Just got back from ”opening weekend“ at bullfrog

[Dworwood]

We arrived at bullfrog Friday around noon to find the ramp still fairly busy. Loaded up and headed North to GH and set up camp near Red Canyon. Littlesaltwash shared a great hidden cove with us and we enjoyed his company when we were in camp together. We fished close the first night and caught a couple of LM on z man craw Ned rig and released both and several SM on Ned rigs. Saturday headed north and found mud line just above camp in GH, went to two mile but with the visibility about 6” and debris in the water we decided to head back south. Quite a bit of floating wood with a couple of big logs and I decided it wasn’t worth breaking down to me and we didn’t see another boat that far up. We came back and fished from castle butte down to the end of GH bay and caught fish scattered everywhere. We caught bluegill on a bottom bouncer, cat fish through the upper lip on Ned rig and stripers trolling crank baits. We caught SM, LM, crappie, bluegill, walleye, catfish, and stripers this trip and most were on Ned rigs, color didn’t seem important walleye were on dark sparkly color. One crappie was on a bottom bouncer too. It was a strange fishing trip to me to catch some of the fish the way we caught them. We found a school of young stripers that were in good shape hanging below carp on the surface, if you put the lure in the middle of the carp you would catch a striper if he was big enough to take the lure he would get hooked! We ran into a couple of Wayne’s words regulars this trip which was an added bonus for me. We bumped into a 16’ crest liner with six people in it fishing so I knew we had to be in the right spot! Dungee is always a pleasure to talk to and share his knowledge and Nixon is a hoot to listen to, I bet there is never a dull moment on that boat. And littlesalt was great to camp by, most of the people on this site are the salt of the earth! Note; All the SM were full of crawfish. Good luck out there and thanks to all of you who have helped me with so many questions since my return to Powell. And no TR I didn’t catch a fish on a fly pole, but I will! Sorry, I don’t know how to fix the pictures!!

Update, the TRD we were using was the green pumpkin goby.

 

[greyhackle]

Thanks for your report! glad you had a good trip.

 

[Chet Garling]

Thanks heading down today

 

[BarzArz]

Thanks for the report !
Looks like a great weekend and a good time...Glad you all had some luck and got to cross wakes with a bunch of good folks...

 

[Dungee]

Hey hey, our boat is almost 18’!

 

[BarzArz]

Hey hey, our boat is almost 18’!

I was waiting for that! lol
Hope you had a great trip Preston and crew!!

I look forward to a video!!

 

[Chris Crosby]

We fished past your camp but nobody was home. Maybe next time

 

[Dworwood]

Hey hey, our boat is almost 18’!

Sorry, I was just trying to make the point that it is a boat full of bodies! That thing flies on the water loaded down too. Someone made the comment about how many people are usually in that boat and we had to laugh because that’s how we kinda new it was you before we got close. I respect you guys deeply for taking that many bodies fishing at the same time, makes it hard and fun at the same time. And as usual you guys were great to talk to, thanks for being so approachable and cordial! I look forward to seeing you on the water again!

 

[Dworwood]

We fished past your camp but nobody was home. Maybe next time

How did you guys do? I saw at least a dozen spring bar tents around the shore, where were you from our camp? I would have looked you up if I had known you were there! AND where is your report on the fishing? How did you do after the crowds got there Friday? It slowed down for us as the weekend was about spent, Friday seemed to be the best day of fishing for us even though it was a short day.

 

[Chris Crosby]

How did you guys do? I saw at least a dozen spring bar tents around the shore, where were you from our camp? I would have looked you up if I had known you were there! AND where is your report on the fishing? How did you do after the crowds got there Friday? It slowed down for us as the weekend was about spent, Friday seemed to be the best day of fishing for us even though it was a short day.

We were about mid bay opposite from blue notch. Had 2 Cabela's lodge tents. Fishing was great Friday slowed down Saturday then was on fire Sunday before the wind. Lots of smallies plenty of crappie and largemouth very few walleye. Best baits were hand tied hair jigs followed by a Z-man Ned bugz

 

[Dworwood]

We were about mid bay opposite from blue notch. Had 2 Cabela's lodge tents. Fishing was great Friday slowed down Saturday then was on fire Sunday before the wind. Lots of smallies plenty of crappie and largemouth very few walleye. Best baits were hand tied hair jigs followed by a Z-man Ned bugz

We saw your tents, we commented on how your camp looked comfortable. Thanks for the report, you will have to show me that set up.

 

[Havalina]

I am jealous, wife saw the wind forecast for Sunday and Monday and said no f@#$& way. I had to call the dry storage and have them put the boat back up. You guys looked liked you had a blast. Just checked windfinder.com wife was right. It is showing 40+ mph winds right now. Not a lot a fun if you are a one man band. How we can meet up in June.

 

[Dworwood]

I am jealous, wife saw the wind forecast for Sunday and Monday and said no f@#$& way. I had to call the dry storage and have them put the boat back up. You guys looked liked you had a blast. Just checked windfinder.com wife was right. It is showing 40+ mph winds right now. Not a lot a fun if you are a one man band. How we can meet up in June.

