Winter Fishing at BBL

[Troutin Man]

Hi All. Hope you can help with bbl fishing info. Never fished during winter up there. My friend wants to go up there and fish for trout at BBL. Do you have any recommendations? He has never caught trout...just bluegill...

It will be in upper 30s for highs. I think we are crazy but what the hell right? In our long johns we will be a fishin'!

It would be cool for him just to catch a couple for his new stringer.

Does anyone have any thoughts on Windy Point, the dam, boulder bay, juniper, stanfield cutoff, observatory?

We will have just 4 hours to fish! Any info would be greatly appreciated. PM is also very welcome.

Tight lines all and happy holidays.

[The Fishing Queen]

Hey troutin man, just let you to know that there is a lot of snow up there. I wish that I could give you some info on fishing at this time of the year, but now there's snow up at BBL, I bet the fishing situation would be different than the last time I was there.

Saturday, when we went up the mountain, we saw a firetruck and an ambulance parked on the left side of highway 18. We saw a small SUV that had slipped on the ice, went off the road, went half-way over the guard rail and hit a large tree. Thank goodness for the tree, It stopped the car from rolling down the mountain and it saved the driver's life.... So be careful, and you should bring snow chains with you if you are planing to go up there.

Good luck to you!

Here is a picture of my house's backyard that I took two days ago. (BBL got more snow than us though).

http://i1156.photobucket.com/albums/p561/TheFishingQueen/8892EE18-4259-4B79-A148-CF946D633BAF-138-000000098A6E8919.jpg

[etaggart]

Hey TM,

Don't take this as expert advice - but with colder temps, shallow fishing spots (like windy point, boulder bay, juniper point) get a lot tougher because the top water is very cold and you may have to contend with some thin ice which makes working your rig harder.

Consider going to the north side of the dam (the sunnier side) try fishing closer to the dam itself since we've seen fish work up against that structure - and stay relatively deep - but keep lots of lines out there with various bait (probably powerbait) under slip bobbers set at various depths. More lines, more depths may help feel-out where they're at.

The fish are definitely there, just gotta work it. We've picked up some beautiful trout in the ugliest conditions! Last year we kept our truck running with the heater on this time of year while fishing in a light snowstorm. Got some beauties but had to keep running into the truck to keep warm.

Cheers and post-up on how it goes.

Eric