Decided to hit Rockport this morning even after yesterdays slow scouting trip. Hit the lake shortly after sunrise and fished until about 2:30P. I was in one tent and my brother and his brother-in-law were in another. Caught roughly 25 between the 3 of us in about 22 ft. of water (most of the fish came off the bottom). Had a great day and got the first keeper using the newly purchased Lowrance x67 Ice Machine; what a fun little unit. Used a variety of small plastics, and ice flies tipped with about everything you can imagine. Most all of the fish I caught were on either a kastmaster or a white gizzy tipped with pink powerbait. Kept a total of nine between us for the smoker and bbq. 7 bows, 1 tiger, and 1 brown. My brother caught the tiger and brown the rest of us stuck with catching bows. Attached a few pics from the cell phone camera.
If anyone gets into the perch I would really like to get the scoop. Want some fish I don’t have to smoke to enjoy 
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what part of the lake were you fishing?
Thanks for the report. Rockport is on my short list. Great looking fish! How was the ice? Were you near the south end?
Did you catch any perch out there? Where did all the perch go from that lake, have they completely vanished? Thanks for the report and nice haul, I’ll be looking to head out there before too long.
We parked at the first reserved camping spots north of the paystation (southeast side of lake) and walked pretty much due west from there. Ice was a solid 4" and thats probably being conservative. North end of the lake was open water but south end was good clear ice and no slush or open water around the edges, at least where we entered. Move Rockport up on your shortlist and good luck.
Nope, not a perch for us and I asked around a bit and didn’t talk to anyone that had gotten into them either. Hope to see some reports on the forumn as to where they are and how to get them.
I used to do really well in deeper water with small chartreuse ice flies only a few inches off the bottom for the perch out there. Seems like you had to be in maybe like 60’ of water (that’s just a guess, I didn’t have a flasher at that time). Seems like the last few years they pulled a dissapearing act though.
How much do they charge you to go past the paystation on the southeast corner of the lake?
5 bucks. 3 if your over 62…
You can’t catch many perch on powerbait and trout jigs, nor in 22 feet of water this time of year… They were specifically targeting trout judging by the way, depth they were fishing… That said, yes, the perch fishing has been crappy there for the past 4 or 5 years. There was a huge dieoff after one winter and there is a ton of feed in there for the ones that are left, so that haven’t biten much since then…
True you aren’t going to catch many perch using trout bait, I was just hoping maybe they happened to get a few. That used to be one of my favorite places to fish. What happened to cause the die-off though? You think there are still quite a few left that just don’t want to play with hooks? I can live with that as long as I think they’re in there.
Perch at rockport is a real mystery. It was one of my favorite perch ice holes. A few years (5-6) ago I went their and It was dead!! I did talk to a guy from Heber and said he read a article in the local paper from the DWR stating that they have a large fish kill at rockport every 4-7 years. Mostly effecting the perch. They don’t know why? I hope they come back! But I haven’t seen it yet.
Same deal with Echo.. wher’d they go?