Grand Lake - The rainbows and brown trout fishing has been very good this week in 8-18 feet of water. It is essential that you find unpressured fishing areas to target these fish as they will be most eager to bite. I have been using small, small jigs (1/64th oz) with wax worms as a finesse style of fishing. Like fishing Lake Granby, being quiet and stealthy is very important right now because a lit of these fish are feeling pretty pressured with the crowds. The lake trout bite has been good in 40-65 feet of water using small tubes and grub like jigs. As the season progresses, keep a special eye on the screen of your electronics because Grand Lake has a lot of fish that come in suspended. If you put your jig a foot or two above them, its almost a guaranteed bite and make sure to keep pulling the bait away from the fish. The worst thing somebody can do in order to entice a bite is to drop the jig to the fish and try to feed them right now. Ice conditions vary around the lake but there is a lot of ice holding in the 12-13” thick range. As always, please be very careful. on the southeast corner of the lake as that is where the current will be when they are pumping water from Shadow mountain thus eating the ice away in this area. Fishing with Bernie Guide, Jake Foos.
Williams Fork Reservoir - Water level is 76%. Ice 6 to 10 inches. Lake trout bite has been fair in 50 to 60 feet of water. Small tungsten jig heads tipped with sucker meat and small tubes in the 1 to 2 inch range have been producing fish. Try working jigs right along the bottom with long pauses between movements. Staying mobile and moving around structure has also been important in staying on a consistent bite. Fishing with Bernie Guide, Sam Hochevar.
Lake Granby - Water level is 73% or approximately 21.5 ft low. With the late ice that finally capped the lake a few weeks ago, the season got off to a much slower start than usual, but the current conditions could not be better in certain parts of the lake. The slush is present but very navigable with a snow machine and or other means of transportation. Ice thickness is really dependent on what part of the lake that you are on but is averaging 8-10” in most areas that I have been on recently. The bite for rainbows and browns have been very good this year in shallow water. I have been focusing my efforts on rocky points or similar structure in about 6-13’ feet of water. One very important detail that I have noticed is the need to be very sneaky and not make much noise at all when targeting these shallow feeding fish. A variety of baits have been deadly lately but the best one has been a scud/shrimp looking soft plastic on a dark colored jig with a very small piece of shrimp. When fishing the rocky areas, pay attention as to what the fish may be feeding on and use that type of scents. The lake trout fishing has also been very good lately. I have found the best bite for big fish in 30-47 feet of water on very slight slopes near deep channels. The big fish have been looking at everything I have sent down the hole but my best bite has been on a 5” tube in various colors. Again, I have been loading up the jigs with scent but have not had to use sucker meat when targeting the larger class of fish. Alost every opportunity we have had was keeping the jig withing 5-6” of the bottom. If the jig gets higher than that, they seem to have been taking off pretty quick. The eater sized lake trout have been a little different this year for some reason. Most days we do not go more than about two minutes without seeing fish on the Vexilars but we are having to change out and run through a lot of different baits until we find exactly what they are looking for at that moment. The numbers bite has been producing the best results in 35-55’ feet of water on mud flats. My go-to jigs have been grub like jigs, Simcoe bugs and small twisters. Please keep in mind that the limit is still only 4 lake trout, per license, per day as I have been getting asked by a lot of anglers what the current limits look like. Fishing with Bernie Guide, Jake Foos
The Fishing with Bernie team has been guiding in Grand County for over 25 years. For more info please check out www.fishingwithbernie.com, www.facebook.com/FishingWithBernie/ or our Instagram pages https://www.instagram.com/fishing_with_bernie https://www.instagram.com/fishingwithaltitude
