Chatting with my Bride and asked what she'd like to do for our anniversary next week. She said, 'Fish Big Bear'. To say I'm surprised in the nicest way is to put it mildly - not because she does not love fishing, but because I don't associate anniversaries with fishing.
I plan to troll as that is, I'm told, the most productive. Love to have tips as to where to troll and how deep. We'll probably troll Needlefish.
Thanks in advance for any help.
UL
This is a good start, his guide company puts out a new video every week.
https://youtu.be/UqapDIxOwnU
Good luck, it was slow for us last weekend, not even a nibble. Saw a troller catch one that was all I saw the whole morning.
I was last up there about a month ago, it is a nice lake to fish. Hope this isn't oversimplified, but here are a couple things I didn't know the first time I was up there 4 years ago and hopefully will be helpful:
Not sure where the last place you had your boat was, but in my experience BBWD doesn't recognize quarantine tags from anywhere else. Plan on the usual quagga inspection. the good news is that if your boat is not bone dry, they will decontaminate it with hot water so you can launch (I was at the west ramp on the north shore). And you will need to purchase a lake permit (daily, multiday, etc) and stick it on your boat when you launch - don't remember how much it cost but it wasn't too bad.
Trolling is a hot ticket - be sure to rig up some kind of white flag to display while trolling. Only lake I have ever fished that asks for this, but it seems to be a good idea. I have a shop towel zip tied to my bimini. As far as lures, I have had good luck with Needlefish but Rapala CD7's are good to have in your arsenal - I have had luck with trout and bluegill patterns. Feel free to play around with depths - but usually I am running around 3-5 colors on my leadcore. Note that the water levels are pretty low (no launching of boats at East ramp when I was there), and there is also a lot of aquatic growth in the lake as well (they pretty much have a harvesting barge clearing weeds full time). Best to try and fish early; wind usually comes up in the afternoon (as well as lake lice). I always troll, pretty much sticking to the area called "the trout triangle" but have caught fish elsewhere trolling along the south shore or by the Observatory. Many folks will anchor up in the deep water around the west end (dam area) but I have never tried that - only have seen a lot of folks doing it.
As a side note, since it IS an Anniversary, there are plenty of comfortable, casual pubs and diners with great food an atmosphere in the village for an "end of day" dinner. That's usually my MO with SWMBO when we are up there. Good Luck!
THANK YOU both for your help. Much grateful. I know have a sense of where to go and how to troll.
And yes, dinner afterwards - just trying to figure out where but there's plenty of choices. We know that we'll enjoy the day.
Keep the comments coming. :Big Grin:
Fish are hanging at 6 to 15 feet I was running at 3 colors last friday. ALL my fish but one were on needlefish the other on a night crawler. The needlefish that worked for me were the blue/pink and the red dot frog. I caught a lot of dinks (first time ever) and a couple fat holdovers the biggest was 3 lbs. Everyone is trolling the floating restroom to the dam then over to papoose bay and back again. i made one pass through picked up the dink on the worm and moved back to the area between north shore landing and the west launch ramp.The water is warm and the fish are lethargic but they will still bite. Big key to remember is there is lots of floating weeds right now so watch your rods and check them often. Here is a picture a nice holdover that died... (i hate it when that happens)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultralight
good luck...
someone already said to watch the John Cantrell videos and everyday at 8:45 and 4:45 Cliff Fowler does a fish
report on KBHR 93.3 you can download TuneIn radio on your cell and listen.
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Thank you everyone. I suppose a quick update is in order...:Smile:
Well, my wife and I went out this past Monday. We had a blast - and it was certainly memorable with no regrets.
.....We got skunked.
And somewhat wet. We were out in a long kayak designed for 3 people along with a Torqeedo trolling motor so we were not lacking for power in terms of trolling. But we had no idea that winds would be strong as we launched from the North side and encountered white caps
got water into our kayak.
We got out and re-launched from the park at Boulder Bay on the sound side. The water level was so low that it was the worst weed we ever encountered on a kayak. At one point, our kayak scrapped bottom. We trolled towards Metcalf bay at around 18-20 feet. Perhaps that's why we got nothing. The wind was a bit less than the north side but we still took in water. Add to the fact that I left my bailing 'device' in the car, we ended up with wet bottoms and bailing from a make shift cup cut out of a water bottle. On the way back, during the last hour of the evening light, we saw lot of fish jumping out of the water along the shore. Some looked like rather large fish but since we were perhaps 50-100 yards from shore, we could not make out what type of fish.
Anyways, it was a beautiful day and though we did not catch fish, an unusual event for us, it was memorable and we had good laughs at our 'calamity'. While we don't want to repeat the exact same experience, it was a not loss at all. I so appreciate my wife who is just a great sport and life partner! :Beer Toast:
So we left skunked but not deterred. All this made us both just more determined to figure out how to troll Big Bear lake successfully.
THANKS for all the comments. If you guys did not offer help, I'm not sure if we would have tried Big Bear. In the end, we did enjoy a beautiful half day on the lake. We'll catch the bit one next time. :)
With gratitude,
UL