June 16, 2018
Fishermen
What bites well in the Perch in a 35 to 45 foot depth? This includes all the weedy areas in Flathead Lake proper (the lake north of the narrows)
1. Lake Whitefish just below the thermocline, but very close to it. This is a narrow thermal layer that has a 10 degree difference in temperature from the top to the bottom of it. It normally is 45 to 55 feet deep. This fishery depends on perch fry coming in from deep water. Because the perch population is high this should be a banner year.
2. Small mouth bass along the shore from the Finley Point West to Melita Island. Also in the Flathead River below Kerr Dam and Polson Bay down to Kerr Dam.
3. Kokanee at night at Lake Mary Ronan
Yesterday Marlon Starblanket and I went on a bait fishing foray in the Polson area. We took a half hour off to see what the perch situation was around the new city docks. It appears that the perch fishing off of and around the new Polson city dock is on par with that out in the East Bay earlier this spring. You can expect to fill your cooler there. As always there is no “expiration date” on this great fishing but it could last the entire summer.
Charlie Raines and his son Zachary brought home over 100 yesterday, June 15th. Note: perch often bite well on rainy overcast days.
The picture is of the 27 large perch we caught before getting back to the serious business of catching bait fish. Although we filled two coolers most of the fish were over 9 ½ “which is the cutoff length for packaging the fish whole. If you know of a place we can catch these smaller fish we’d sure appreciate it if you’d let us know or if you prefer, we pay .35 a piece for them and would be glad to have you catch them.
Mike Windauer DDS had a couple of good days fishing small mouth from the West side of the Armed Services Memorial Bridge North to the Bear Harbor condominium complex. He said that just a half a night crawler was all they used for bait.
Trolling a Rapala along the shore lines anywhere in Polson Bay especially the East Side should give good results; 8 to 15 foot depths being the best;
Buck, the fishing expert at Sportsmans and Ski Haus in Kalispell showed me a picture of an impressive cooler full of kokanee and Rainbow that he caught at Ashley Lake west of the city on Highway 2. Some of the Kokanee were up to 16 inches which is unusually large for this body of water.
If you’d like to share information with us or need details for your next fishing trip in our area call us at 406-675-0068 Email us at: macman@ronan.net Let us know if you’d like to be on our email fishing report list. Check out our website for our product line (It can be bought through PayPal.) www.zimmertackle.com
Good Fishing, The Macman
