Fishing Q and A with the Macman
By angelamontana

Posted: March 29, 2013

Fishermen:

The question that is foremost in the minds of the fishermen I’ve had contact with in the recent past is “Have the perch began to bite in the waters to the East side of Polson Bay?”  My answer so far has been that the cold weather we’ve had won’t have allowed the water temperature there to come up to at least the 45 degrees mark which will initiate feeding while they are spawning.  In lieu of warm weather forecasted there is the possibility water temps will reach t hat mark in the next few days.  This would be about 2 weeks earlier than normal.  If we have some cloudless days the radiant heat from direct sunlight will warm the water dramatically in a few hours.  The fishing can go from zilch to hot in a short time.  This is obviously an afternoon occurrence so morning fishing this time of year is most often a bust and a waste of time.  Night crawlers are the most consistently successful bait for the perch but if too many smaller fish are attacking this bait go to perch meat or perch eye to up your percentage of larger fish.

Tuesday, March 26th my friend Rance Hertz and I along with my dog Molly Mophead spent the afternoon looking for the becoming more elusive mackinaw in the Yellow Bay-Blue Bay area of mid-Flathead Lake.  We finally found them in deep water (over 300 foot depth). Having spent much of our time searching other areas we were rewarded by our willingness to move with a full 52 Quart cooler of shrimp- fed lake trout, my personal favorite eating fish.  If any of you are in doubt as how I process these fish to create what I consider an ideal fillet bring some of your fish by Zimmer Tackle and I’ll be glad to demonstrate my filleting technique.  I can also show you a clean fast way to extricate perch fillets. 

The high point of my and Rance’s day was when he landed and released his personal largest fish ever, a 41” deep-bodied lunker.  See Picture

We caught fish on combinations of Lead-A-Gators, Glo Grubs Rattle-D-Zastors and a mackinaw fly.  For bait we used our green scented cut fish with a little shrimp scent added.

Jeff Posivio reported good catches of trout at both Kicking Horse and Crow Reservoirs. 

For more information call us at our shop 406-675-0068 or my personal cell 406-250-0241.  You can email us at: macman@ronan.net and also check out our product line at www.zimmertackle.com

Good Fishing,

The Macman

New Podcast!

Riley's Meats - Butte Wild Game Processing