If it is anything like it has been in western Utah the past two days I hope no one was on the water! It has been wicked. You made the right call, we will meet there next month hopefully. We did have a good trip but some on here found more fish than we did. I think GH was hammered and it showed. Stay safe and we’ll see you down there in the future.

 

[John P Funk]

I think GH was hammered and it showed

We camped in Ticaboo, and lost count of the number of boats that came in and out. We caught a couple of crappie, a few small mouth and a few large mouth, but nowhere near the numbers we were expecting. Almost wish we had gone south instead of north last weekend, live and learn.

 

[Bill Sampson]

If it is anything like it has been in western Utah the past two days I hope no one was on the water! It has been wicked. You made the right call, we will meet there next month hopefully. We did have a good trip but some on here found more fish than we did. I think GH was hammered and it showed. Stay safe and we’ll see you down there in the future.

Prescott and Prescott Valley Az. had high winds yesterday. Everyone stay safe on the water out there.

 

[Dworwood]

We camped in Ticaboo, and lost count of the number of boats that came in and out. We caught a couple of crappie, a few small mouth and a few large mouth, but nowhere near the numbers we were expecting. Almost wish we had gone south instead of north last weekend, live and learn.

My thoughts exactly!

 

[MrTwister]

I was there....... Camped in Ticaboo 17th - 20th
Tuesday was extremely windy. Crushed my Kelty Tent around noon Tuesday.
Biggest waves in the main channel I've ever seen. 3-4+ foot rollers. Got really wet.........
First time I've put a life vest on while on a lake.
I have a 21 ft. jet boat and tried to go back to Bullfrog and turned back after a half a mile in the main channel.
Saw the Rescue boat heading north as we were headed south, during the wind storm.???? Never heard why, no radio call heard.
It was impossible to go south, north was easier. The wind was so hard, wave spray was blowing 30 plus feet into the air.
Water was a little stained above Good Hope Bay. Back of Blue Notch / Red was slightly stained. Above Blue Notch was really stained.

 

[Littlesaltwash]

We had a a great trip opening weekend. The couple of standouts from this trip were: looking at wind finder and making plans to come home on Monday Instead of Tuesday. Will not plan without it now. We didn’t get get out on the water as early as we would have liked friday due to discharged starter batteries but the wait while they were charging was interesting with all the boats launching. Lots of nice boats with everyone being courteous and patient. Good to see. My newer boat with the higher profile is/was harder to control in the wind, but that effect resulted in trolling, something I had never done before. A lot less stressful than relying on an electric TM to keep you off the rocks in those sudden gusts of wind. Picked up 3 stripers in Popcorn on the way back to Bullfrog trolling. It was also good to visit with Dworwood, Andrew, and Lance Q

 

[Wet1]

We were about mid bay opposite from blue notch. Had 2 Cabela's lodge tents. Fishing was great Friday slowed down Saturday then was on fire Sunday before the wind. Lots of smallies plenty of crappie and largemouth very few walleye. Best baits were hand tied hair jigs followed by a Z-man Ned bugz

We were camped in the back of the cove next to you guys Friday to Tuesday. We had the white Lund with a 6 year old girl. I feel like we were 2 weeks late and missed the great fishing. I was surprised that even the crappie we caught were spawned out. My little one did nail a hog of a largemouth. I had to help her hang onto her rod as she was close to losing it. This big hen was also all spawned out as was everything we caught.
It seemed like fishing picked up about 1:00 pm everyday. We were focusing on walleye and crappie but as usual caught everything. The crappie seemed pretty scattered and it made sense when I saw they were spawned out.
One afternoon I was fishing a knuckle ball jig with a 4" gulp minnow and caught walleye, crappie, smallmouth, largemouth, small striper, catfish, and a carp on it all within about 30 minutes.
The mudline was basically from just north of Blue Notch from there on up visibility was like 6".

 

[Wet1]

I was there....... Camped in Ticaboo 17th - 20th
Tuesday was extremely windy. Crushed my Kelty Tent around noon Tuesday.
Biggest waves in the main channel I've ever seen. 3-4+ foot rollers. Got really wet.........
First time I've put a life vest on while on a lake.
I have a 21 ft. jet boat and tried to go back to Bullfrog and turned back after a half a mile in the main channel.
Saw the Rescue boat heading north as we were headed south, during the wind storm.???? Never heard why, no radio call heard.
It was impossible to go south, north was easier. The wind was so hard, wave spray was blowing 30 plus feet into the air.
Water was a little stained above Good Hope Bay. Back of Blue Notch / Red was slightly stained. Above Blue Notch was really stained.

We left Red Canyon just after 8:00 am Tuesday morning trying to beat the nasty wind. Good Hope bay was rough, 4+ footers on the northwest side and worse than that in the middle and south east side. Once we worked our way through and into the canyon it was much better. I thought Bullfrog bay would be really bad but it was not. By the time we broke out on top headed home the gusts were really bad, buffeting the truck pretty hard. We got out just in time.