Kickin' butt at Bear Lake 3_12_16

[BearLakeFishGuy]

The ice blew off the lake on Monday 3/7/16. I was out of town for work all week and was thinking about the fishing. Luckily, it was pretty windy all week, so I didn't miss much for fishing opportunities this past week. Friday was snowing and breezy again, but the forecast for Saturday looked ideal.

I was launching the boat just before 7am and the temp was a balmy +14F. First trip in the boat this year for me. I wanted to try out some new lures I acquired over the winter and so I headed out on the Big Blue Lake to troll. I won't divulge my exact location, but I started out too shallow in 45' and kept making passes until I really started marking fish that were stacked in thick mainly from 60-65'. Once I found them it was "game on" for the next 4.5 hrs. I must have landed about 15-20 Cutthroat and 1 Lake Trout. I finally quit about 11:45 and I was still into the fish. I was just tired of playing "downrigger Olympics" since I was by myself. Anyway, one hellova way to start off the soft water season. A big thank you to Ed Mroz at Deadliest Katch Lures for the new lures and custom paint jobs. If you haven't tried some of these lures you should seriously think about it. Deadliest Katch is the only place I know who sells "flatfish" type lures that rattle.
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[SkunkedAgain]

Wow heck of a day there Mike it sounds like a blast. Congrats. J
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[Bduck]

Great Scott, Been waiting for ice off and now plans are in the making. Appears the cutts are not too picky on what is presented to them. Never go up without the arsenal. [fishin]
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[Kent]

Well done Scott. With them being flatfish I imagine you fish they really slow? How large was the largest fish?
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[TiteLines]

Terrific report! Got to plan a trip up soon and spend a couple of days figuring it out. Ever run a strip of Cisco as a teaser on your lures? Works great on Salmon in the ocean.

TiteLines
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[BearLakeFishGuy]

I was trolling from 1.6 to 1.8 mph on GPS
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[fish1on]

Nice job as usual Scott.

Missed my whitefish and eggs for the third year in a row, man I need to get done remodeling and get a new back!
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[SkunkedAgain]

Hey Scott looks like I had a brain failure or had been wondering how Mike was doing after ice off. Anyway sorry about that, but it was a great report. Later J
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[pookiebar]

Hey I know exactly where you were fishing!! Your boat IS the hotspot! Good luck keeping people out of your boat now!!
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[UintaIce]

Great report! Thanks for the info.
Just out of curiosity, how many of your cutts had the clipped, healed adipose fin?
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[BearLakeFishGuy]

I never kept track of how many were clipped. I just snapped a picture of a few of them and released them ASAP. I only had one fish where I had to use a desender on it. For those of you who fish Bear Lake and bring up Cutthroat and Lake Trout from the deep waters, please consider using a desender if the fish is bloated with air. This allows the fish to get back down to a depth where the air compresses and the fish will live. More importantly, in the summer months it gets the fish down to the cooler, deeper water where it is not as stressed. You can buy them on line from a few different places, or you can make your own. Most importantly, use them if a fish is bloated.
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