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Bear Lake
#1
I'm gonna be out at bear lake for the last half of the week and was curious if it was possible to catch anything from shore lately or if anyone has heard of anything. were gonna be on the south side at the ideal beach condos. Was thinking of renting a canoe and taking a trolling rod and trying to long line if possible out towards the rock pile as far as I can but any advice is welcome.
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#2
Ahhh, welcome to Bear Lake fishing......

If you rent a canoe then you'll have the best chance. Shore fishing is pretty much nonexistent this time of year. Long lining at ideal beach would be a waste of your time. However, there is another way.....

If you're staying at ideal beach condos, then take the canoe straight north from the eastern property line of ideal beach until you hit 38-46' of water. This should put you over the "rockpile". This is where the fish hang out on that end of the lake. Use 3" white or rainbow trout colored tube jigs (with the jig head inside of the tube) tipped with a piece of sucker, carp, minnow, shrimp, etc. you can buy some of that at Pugstones in town. Drop your jig to the very bottom and reel up 1 full turn of the handle after you just take the slack out of the line. LIGHTLY jig it keeping within 1-2' of the bottom and set the hook for any strange feeling.....especially on the drop.

It will be best to get up at 5:30 and get out before the power squadron gets on the water this time of year. There should be some fish biting from 6-9 or 10 am and then the sun will be too high and the boaters will start buzzing around and making it very difficult to fish effectively.

Try as best as you can to estimate the depth so that you keep in that 45'ish depth. One way I do that when I don't have a sonar is to reel my jig all the way to the tip, then I back reel one full turn of the reel handle and measure the distance between the jig and the pole tip. Then it is just a simple matter of counting the turns of the handle as you back reel the lure to the bottom and multiplying that by the distance to the rod tip that you measured earlier.

If this is all common knowledge to you then I'm sorry, no offense intended, but I wrote this also to be a help to anyone else that has a question on how to catch fish at bear lake this time of year. I live here and fish it fairly often and have pretty decent luck fishing it "low tech".

Also, if you want to drive a few minutes there is Cisco beach that can be very good jigging from a canoe or kayak. Same method, same depths except they can be as deep as 60' at times, but I always start in the 35-45' range first.

I should mention that you'll be the best off by bringing a spinning rod loaded with 6-8 pound test line. I'd leave the trolling rod home unless you want to put a few ounces of lead on the line and troll a spoon, minnow lure, or pop gear along the bottom.

Let us know how it goes for you, and good luck!

Mike
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#3
Hey Mike's never lead me wrong on his tips, do what he says and you'll catch some fish. Good luck. J
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#4
Awesome thank you! I'll see what I can do to make all this happen. how is the fishing in this area in the evenings or is it just to overcrowded with ski boats.
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#5
Not too crowded after about 6:30-7, but I've never done that well in the evenings there. I think the fish are still freaked out by the power squadron until after dark.

There is also the Garden City pond in town that gets stocked regularly and has even been stocked with a hundred or two brood stock cutthroats. Use spinners, spoons, or any minnow imitating lure for the cutts......use worm under a bobber or fly and bubble for the rainbows there.

Mike
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