Canyon Ferry:
The rains were very helpful for Canyon Ferry. Lake Level is rising despite being July which is good to see but the fish seemed to have responded well. Walleye are still being caught on the south end. It has not been crazy hot action but anglers are staying busy reeling in fish. Size is still on the smaller end at the 12” to 14” range. The inflow being strong has muddied up the water again. So back to bright colors but I have had consistent reports of black working well. Particularly around Confederate and on the Goose Flats. I would start at 8’ and work back and forth on each contour to about 30’ of water until you find where the fish are primarily hanging out. Just make sure to keep the bottom bouncers slow. 0.5mph to 1.2mph at most. Mid lake to the dam is fishing very well if you have some patience and maybe a little bit of luck. Casting jigs mostly in anything from 1’ of water to 20’ of water. The best colors seem to be anything with a dark colored back and lighter colored belly such as the 4” Brown Back Flatnose Max Scent or Perch colored Keitech. On the darker days, jerk baits with some flash seem to produce some fish too in 15’ or shallower. I will warn you that the action tends to be sporadic and there are long stretches of nothing but the bigger fish and best chance at bigger fish I find come from casting.
Trout remain active as heck from mid lake to the dam. We couldn’t seem to keep them off our baits at times during the tournament. Outside of the need to focus on catching a specific fish, they are still a ton of fun to catch! The water temps of 62 to 64 degrees Fahrenheit are making them very aggressive and active. If you want to target them, I would try trolling a crankbait in the 10’ to 25’ range over 20’+ of water at 1.5mph to 2.5mph. It did not seem like there was a particular color they were more drawn to, but I favor the more metallic stuff like gold or silver though rainbow or brown trout patterns tend to work as well. The thing that seemed to affect them the most were bite windows. When the bite was on it was really on! But when it shut off there isn’t a thing you could throw to get them to bite. Unfortunately I did not key in on any patterns for when they were on or off. The other good news is those fishing from shore should find some decent luck if you can fish on a shore that drops to depth quickly. Todd and managed to catch some trout close to shore while fishing for walleye. Spoons like a kastmaster or Thomas cyclone or a Panther Martin in gold, silver or some other bright color should yield results. Zonkers or marabous would also be effective from what I saw.
Inflow is about 6500cfs and lake level is sitting at 87.3% full
Montana's outdoor week, in your inbox at 7am Friday.