Sunday, September 18, 2016

Breaking in the New Downriggers at Bear Lake

Fishing Time: 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Weather:  Windy, clear, T-70s
Moon Phase:  95% Moon
Location: Bear Lake
Water Temp: 60 degrees
Best Bait: 3-inch white/blue swim bait
Who Went: Bobber John, Dunc

With the word getting out about Devin’s 20 pound lake trout from Bear Lake, I had interest from others wanting to try their luck on the big blue.  I just bought two brand new Cannon downriggers and they were installed and ready to go, so Bobber John and I headed to Bear Lake to try them out.  Turned out to be much better than the $70 clamp on model, imagine that.
We were on the water with downriggers in action before the sun was up.  Just like last trip we instantly started to see fish on the fish finder.  We had four rods rigged with two running the bottom for lake trout, and two running mid-depth for cutthroat. 
We had a lot of lookers but nothing wanted to commit.  We tried a variety of lures with no success.  It was windy most of the morning, but we had an hour where it died down, so we turned to jigging.  We found a good school of fish on the finder and dropped our jigs.  Within a few minutes Bobber John, the lake trout whisperer, had a fish on.  It was no 20 pounder, but a beautiful Bear Lake, lake trout none the less. 
The wind kicked up again, so we went back to trolling.  This time Bobber John ran a 3 inch swim bait on the deep rod, and it proved to be a success.  He caught a clone of his first fish.

One more hour of trolling was all we could handle in the wind, and the fish seemed to be lock jawed.  We felt lucky to have landed the two fish we did.  Looks like Devin still holds the lake trout record at Bear Lake! 

Saturday, September 3, 2016

The Bear Lake Monster

Fishing Time: 7:30 AM to 9:30 AM
Weather:  Slight breeze, clear, T-60s
Moon Phase:  5% Moon
Location: Bear Lake
Water Temp: 65 degrees
Best Bait: K-13 Flatfish (rainbow color)
Who Went: Devin, Dunc

Every year since I have been alive (1981) my family has gone to Bear Lake during the summer/fall.  The last 10 years or so it has been over Labor Day weekend.  It’s a fun tradition and a good way to end the summer fun before school starts.  I typically don’t take the boat, only because it’s the last trip of a busy summer and a chance to relax, but this year Devin was adamant that we take the boat because he has become obsessed with catching lake trout.  He’s seen pictures of big lake trout I’ve caught at Flaming Gorge and when I told him they live in Bear Lake, I was done.  The boat was coming!

I woke him up early and he was very excited.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that a fish that size doesn’t come easy and I tried to ease the pain during the drive to the marina by telling him you can go all day without a bite when fishing for lake trout.

We launched the boat and drove over to Gus Rich Point and dropped a K-13 rainbow colored flatfish down to the bottom (80 ft) on my $70 clamp on downrigger and set the cruise at 1.7 mph.  We instantly started to see fish and within minutes I saw a large green blurb (fish) come up off the bottom to look at our flatfish.  I was explaining to Devin that this was a big lake trout coming up to take a look and those are what we want to see on the fish finder.  Two seconds later the rod started bouncing and we had him on! 

I grabbed the rod and gave it to Devin, but it about pulled him into the lake!  We finally found a good system with me helping hold the rod upright and Devin doing the reeling, and after a good 5-10 minute fight we could see the large fish coming up from the clear blue depths of Bear Lake.  Devin couldn’t believe it and seemed shocked when looking at it in the net.  It was a very proud moment for me and something I have dreamed of doing for a long time.  Putting Dev on a big lake trout.  I always assumed it would be at Flaming Gorge, but now Dev holds the Duncan family record for lake trout at Bear Lake.  The fish hit the scales at a shade under 20 pounds!
In true 7 year old form we dropped the flatfish down again and within 5 minutes Devin was wondering why we hadn’t caught another one.  Patience is a tough virtue at that age.  We never did get another bite, but we didn’t need to.  We had accomplished our goal and couldn’t have been happier!