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I was so glad to be back fishing on Hatch again! Fish and Game rehabbed the lake, there's good fishing here again! I caught 3 carry overs and 2 about 9" last Spring's fry planters. There were lots of people here, they didn't seem to be doing as well as I but I was watching my pole more than I was watching them. Ice was thick, up to a foot in places! I didn't find any fish in the back portion of the lake where we usually find them. I had to move around a bit till I found them in about the middle of the lake, kinda odd in comparison to other years. I love fishing over here when I get the chance. It took me about 3 hours to locate and catch my limit. There is no perch here now. A few years back the lake was infested with tiny perch. I just don't know if they would have matured to jumbos even if the state hadn't killed them off. I hear that locals are quite upset that the perch are gone. "It's always been a perch lake" is what I was told. New regs: even if the perch return to Hatch, it is illegal to keep anything but trout now at Hatch. I'm looking forward to hitting the lake again next year! In the picture, the 2 small ones are approx 9". The single was a buck looking to spawn!

GritStomper

1/17/2011 11:52:00 AM

those look like some healthy fish, great catch!!

Kfedka

1/17/2011 11:53:00 AM

Wow, that is a beautiful fish. Thanks for the reports.

Jay K

1/17/2011 4:17:00 PM

NIce report; Thanks for sharing. Haven't gone for trout through the ice this season yet.

yooper_fisher

1/17/2011 4:32:00 PM

Nice report. thanks for the info.
Just a quick note on the perch you were talking about. Back east when trout lakes would get perch in them the state would always poison the lake off as the perch would take over and never get big.

kevinbe

1/17/2011 7:08:00 PM

must of been a fun fight on the ice fishing pole. Great report.

MarkFromSea

1/24/2011 3:02:00 PM

The bigger ones put up a good fight, taking line and adding to the suspense! "can I get these fish out of that little hole?!" I love the challenge of ice fishing! Yep, at Hatch, the first couple years the perch return, some jumbos can be found then just dinks for the following years...... one year 3 of us caught over 400 dink perch in about an hour of fishing time, not a single trout that year and no jumbo or decent sized perch. Hatch has some wonderful feed, snails were abundant and now some sort of suspended shrimp looking bug, flips it's tail about after being plopped on the ice after clearing the ice out of the hole.

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