Pro-longed ice out!

Water Temp 43-45
Inflow (cfs) 2678
Outflow (cfs) 636
Lake Elevation 7486 - 33 feet low
Boat Ramp Hours Elk Creek & Lake Fork 6:00 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Marinas Elk Creek - 7-7

The lake has been completely open for a few weeks now and has risen 21′ since April 1st!  This is great news, but has added an extra unstable variable to the fishing.  The weather has kept us on our toes with a few warm flat sunny days and plenty of cold, windy, snowy days, which has kept the water temps down and pro-longed ice out!  Overall, fishing has been good!! But every day has been unique in its own way and requires some dialing in to capitalize on sometime small bite windows.

Lake Trout- it’s no secret that this is the best time of year to catch the biggest mackinaw you’ve ever seen!  However, most of the time you are still going to have to work to get bit by a fish that is 15+ years old and has more than likely seen it all.  Pick your poison as trolling is typically king this time of year, but there are occasionally some jigging opportunities if you can find them.  “Sucker chucking” or “sucker dunking” should be avoided at all costs as it has an extremely high mortality rate on a fish that takes 15-20 years to grow to 20 lbs, even with the practice of catch and release!  Blue Mesa needs your help to properly care for and release all fish over 30″ to ensure that it produces trophy fish for generations to come!  Keep all the smaller fish you would like for the grill as their are plenty of them!

Trout- the trout fishing has been fun as they can be found very shallow and in good numbers!  Casting or trolling 2.5-6″ jerk baits or casting jigs to rocky shorelines will produce plenty of fish and as last weekend’s Kiwani’s tournament revealed with a 5.7 pound big fish, there are some nice browns lurking in the waters of Blue Mesa!  The rainbow population appears to be doing great as well, with some chunky rainbows showing up while casting and trolling.

Kokanee Salmon- Yes, it’s still a little early, but the kokanee are showing up!  Depending on the day, we’ve been catching 5-10 kokes in a 6 hour period with several “LDR’s” (Long distance releases).  The fish are mostly showing up in the top 30′ of the water column, but some have been caught around 50′.  The color changes with the day and throughout the day so be ready to do the typical kokanee lure search until you find one they like.  Some of the fish that we have been catching are exceptionally big for this time of year, which could support the CPW’s sonar surveys that the overall kokanee #s are down this year.

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