try a crawdad pattern and fish the shoreline.
If you want to catch crawdads it's extremely easy. Got me a couple traps from Sportsmans Wearhouse, tie a milk jug onto your rope that is attached to the trap(make sure you follow fish and game regs of marking name etc. on your jug). Pick a shore line that is shale or rocky( Norton Bay is a good area). Bait your traps, some people use dry dog food, some use bread but for me a carcass from a roasted chicken works wonders. Just pull chuncks off it and throw in traps. Probly within 2 hours you'll have quite a few bugs in the traps.
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Thanks for the report. How is that lake for float tubes and pontoons? Is there primitive camping? I'm looking for a place to go in another week.
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Thanks much 2 dogs! I think I will give it a try I the next few days. I will share my results. Tight lines,
Cole
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Mudsucker, I quite often use my pontoon there. It is very accessible. Lots of places to camp, just depends on what you want to fish for as to where you would camp. If it is trout you are targeting camp down by the dam. If warm water species is your target I would try Greys landing, Norton Bay or the best bet would be Big Sand Bay. Right now the usual summertime green slime is floating around on the upper end and the water temp is about 70-72 degrees. As you head down toward the dam the water cools and clears up. If you've never been there before you should at least take a trip to drive across the dam, it's an experience for sure.
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Warm water species and crawdads. I'll bring trout for bait, don't need more of them. How is Big Sand Bay for crawdads?
I went across the dam a few times 15 years ago. I recall it was tall.
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As the name would imply it is a large sand bottomed bay so not too likely it would be a prime crawdad spot but you should be able to paddle around the corner and up the shore line a bit to find a decent spot to set traps. there are some willows a couple hundred yards upstream from the bay that I have filled traps by but that area is high and dry right now
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Most people do go to SFC for the wallies anymore but don't belittle the trout fishing there. They have planted "A" run steelhead in there the last couple years and it won't be long till we are seeing 10 pounders being caught.There are already some 5-6 pound trout being pulled out of there.
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how was launching the boat any troubles? are the ramps still in?
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Don't know about the ramps, I launch at Greys. Have to launch on the south side instead of where we normally do on the north since the water is so low. It was a tough day today, we only landed about 10 today. Maybe the full moon is jacking them up, might need to fish at night.
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hey 2 dogs thanks for the advice we caught a bunch
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Awesome! glad it worked out for you.
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There is a concrete ramp on the north side of grays landing when the water gets low enough!
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wow! can't say I have ever seen that ramp. It's not visible as of Saturday but I did notice what looked like a path of gravel leading into the water from the eastern end.
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I have seen that ramp and was completely shocked that it was there. It must have been put in during the earlier days of the reservoir.
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I just got back from there. The ramp looks like a two road interstate going down the hill for hundreds of yards. They are still launching and the docks were pushed out deeper yesterday. I have no idea how much farther they can go, maybe out to the no wake buoys which are another 75 yards or so.
We caught lots of fat little trout and bass and crawdads.
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2 day tournament out there this weekend. Day one is bass, day two is walleye. It's the annual King of the Water tournament in memory of Rodger Rue. It's also an open if your so inclined. Lots of fish on the banks and they like firetiger shad raps.
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