PBH
Well-Known Member
We made a weekend trip to Bullfrog from 5/18 - 5/20. Here is what we found:
Friday -- we left Bullfrog marina early afternoon and headed to Hall's to see if we could find any fish. We first tried looking for crappie around the trees in the back of the bay. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing and made this difficult. We abandoned that started trolling. It only took a couple minutes to hit our first walleye. Our hopes of fast fishing quickly turned into hopes of marginal fishing. It was tough. Bottom bouncing wasn't going to happen, again due to the wind. We kept at it trolling, and ended up with 5 walleye before calling it an afternoon and heading back to camp. We got them all in ~15' of water back in the colored stuff.
Saturday -- we went to Good Hope, and started trolling the flats outside of Red Canyon / Blue Notch. The water was colored, and the main mudline showed up at the point just west from Castle Butte. We immediately dredged up a catfish. Then, again, it got really slow trolling. We picked up 1 small striper. This just wasn't a trip for trolling. We found a shelf just inside that mudline off the point (west of Castle Butte) that held some fish. We pulled a couple walleye off of it just drifting over the top. It wasn't fast, and eventually the teenagers were hot and bored with that. We decided to run down to Ticaboo to see if we could find some more fish -- and maybe some action for the girls.
Ticaboo proved to be fun. The girls were able to find smb, bluegill, and crappie casting jigs to the shoreline. We spent a few hours up there working the shoreline and ended up with a mixed bag of smb, lmb, crappie, and bluegill. We then decided to head across the to the east side of lower Good Hope and try trolling again. Again, it was slow. We picked up a couple more walleye. No stripers. So, with bored teenage girls (again) we headed over to the bathrooms to see if we could find some more bluegill. We started bottom bouncing the south-west shoreline from the bathrooms and were able to pick up sunfish, bluegill, and some more walleye. The green sunfish looked like groupers! They were as fat as I've ever seen! The bluegill were great as well. This provided a few hours of good fishing. But, the girls eventually got bored, and wanted to swim - but "not in the bathroom water!". We decided to start heading back, and took a side-trip into Forgotten.
Forgotten provided some great crappie! We pulled in to the trees and yanked about 5 crappie out while the kayaks and other boats just passed by. I'm not sure why they weren't fishing. Crazy. This also provided an opportunity for the girls to swim. It was then time to head back to Bullfrog, and fillet the catch. Sorry -- I didn't keep track of exact numbers. We maybe had 10-12 walleye, 10 crappie, 1 striper and maybe 5 bluegill to fillet.
Sunday morning we decided to try to get the kids into some fish close to Bullfrog. We went down and fished the humps south of Lost Eden and Dad's Crack. This was pretty fun. We were finding smb in the clear water hanging to structure in 15'. After a while doing this, we cruised into Hall's and started pulling bluegill from the submerged island. That wrapped up our trip.
fishing was a bit tough, but we still managed to find some fish. The girls had fun. The dads had fun. We all caught some sun.
(While the clear water may not be great for fishing, it is really nice for taking pictures! I'm still trying to figure this GoPro out -- but ended up with some nice bluegill video! I'll see if I can come up with some to share.)
Friday -- we left Bullfrog marina early afternoon and headed to Hall's to see if we could find any fish. We first tried looking for crappie around the trees in the back of the bay. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing and made this difficult. We abandoned that started trolling. It only took a couple minutes to hit our first walleye. Our hopes of fast fishing quickly turned into hopes of marginal fishing. It was tough. Bottom bouncing wasn't going to happen, again due to the wind. We kept at it trolling, and ended up with 5 walleye before calling it an afternoon and heading back to camp. We got them all in ~15' of water back in the colored stuff.
Saturday -- we went to Good Hope, and started trolling the flats outside of Red Canyon / Blue Notch. The water was colored, and the main mudline showed up at the point just west from Castle Butte. We immediately dredged up a catfish. Then, again, it got really slow trolling. We picked up 1 small striper. This just wasn't a trip for trolling. We found a shelf just inside that mudline off the point (west of Castle Butte) that held some fish. We pulled a couple walleye off of it just drifting over the top. It wasn't fast, and eventually the teenagers were hot and bored with that. We decided to run down to Ticaboo to see if we could find some more fish -- and maybe some action for the girls.
Ticaboo proved to be fun. The girls were able to find smb, bluegill, and crappie casting jigs to the shoreline. We spent a few hours up there working the shoreline and ended up with a mixed bag of smb, lmb, crappie, and bluegill. We then decided to head across the to the east side of lower Good Hope and try trolling again. Again, it was slow. We picked up a couple more walleye. No stripers. So, with bored teenage girls (again) we headed over to the bathrooms to see if we could find some more bluegill. We started bottom bouncing the south-west shoreline from the bathrooms and were able to pick up sunfish, bluegill, and some more walleye. The green sunfish looked like groupers! They were as fat as I've ever seen! The bluegill were great as well. This provided a few hours of good fishing. But, the girls eventually got bored, and wanted to swim - but "not in the bathroom water!". We decided to start heading back, and took a side-trip into Forgotten.
Forgotten provided some great crappie! We pulled in to the trees and yanked about 5 crappie out while the kayaks and other boats just passed by. I'm not sure why they weren't fishing. Crazy. This also provided an opportunity for the girls to swim. It was then time to head back to Bullfrog, and fillet the catch. Sorry -- I didn't keep track of exact numbers. We maybe had 10-12 walleye, 10 crappie, 1 striper and maybe 5 bluegill to fillet.
Sunday morning we decided to try to get the kids into some fish close to Bullfrog. We went down and fished the humps south of Lost Eden and Dad's Crack. This was pretty fun. We were finding smb in the clear water hanging to structure in 15'. After a while doing this, we cruised into Hall's and started pulling bluegill from the submerged island. That wrapped up our trip.
fishing was a bit tough, but we still managed to find some fish. The girls had fun. The dads had fun. We all caught some sun.
(While the clear water may not be great for fishing, it is really nice for taking pictures! I'm still trying to figure this GoPro out -- but ended up with some nice bluegill video! I'll see if I can come up with some to share.)