OURAY said:
Brook : Leon (Grand Mesa)
Rainbow: Vega (Grand Mesa)
Ouray, caught several brookies at leon last year that approached 20", including a football fat 3.5 pound 19 incher. Fishing at leon was slower last year with 8-10 being average, but the SMALLEST brookie we got in two trips measured 14". They are the best eating brookies in the world, ORANGE meat. We are taking our personal pontoon boats out on their this year and we are going to troll the weedlines 8) I wouldn't be surprised to land a 4 or 5 pounder.
I never liked vega that much until I icefished it this year. In years past, we would catch hundreds of tiny 8-12" fish in a day. This year though, the average fish was 16-18", with the largest being landed nearly 25". It wasn't 100 a day though, more like 10, but those were great fish!
BTW, don't know if you went out to highline today, I did for about an hour. I knew with the wind it would be awful in my personal pontoon boat, but I still went. Tried for a little bit in the sticks on the north end, obviously with no success.
My favorite lakes:
Brookies: Leon lake (grand mesa) 15" average last year, 13" average in past years. Plenty of 17"+ fish, and the best eating brookies around.
Cutthroat: Tough to say. Used to be Y&S with its 3-5 pound cutthroat (and rare rainbow) feeding off of shrimp. But it got destroyed by the drought :'( Now it is probably butts lake on the grand mesa.
Rainbow trout: I really am more of a river fisherman, but for lakes, no lake produces more large rainbow trout than juniata reservoir. It is stocked with roughly 1000 rainbows every two years by the DOW, and their growth rate is over 7" a year according to local biologist. If you hit this lake during the "boom" when there are still fair numbers of them, they average 18". Seen a 12# landed out of here by my bro, and last fall using a crocodile for walleye I caught a 24" 7# rainbow. HUGE rainbows but need to be released, even though they are tasty. (juniata is a city of grand junction water reservoir)
Brown trout: Blue mesa. Catch many nice ones here in the spring throwing spoons and cranks.
Lake trout: Ruedi Reservoir. Great numbers of small ones, and besides blue mesa has the most big ones left of any colorado lake.
Largemouth bass: Tough one. Jerry Creek Reservoir #1 for numbers, (50 bass days common), and Connected Lakes for size. Broke off a HUGE bass last year there. Caught them up to nearly 6 pounds in both places.
Smallmouth bass: Juniata Reservoir. Has some real marble eyes. Got them up to about 3.5 pounds here.
Walleye: Juniata Reservoir. Good numbers of 15-20" fish, and have seen a 10# and a 7# caught here by my brother. My personal biggest is only 25.5", 5# though.
Bluegill: Jerry Creek reservoir #1. 10"+ bluegills up the wazoo. Enough said.
Crappie: Crawford (delta county I believe)
Northern Pike: Taylor Park Reservoir. Crawford is #2.
Yellow Perch: Crawford, EXTREME numbers of perch, and now that the pike have been in there for a while, some can get big. Caught many over 12" this ice season.
Catfish: Rio Blanco. Near meeker, by the white river. Catch good numbers while icefishing off of dead baits and fair numbers while fishing for pike off of crankbaits.
Overall best lakes for medium sized game fish, such as trout, walleye, bass is juniata reservoir. See above information.
Overall best panfish lake: Harvey Gap Reservoir. Good numbers of 6-11" yellow perch, 6-9" bluegill, 8-10" crappie.
I hope that post isn't too long ;D I'm not worried about giving out this info though. MOST PEOPLE WILL get skunked fishing juniata for a long time before it starts paying off. When you learn it, it is a fishing heaven.
Lake is alot healthier now though!
