Blue Mesa

We head home tomorrow. It's been a good trip. We managed 3 master angler trout and a host of other decent fish. I think I have a better feel for this lake now. I also got a little more familiar with using the bottom lock view on my sonar. Looking forward to being home.

Blue Mesa 5/24

The weather has been pretty bad for the last few days. We were not able to go out and fish. Today we got a break. It was about 27 degrees in the morning, but no wind and sunny. It warmed up pretty fast.

Today I found where the big fish had been hiding. Found them in about 28 FOW in Sapinero Basin. Diane killed it, I did pretty decent. She caught a 33.5" fish that weighed 24lbs!! I caught a 32". We also caught several more. 3-4 between 25-30"

Me playing grab ass with a trout.

The trout trying to bite me for playing grab ass

Blue Mesa 5/20 and 5/21

Last few days the weather has been rough. On Monday Diane and I fished from 6 to 8am. It was super windy and dumping snow and rain. We found a lot of browns and a few lakers in Lake Fork area.

Our RV site had shit wifi and literally no cell coverage. So today we moved to the Gunnison KOA. Great cell coverage but the wifi is down..wtf. Anywho, going to go out for a few hours tomorrow in Ceboila Basin.

Blue Mesa 5/19

Diane and I hit the lake this morning at 6am. Since the boat was last at the Flaming Gorge the boat had to be deconed. The hotsy used for decon was not available until 7am. I was finally on the water at 7:50...

We started in the spots we did well at last year. Caught a few browns and small lakers. Searched around a lot without much luck. In the afternoon we started doing better. Caught a whole bunch more browns and a few more lakers. I did not see any big marks on the graph.

Finally at the end of the day I started looking around near the Lake Fork boat ramp. Saw our first biggish mark of the day. Diane caught it, 28" laker. Then I caught a fat 24". Few more lakers, then I caught a 21.5" Brown! Only 1/2 shy of a master angler.

Overall we caught 40ish fish. Not too bad, but we did not find any big ones really.

Farewell Flaming Gorge, I barely knew you

After an amazing two weeks it was time to head home. The Gorge was everything I hoped it would be. Can't wait to get back.

42" Lake Trout @ The Flaming Gorge

Hit the boat ramp this morning before 5am. It was pitch black out and took me a while to launch my boat. I headed to Antelope Flats using a spot light to guide the way. I spent the first two hours there, the fish were not having any of my horse shit. I did manage one 28"er.

About 8am I headed over to swim beach. While driving in I noticed a couple of big marks about 78' deep. I spent the next 30 or so minutes trying to get them to bite a 4" white tube. They really really wanted to bite but were holding back. They were all over the tube eyeing it. Then finally I got the hit.

When you catch a mid 30s inch lake trout they will do all kinds of head shakes and take off on a run ripping drag. This was different. It was like I hooked a diesel truck in first gear. Just a slow steady power walking away from me. I knew I had hooked into something special; a Flaming Gorge Hoss.

I spent the next 10 minutes or so trying to get this guy up off the bottom. I could watch on my fish finder. I would get him up 10 or 15 feet, then he was just slowly head back down. Eventually I saw some huge bubbles break the surface. This was the fish letting air out of his swim bladder. This is an ability few fish have and the only reason we can catch and release a Lake Trout from 80' down.

Once the fish finally hit the surface he was very calm and I was able to net him. It took a great deal of effort to get him over the gunwales and into the boat. The fish measured 42". I showed the main guide on this lake my photos and he estimated it weighed 35 pounds.

After measuring the fish and showing him off to the camera I put him back in the water and swam off right away. Ready to be the next persons fish of a lifetime.

Flaming Gorge 5/6

I did not fish for lake trout today. My neck and right arm needed a day off. Instead I just worked all day. I did run down to the lake for a 1/2 hour to fly fish. Rainbow trout are just stacked at the marina. I probably caught 10 in 20 casts. It actually was not much fun, just too easy.

Flaming Gorge 5/5

Caught a new PB today. 38.5" Super fat!

Flaming Gorge 5/3 and 5/4

Friday managed a 33.5", only bite I got all day.

Saturday was a little better. The bite seems to be picking up. Caught a few 27-28" and 5 or so 18-24". I hooked into a big fish and almost had it to the boat after fighting it for several minutes. Right as I saw the leader knot the fish got off :\

Ran into a friend and fellow lake trout fanatic. Small world for Lake Trout fisherman!

Flaming Gorge 5/2

Today was a really nice day. Not too many clouds and no wind. Only problem was the fish were not interested. I saw lots of big marks on the sonar but could not really interest anyone. Finally at around noon I got my first and only bite of the day! At least it was a big one :D Water temp was 39.