Last year, Randy (N.E.T.O.) and I decided to try a few hours of pre-dawn mack fishing at the Gorge. We boated one night fishing and almost a second. Since it seemed to work, we decided to try it again this year but with a little more sincerity.
Coming along with us this year was Nate (KokeMaster). He is an excellent fisherman but had never caught a Flaming Gorge mack and was eager to get his first.
We pulled into Manila Wednesday evening and set up camp in room #10 of the Villa Inn. Launched Thursday morning in Lucerne to fish all day in absolutely beautiful conditions. All morning, the weather was perfect for presenting a vertical jig. We actually had a hard time finding fish Thursday and when we did, we couldn’t get them to bite our lures. We went from spot to spot and not even a bite. We tried Swim beach, under the pipeline, and Antelope Flats, with no success. We wondered if it might be the full moon, or maybe May was too early for “stacks”. We, being rookies, didn’t know what to make of it.
I could see “the agony of defeat” starting to set in already.
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So by the end of day 1 (of 3), and after about 600 vertical jigs we had zero fish! Nate was getting a little concerned that he wouldn’t be feeling the bend of his custom 55 inch rod. And frankly, I too was a bit concerned.
Back at the motel, we planned our next day’s tactics. We decided to get up at 1:30 AM and try some night fishing. We launched on day two at about 2:45 and headed for Swim Beach under a bright full moon-lit sky.
We were jigging 1.0 oz custom jig heads (Nate made and supplied them) inside 5" Radical Glow tubes. Finally, at about 4:00 AM I got my first bite and hooked a 20 pounder.
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Just to make sure that Nate would be able to feel a Gorge mack on a custom 55 inch mack rod, I handed the pole to him and he brought it the rest of the way in.
Because we both shared the experience of bringing it in, we had this pic snapped.
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I was a little nervous with the whole “bro-hug” thing, but Nate assured me that it was OK as long as we didn’t look into each other’s eyes while we were hugging. [crazy]
Then, an hour later (still not even first light), I landed this smaller 15 pounder.
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We worked Swim Beach pretty hard throughout the morning but no more takers.With the wind coming hard from the south in the early afternoon, we decided to give Linwood a try.
Finally, Randy broke his dry spell and boated his first of the trip … this nice 15 pounder:
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It wasn’t the 20 or 30 pounder we were hoping for but hey, it still doubled over his rod.
[inline Randy-with-15-lber-444.jpg]
With the wind blowing hard by then, and our I-Pilot struggling to keep up, we decided to go back to the motel and hit the sack early again to get up early again and try our last of three days to get Nate his first Gorge mack. We were already mentally preparing him for beginner’s defeat.
Day three, we launched about a half an hour earlier than day two but that didn’t seam to help. I (and I suspect Randy and Nate too) was absolutely exhausted from the early hours and grueling jigging technique.
Once again, we motored out to Swim Beach where we had seen better fish activity the day before.
We droped our lines and after about two hours of jigging, I suddenly hear Nate yell “got em!!”. And ole Nate was NOT about to loose that fish. Sure nuff, Nate had hooked and boated his first ever Gorge lake trout. It weighed in at 17½ pounds.
[inline “Nate’s-15lber.jpg”]
That fish definitely woke us all up and gave us a second wind. But mother nature had ideas of her own. Within minutes of landing that mack, the wind kicked up and was blowing HARD again! We headed for the marina. It was kind of weird coming into the marina around 6:30 AM after a day (night) of fishing while everyone else was just starting to go out. As they were launching, I couldn’t help but think the weather was about to ruin their day on the water.
We returned to the motel where all three of us went back to bed and slept for a 2½ hour power nap. Then we got up, packed, and left for home by the 10:00 AM check out time.
On our way home, we ran into lots of rain, strong wind, and in Evanston, there was snow flakes the size of silver dollars!
It was a crazy, but very good, mack fishing trip. We didn’t catch many lake trout and the ones we did catch weren’t real big but we appreciated and loved catching the ones we got.
As always, thanks for driving the boat 95% of the time Randy. And Nate, it sure was a hoot having you along. But next time, you’re bringing the TV dinners! (Inside joke)
— Coot —