Spent a long weekend at the lake. Weather was perfect. We caught the "perfect window" of weather and fishing. I'll try and keep this report concise to what will benefit you all:
We camped in Iceberg and fished Iceberg, Rincon, Longs and Escalante. We were using single tail grubs (Yamamoto and Dry creek) as well as Ned Rigs. The Zman TRD Ned Rig out fished the single tails by quite a bit. Color definitely matters. The most productive single tail was a blue/true bluegill.....odd because pumpkin usually does well. Green/Watermelon was good in the morning, but not really thereafter. We had worms, but didn't need them.
For the Ned Rigs Canada Craw and California Craw were excellent and bluegill was also good. The Ned Rigs stay together a lot better as well. I had one that I used the entire trip. Never changed it once - tails don't get bitten off. You will need to use a mushroom jig head (best) or a round jig head at least. The bullet ones don't work that well. Not sure about football. Guess that could work. Just retrieve slow and you will catch fish, a lot.
We caught ~70 smallies a day with a couple of walleye, 2 LMB, and more striper than we are used to in rock piles and backs of canyons. Probably 10 of those a day. That was a fun surprise. Escalante was the best and the smallies were larger there. All other areas had a lot of "dinks."
Rock piles in the sun seemed to be better in the morning to get the water warming. Shade was better in the afternoon. I think that the water was warming so fast that the fish were trying to keep things in the high 60s. Water temp was ~66 to start the day and up to ~75 by later afternoon. Water was pretty stained above 50 mile in Escalante. We turned around because it didn't look fishable. I couldn't see my Minn Kota motor in the water and that was enough for me. So, we fished everything south of 50 mile and did well. Main channel rock piles probably get ignored other than Rincon, but the ones around Escalante were our best spots.
It was a great weekend and my boys had a blast. Thanks for the advice here.
We camped in Iceberg and fished Iceberg, Rincon, Longs and Escalante. We were using single tail grubs (Yamamoto and Dry creek) as well as Ned Rigs. The Zman TRD Ned Rig out fished the single tails by quite a bit. Color definitely matters. The most productive single tail was a blue/true bluegill.....odd because pumpkin usually does well. Green/Watermelon was good in the morning, but not really thereafter. We had worms, but didn't need them.
For the Ned Rigs Canada Craw and California Craw were excellent and bluegill was also good. The Ned Rigs stay together a lot better as well. I had one that I used the entire trip. Never changed it once - tails don't get bitten off. You will need to use a mushroom jig head (best) or a round jig head at least. The bullet ones don't work that well. Not sure about football. Guess that could work. Just retrieve slow and you will catch fish, a lot.
We caught ~70 smallies a day with a couple of walleye, 2 LMB, and more striper than we are used to in rock piles and backs of canyons. Probably 10 of those a day. That was a fun surprise. Escalante was the best and the smallies were larger there. All other areas had a lot of "dinks."
Rock piles in the sun seemed to be better in the morning to get the water warming. Shade was better in the afternoon. I think that the water was warming so fast that the fish were trying to keep things in the high 60s. Water temp was ~66 to start the day and up to ~75 by later afternoon. Water was pretty stained above 50 mile in Escalante. We turned around because it didn't look fishable. I couldn't see my Minn Kota motor in the water and that was enough for me. So, we fished everything south of 50 mile and did well. Main channel rock piles probably get ignored other than Rincon, but the ones around Escalante were our best spots.
It was a great weekend and my boys had a blast. Thanks for the advice here.