Bonneville WF - finally got 'em!

Utah Fishing Reports & Discussion Bear Lake, Porcupine, Hyrum, Cutler, Mantua Fish R
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How was the ramp?

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Thanks Scott, now you make my decision more difficult.. If I can get away with it, I’d like to try a trip Friday, I was figuring on Willard, since Bear Lake was a little rough on my last trip… Now I’m going to have to flip a coin again… Thanks for your report… Jeff

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Thanks for the update Scott. Jon and I are going out this morning. We will hit the East side this time since in front of the marina didn’t pay off. Our last time out we only got 2 WF.

Mike

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Thanks that does help, now if the fog don’t show up, it is pretty interesting… Be nice to see Mike’s report, I might have to go try it again and see if I do better on the next trip… Thanks Jeff

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Hey Scott I may see you there. I’ll probably try outside marina to start and see what Mike thought about the east side. Good luck. J

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I gave it my best yesterday. The day was perfect, sunny, no real wind to speak of and the fishing was great…the catching, however, was about as bad as I’ve ever experienced during the whitefish spawn.

We started at 2nd point and I immediately caught a nice 19" whitefish and then only had one other bite by 11:30 when we decided to give it up there.

We moved over to the marina and started fishing there by noon and fished there until 3. We got one cutthroat and I had about 6 small bites and lost 1 10" whitefish at the boat and that was it.

I don’t know what was going on yesterday, but other guys I know struggled to get a fish yesterday. Maybe the fish were having a lakewide fast yesterday, haha!

Mike

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Thanks for the heads up Mike, I hit Willard instead. Slow start but nice finish got 11 over 11.5”. Fun day thanks for the heads up. Jeff

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Lucky call Jeff! Good job!

Mike

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Thanks Mike you put me in the right spot, I was headed to Bear Lake. Must admit those perch eat really well. Think I’ll try a midweek trip again. Kind of nice having leave left this time of year. Thank you. J

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We fished on Friday…again. It was slower than Wednesday, but I managed to get a limit and one cutthroat. My friend who I fished with did not do as well. He ended up with one WF and one CT. We were using the same thing, in the same spot, with the same set ups. It was fishing at it’s finest. The fish I smoked from Wednesday are like smoked candy! What a wonderful treat at this time of year.

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Thanks for the report Scott, I’ve really been wondering how you did… sounds like you did well again… congrats… I do like smoked fish, but now I’m not in the office everyday I don’t get it all used up as fast… (My co-workers used to help me get a batch taken care of pretty quick) Do you have a way to preserve it if you need it to last for awhile? Does it still taste good if you freeze some smoked fish and use it later? Wish my wife would eat fish, but she won’t even try it… I did get my daughter to try perch the other night and she didn’t mind it… I think that’s the first time she tried fish with an open mind, so hopefully I’ll have someone else who enjoys it… I really like fish, but since I’ve been the only one in the family I don’t get to eat it very often so I usually just catch and release…

How do you prepare your whitefish to smoke? Do you use the brown sugar and salt type brine? I started using Pat’s cat spice recipe dry rub on most things lately so I don’t have to go through the brine mess and I’ve really liked that, but I miss the brown sugar flavor on whitefish and trout… Does a dry rub of brown sugar and salt work so you don’t have to soak them? I need to broaden my smoking ability so looking for some good ideas… Thanks Jeff

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Scott, do you refrigerate the brine and fillets while they are brining? Maybe that is part of my issues with putting brine and fish in the fridge while they are processing… Thank you so much for your process I’m going to try this next time I get a batch to smoke up… I think the 5 gallon bucket and if I had a garage to keep it cool, but not freeze would be the way to go… Thanks for the tips.. Jeff

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Thanks Scott, thats great info to know… Going to try it next time, sounds better than making a mess in the house… Later Jeff