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So on Wednesday and Thursday I went to Ballinger after work for about 1 hour each. I got 1 bite between the two trips. I was really feeling skunky.

Today my boss made me take yet another unpaid day off. So being of sound mind, I went fishing again. It was the last day of the season for seasonal trout lakes, and thanks to Heatherly bringing Cottage to my attention, I was in the water by 8am.

I dont know why Ma Nature has it out for me, but YET AGAIN it rained for four and a half hours straight. Last Saturday, Last Sunday, and again today. And not just sprinkled. I had 4 inches of water in my rubber raft. I had to stop and bail it out twice. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I heard that Cottage has crappie in it, especially at the far end under the lily pads, so since in my experience crappie only bite at dawn and dusk, my intention was to start out fishing for crappie, and then troll / drift / whatever for trout. A quick check of the water and it is super murky, visibility perhaps 3-4 feet. A guy I talked to later who was photographing birds said the lake was about 3 feet higher than normal. I had one line set up with a .... let's say 1/16th ounce jig, white grub (good choice due to murky water I thought), and I had a gold quarter ounce castmaster on the other pole. Off I go from the launch, I drop in the castmaster, and what the heck, I pitch the grub off the other side of the raft.

I get out to the middle of the lake, not 2 minutes from the launch, and BAM ..... excuse me? On the grub? No hookup. I set the pole back down and BAM, fish on the spoon! I get it to the boat and it's a gorgeous cutthroat! Still in the net and BAM! Fish on the grub! Fish shakes it. Well, at this point I'm still only half way to the lily pads, but all thought of crappie was now out of my head.

As the day went on, I eventually switched out the gold castmaster for a yellow blade wedding ring. Then the yellow for an orange blade wedding ring when the trailing hook broke off the yellow. The trout definitely preferred the grub to either the gold castmaster or the yellow, and about the same to the orange, but I had tons of hits on all of them. I would bet that they'd bite darn near anything if you pulled it long enough. Bite varied throughout the day, but wow, what a way to close the season on the seasonal lakes. I couldn't tell you within a dozen how many bites I got. The grub had tons of missed hookups with the tiny little hook. Other than the castmaster, I used primarily tiny hooks to facilitate catch and release. I know I actually caught, as in had to the boat, 20+ fish. No clue how many lost hookups or just plain nibbles, but multiply it out based on your experience and that's about how many. It was absurd. It was so absurd that I didn't get mad if one fell off. I didn't even get mad that it was a downpour for over 4 straight hours. I finally left about 2:30 to run errands.

Yes, you read that right. I left a lake with a crazy bite going, with 3 1/2 hours of daylight left, to run errands. I was that wore out.

Pic shows my keepers.

Other pic shows one that had this weird yellow spot on its belly. Anyone know what that signifies? Almost as if it was dyed yellow. Does Fish & Game do this with some fish?

There are some ugly rainbows in this lake, although not as ugly as those in Bosworth. About 1/3 the parasites. There are full on cutthroat with dark red under the jawline. And there are all sorts of variants in between. Probably caught 1 full on rainbow for every 5 or so fish to the boat. And as you can see, the reason for the heavy load of cutthroat is that they're busy making babies.

Man, the cutthroat are WAY more fun to catch than the rainbows in Bosworth. They smash your bait, then they pull and dive and make runs and jump ... some of them jump 6, 7, 8 times, it was SO much fun. One of the 13 inchers came in on the grub. Can't believe it stayed hooked with that little tiny hook.

Good times! My condolences to everyone who had to work today! But at least you got paid. And Heatherly - you should have showed up! There was a wet raft ride available! Maybe next year.

tyee4me

11/1/2014 10:47:00 AM

A small yellow grub at the end of a Castmaster or wedding ring works great in the fall for trout. I use a Dick Nite Gold with small yellow grub on th tip and it is hot in many lakes during the fall. Lake Alice and Lake Langlois are the other Fall lakes I hit. Tight Lines

Heatherlyfish

11/1/2014 10:30:00 PM

Wow! That is super awesome. So glad it was a good fish day. I really went to learn to use lures for em so I can do more catch and release. More fun that way anyway. I honestly hate bait fishing it is not what I grew up doing action fishing on the lake for bass or spillway fishing for white bass, whippers, walleye and what ever was in there. I wanted to be out there so bad. I was so close to coming but it was an exhausting day from the get go.. getting ready for the kiddos birthday. By the time I finished it was way late. I will be back next year.
For now I am going to hit up some of the other cutthroat spots if I can fine em.
I also wonder about the yellow spots I have seen em before on. More frequent the last week but still some had em. Did you also get a lot of those skinny ones that looked like cutthroat but could be a mix. I really cannot tell the difference between the hybrids there so much variation but all of em have the red slits that I have caught, other than a few rainbows. I have caught one rainbow that was really healthy looking but not many. I do know that the females are lighter in color and the males darker on the coastal cutthroats.
Those cuts sure are fun though and there seems to be a healthy population. I hope they are this good in the spring.

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