Day Two Fishing Staycation

Day two of nine was truly close to home for me, Boyd.  Needless to say I fish it regularly and have found it to be a great fishery once you get to know it.  There’s the catch getting to know it.  When I first started fishing Boyd I had a love/hate relationship with it.  Loved the good day, hated the bad. 

Fortunately the good kept me coming back until the pieces fell into place.  Enough so, that I wrote a fly fisher’s guide to the reservoir.  Although, I probably need to update it as things have changed a little over the years, including my knowledge of the reservoir.

A issue for anglers on weekends is boat traffic.  While I’m not a fan of crazed (or so it seems to me) boaters, skiers, and jet skis when fishing, I also realize that the fish are still there and that they adapt to the conditions.  So much so. that heavy traffic can often provide catching opportunities that get overlooked.  The “boat bite” is one such phenomenon.  It’s situation where the wave action can stir up a shore much the same as a windblown one.

However, this day my goal was to avoid some of the boat traffic and still position myself to catch a reasonable number of white bass.  So the game plan was to launch the boat in the afternoon, fish areas for the boat bite until the early evening and then position myself in areas where the white bass have been reportedly been caught recently.  While a boil wasn’t out of the question, historically, it’s a little early in the season, so I wasn’t expecting one.

All went as planned.  The ramp was the typical zoo with the majority of folks taking way longer than needed to get backed down and dilly-dallying around on the ramp unloading/loading.  Needless to say, by the time I backed down I was more than irritated. 

After launching I decided to work the weed edges around the south end of the reservoir.  Little less wave action and I’ve had good luck fishing for pan fish with small flies on a 5 wt.  My target was primarily crappie, which I didn’t find, but I managed a number of nice bluegills, a largemouth and a nice perch.  Slow by normal standards but I was ok  with it as I was primarily biding my time.

Around five the boat traffic let up, so I decided to head mid-lake and worked a couple areas for white bass.  I stopped and visited with a couple anglers nearby fishing deeper water.  They were catching a few white bass on spinners. 

Setting up near shore mid-lake I started fishing from the shore out, running perpendicular to the shore looking for structure/cover/bait while blind casting clousers on a sinking 7 wt line.  In the area I fished I noted the shore dropped fairly quickly to 8-9 feet then leveled.  I opted then to run parallel to the shore working in and out from 7 to 10 feet. The presence of others trolling through the area boded well for my plan.

It wasn’t too long before I caught my first white bass.  Every time I’d catch one I’d engage the trolling motor spot anchor and work the area hoping the schools would be holding around there. Didn’t really work that way at first, but as sunset progressed I found myself moving less and less.  Most of the fish came off the deep side of the boat early in the evening, but after sunset I did best anchored off a point just barely within casting distance.  Then the hour after sunset was magic, nearly every cast toward shore produced a fish in the 14-16 inch class. 

Yep, Boyd’s an old friend and treats well those who put in their time.  In my case, I paid my dues early.  Catching five fish in the first several hours of fishing, and a couple dozen in the last hours of the day. 

So the second day of my fishing staycation was also quite successful, five species, perch, bluegills, walleye, largemouth, and white bass, decent numbers and size to boot.  Next up Wyoming Plains lakes.