October Blue Mesa Fishing Report: The trout bite is hot and salmon snagging is just around the corner!

First, I must apologize for the lack of fishing reports!  End of the season activities, hunting, and unfortunate life events have kept me very busy over the last month and a half.  The summer of 2012 lived up to all of its anticipated hype with thousands upon thousands of kokanee salmon being caught!!!  From what I have heard, the kokanee salmon egg take at Roaring Judy Hatchery is going well with an abundance of eggs already taken!  Every friday at 9:00 a.m. there is a kokanee salmon give away where every person with a fishing license can take at least one 10 fish limit of salmon for free!  If there are enough fish, sometimes each person can take two limits.  We are also getting very close to the opening day of snagging season on Blue Mesa and the Gunnison River, which is November 1st!

Colorado Kokanee Salmon Snagging Tips:  I haven’t been out to look for potential salmon snagging areas, but some good spots to check are: Iola Boat Ramp, the coves around Old Stevens, the coves around the Bay of Chickens, the Lake Fork inlet, the Lake Fork Boat Ramp, and the Gunnison River inlet.  A lot of times, if you get out in the morning when the water is flat and the sun is high, you can walk the shorelines and look for pods or schools of the dark red salmon.  If this method isn’t working, casting out and snagging through some of the areas mentioned above.  Make sure you work several depths of the water column, especially close to the bottom.  A simple “jerk, reel, jerk, reel” technique is usually most effective.  When you hook a salmon, try and really dial in exactly where you hooked it because a lot of times there are many more fish in that spot!  Every lake is different so make sure you check the regulations on when the snagging season begins and remember, the daily bag and possession limit is 10 fish.

Rocky Mountain Women on Water- For all of the ladies out there that enjoy fishing, but have a hard time finding fellow fisher-women, there is a new women’s fishing club centered around Blue Mesa!  For more information you can check out their web site http://www.rockymountainwow.org/ and facebook page http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Rocky-Mountain-Women-on-Water/301530833213910?fref=ts !

Trout– The rainbow and brown trout bite is excellent most days!  Focus on rocky shorelines and throw jerk baits, spoons, or maribou jigs tipped with a piece of nightcrawler or meal worm!  Keep moving until you find an area that the fish seem to be cruising in search of a meal.

Lake Trout– The mackinaw are in all phases of the spawn right now.  Fishing has been fair to good for smaller fish trolling kokanee gear and smaller rapalas or flat fish.  Watch your fish finder to see what depth the concentrations are hanging out at.

Kokanee Salmon–   Some kokanee salmon die-hards are still trolling and catching 2-3 year old fish in 5-45′ of water.  Rocky Mountain Tackle squids and spinners and Radical Glow spinners and tubes accompanied by our Lazer hooks from Eagle Claw have beenn doing well and per usual, the hot color depends on the day.  We always run a Rocky Mountain Tackle Dodger in front of our squids and dodgers to add action, vibration, and flash to our presentation and tip your lures with white shoe peg corn!  Snagging opens November 1st!