Slammin’ Summer Salmon!

Summer is here and so far the salmon have been giving us lots of opportunities!  Run-off kicked into high gear about a week ago and the lake has been coming up over a foot a day!  As a result, there is a lot of floating debris across the lake, but especially on the east end so be careful!  All of the inlet areas are seeing some stained to muddy water from all of the incoming run-off as well.  Water temperatures have really shot up over the last week with some very warm day time highs!  We have been seeing water temps in the 58-65 degree range.  Right now all of the boat ramps are open from  5:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. except for Ponderosa which is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday through Monday.

Trout- the trout fishing has been decent, but a lot of the brown trout have pulled off the shorelines and gone deeper. Focus on the 20-60 depths.  Rainbows can be found on the surface down to 20′. Bait fishing from shore has been producing the most rainbows, while trolling an assortment of Rocky Mountain Tackle and Radical Glow squids and spinners has been the producer for browns.  I encourage you to keep your limit of brown trout under the 20″ mark, as there are plenty of them!  We are starting to see more brown trout over the 20″ mark, which has the potential to be an incredible resource and add even more value to the fishery at Blue Mesa, especially if we can release those fish to keep their genetics dominatnt in our lake!

Kokanee- salmon fishing has been good!  There are a lot of small fish, but there are also plenty of good sized salmon to be had!  The small fish will pretty much hit anything, but the bigger fish are more particular so don’t be afraid to pull off a lure that is working for small fish in an attempt to find one that the bigger fish are liking.  It is important that we do the best we can to release the small fish (future generations) fish in good health.  I try to avoid touching them by leaving them in the net and using pliers to get the hooks out.  Get them back to the water as quick as possible and more often than not they will release just fine as long as they weren’t hooked bad.  If you do have one die (it’s almost inevitable), it does count as part of your possession so please don’t throw it out to the sea gulls!  The salmon have pulled out of the deep water and most fish are hanging out from the surface down to about 40′.  Read your electrconics, tip your baits with corn, and if you know you are running through fish, but you not getting bit, change your bait until you find a combo that they like.  Rocky Mountain Tackle squids and spinners and Radical Glow spinners have been dominating as far as producing kokanee! **Don’t forget that the daily bag limit has changed to 5 fish this year!  The rangers have been checking and handing out tickets to those who are over possession!

Lake Trout- With the rising water temps, the bigger lake trout have gone deep and scattered!  The smaller lake trout can be found on all of the classic structure that they like to hang on (points, humps, flats) in 45-75 feet of water.  A 3.5″ tube jig in white, glow, or green with a small piece of sucker meat will do the trick.  Remember to only keep what you can eat! **The picture below is of trophy lake trout double (hard to come by on Blue Mesa) that these young men were blessed with!  Both fish were released to be caught again!

Yellow Perch- As our water temps are starting to hang around 60 degrees, a lot of the perch are headed shallow and towards the coves!  Look for them in 10-40 feet of water and if you can find brush, you can find perch.  A small Pk spoon with a piece of worm will put plenty of fish in the boat!

**This fishing report is brought to you by Robby Richardson of Sport Fish Colorado.  My reports are based off of my daily outings.  Good luck and God Bless!