12-6 Bear Lake Bust

Utah Fishing Reports & Discussion Bear Lake, Porcupine, Hyrum, Cutler, Mantua Fish R
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*I hit Bear Lake yesterday with the new batteries for the boat and a new to me truck… Temp at the sinks on the way through 6 degrees, perfect clear skies at the overlook, no wind, but an ominous presence lied below… fog… *

*Well, took me awhile to get the batteries hooked up and get launched and I hadn’t put enough clothes on, so I started out cold and it went down hill from there comfort wise… *

*While I was messing around with my trolling motor and trying to figure out what the commands did on the remote, Mike and his crew joined me just outside of the marina… I figured out spot lock and started casting, Mikes crew ended up pulling in two while I was there… I hooked one and as Pat would say the silly thing wasn’t smart enough to hold on so I let it go… *

About 11:00 I headed towards the pile and wow let me tell you GPS is a lifesaver… You can’t believe how often I thought my GPS was wrong and I needed to be turning a different direction, well it was me that was screwed up… I can’t believe how disoriented that fog on the water made me… I knew my boat was going straight south only to find I was headed east and then north, funny my steering wheel didn’t seem to move from going straight ahead, but my bearings sure did. Anyway my point is don’t go out on big water without a compass or GPS to guide you, it blew my mind how disoriented the fog made me…

Well I won’t prolong your pain with this post, but I fished Gus’s and the rock pile and never had another hit… The boat fishing on my saved spot on the rock pile pulled in a nice 32" trout while I was there, but those 3 fish mentioned were the only ones I heard or seen caught yesterday… It was a chilly day and I found a third thing that needs to be in place for a good Bear Lake trip… No wind, no fog and the fish biting… I got one of the three yesterday… Oh the batteries did perform really well for me, so thumbs up on that part of the story..

PS.. I do love the new truck, the diesel is incredible pulling Logan canyon, with the boat on heading up the grade out of Bear Lake, there was no traffic, so I thought I’d see what it would do… On the steepest part I opened it up and it hit speeds higher than may be legal and it would have keep going and didn’t even act like I was on a hill or pulling a trailer… My previous truck struggled to hit 50 in those areas… So happy with this one… 13 mpg on the trip, so not the best, but better than the 7 or 8 from the pervious truck… Sorry I don’t have a rosy report for the Whitefish spawn, but I’m a 50%er on my whitefish trips, so I’m used to failing.. they’ll probably have a lights out day today… Later Jeff

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Sounds like a good shake down trip with the new rig. And a 32" trout is a big positive in my mind. So, I think it sounds like a good trip.

It’s true about the fog too. I was on the ocean in Oregon in my boat and I ran up on the Yaquina Bay dredge a lot faster than I wanted to. It is a bright orange 90 foot tall boat that is 180 feet long and I couldn’t see it through the fog 50 yards away. I couldn’t even tell which direction she was headed so I had a radio call with them where they expressed their displeasure about how close I was to them and asked me to wait until they passed me.

Another time, I was using my eyes and my GPS to get back over the bar and into the jetty. My eyes insisted that the GPS was wrong. For an hour I thought there was no way the GPS could be right. It wasn’t until 30 seconds before I hit the bar that I saw the jetty tips and knew the GPS was right on and my eyes were playing all sorts of tricks on me.

I vowed I would never go out without a radar again. I’m glad I have it now. It’s come in very handy and helped me avoid other potential collisions.

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Maybe I made it unclear, I didn’t catch the 32"er, it was a tracker boat with 3 guys in it… I would have been thrilled with that… I brought home the skunk…

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You made a comment about having slick or ball tires, sounds like that wasn’t much of a problem for you, that’s good, too bad the catching wasn’t better. By the way, what kind of truck did you buy?

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I’ve had a white Chevy Duramax for a number of years. Mostly love everything about it. You might want to put an additive in that will keep your fuel flowing in the really cold weather. Better safe than sorry, especially if you’re going out in the boonies. What year is yours?

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Jeff, I know you may like the spot lock, but DO NOT use it shallow water. It spooks the WF and trout. Pull out the good ‘ol anchor and drop it. Anytime I’m fishing shallow for WF and someone inevitably pulls up next to me with spot lock, the fishing shuts down immediately. I end up moving since they don’t realize what just happened. Using spot lock in any depth less than 25’ at Bear Lake will just spook the fish all around the area.

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I did not go yesterday since the canyon was closed from early morning until about 3pm. A semi flipped, two cars wrecked in two different areas and yet another car ended up in the river. I got up, looked at the snow and called my buddy and we cancelled. So glad that we did. We would have likely been stuck in the canyon all day due to all the wrecks. Snow again today, but tomorrow looks promising. We are planning to go tomorrow. I have heard the WF run is on and my contacts have done very well.

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Good luck tomorrow, I seen the weather yesterday and feared you would have had a bumpy day if you were on the lake… Not a lot of fun in the wind, so hope you have a great day tomorrow… Wish I could go, but got a list of things that need to be done since I’ve been working on trucks and boats for the last couple weeks.. Hopefully I’ll catch up fast so I can get out again… “Good luck… Jeff”