[Milehigh Eyes]

I put my boat on Granby Saturday for the first time ever.  I heeded TAL0362's advice and began trolling the north shore of Arapahoe Bay.  We were unsure what depth to start at so we worked close to the shoreline and tried to stay in the 25-45 ft depth range.  Our riggers were set comfortably above the bottom with stackers 10 or more feet up.  We did a lot of cranking up and down as the bottom contour changed.  We did this for a few hours in the morning and picked up one mack.  We noticed most of the trollers along Arapahoe were much deeper and further from shore than we were, but we were marking enough fish on the sonar to convince us to stay where we were.  About every boat we passed was doing better than us.  Some of the boats weren't even using downriggers.  At this point in time we really didn't have a clue what depth we should be trolling, so we set all four rods at different depths and occasionaly adjusted as we marked fish.  Finally, in the afternoon, we picked up two more macks right along "The Rocky Point" about midway down the north shore of Arap Bay.  We caught them about 35 ft down in 45 ft of water.  All three fish landed came on one bait - a #14 Jointed Rap in gold/black. 

So, we only managed to get three macks in the boat, but they were our first macks ever, so that made it fun.  I'm still pretty clueless about what depth to work along the bay, but hopefully that will come with more knowledge and time on the water.  My walleye fishing instincts tells me to work the breaks close to shore, but all of the other boats trolling the bay seemed to be crusing wide open water.

A couple other things.  First, I couldn't believe the irresponsible boaters in Columbine Bay.  Some a*****t in a 30 ft cruiser ripped right between us and another fishing boat doing at least 25 mph.  He was so close to our boat, he ran over our planer board and cut off our line which was set at 20 ft to the side of our boat.  Unbelievable!  Small minds and big boats is a dangerous cocktail.  Second, does anyone know if camping is permitted on the islands?  Deer Island looks like a great place to boat camp.  I could bring my dogs up there and let them run wild on the island without running away.

 

[NeWcS]

Small minds and big boats is a dangerous cocktail. 

Amen brother!!!!


-Jay

 

[higherarch]

Nice job what kind of dogs do you have?

 

[tal0362]

I'm glad you caught a few. I believe it was slower then average overall. I think the fish are scattered everywhere right now. The ones I caught had insects in their stomachs meaning they had been feeding really shallow, and I graphed fish deep also, even had hits in depths to 130 feet.

I'm pretty sure there is no camping on the islands. I think its because Osprey nest there.

Terre

 

[Guest]

Great job man! congrats on your first Macks ever! hope theres plenty more to come! ;D

 

[Milehigh Eyes]

Ben - I've got three pound hounds - a Newfoundland mix, a greyhound/Aussie mix, and a lab. I always get stressed out when I take them camping because they want to run and explore and sometimes I don't think they're coming back. That's why those islands would be great. On Saturday, I noticed a couple of tents right along the east shore of Columbine Bay. It looked like a neat area to set up camp as well.

As for the fishing, it seems to me that the laker fishing would get easier later in the summer when it warms up and they go deep. At least they should be more concentrated. Do people still catch lakers trolling the top 20 ft of the water column later in the summer?

 

[tracker15]

Some friends and I camped at Arapaho Bay Saturday and Sunday. Saturday evening we tried trolling the North and South shores but didn't pick up anything. Sunday we shore fished and trolled the inlet at A. Bay just out from the boat ramp and picked up 8 macks in about 3 hours total. All were about 17 - 20 inches.