Preston Lakes & AF sturgeon - Printable Version +- Fishing Forum (https://bigfishtackle.com/forum) +-- Forum: Idaho Fishing Forum (https://bigfishtackle.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=353) +--- Forum: Idaho Fishing General (https://bigfishtackle.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=25) +--- Thread: Preston Lakes & AF sturgeon (/showthread.php?tid=228432)

Preston Lakes & AF sturgeon - BrianID - 11-23-2005 A fellow BFT member recently sent me an email with a few questions. I was going to send him a PM but thought I'd post it on a thread so others could benefit. I have some extra time this afternoon so I thought I'd type you a detailed response to some of your questions. Everything that I have written below is just quick write up my opinion from what I have caught and heard. I didn't want to take a couple hours writing this so some of the details, spelling and grammar may be less than perfect. Q: I've been thinking of giving Cutler a try, but don't know how the fishing is there. A: I don't fish in Utah much and have never fished Cutler so I wouldn't be able to give you much help there. There are a lot of people that post on BFT Utah that I'm sure would be happy to help. Q: Have you fished for the Sturgeon at the American Falls dam? A: I've fished for Sturgeon below American Falls several times. The Snake directly below American Falls is closed until Memorial Day. IMO it is well worth the extra drive to Western Idaho if you want to fish for sturgeon. There are several guys that post on the Utah board that have fished for sturgeon below American Falls recently and I would bet that if you asked any of them they would agree that Western Idaho is worth the drive. There was an interesting article in the Idaho State Journal (Pocatello's newspaper) last Friday about sturgeon below American Falls. It basically said that 92 sturgeon were planted below the dam and 86 were planted at Massacre Rocks. All of the sturgeon planted were 5 and 7 year old fish. Q: Also would like to find out about the smaller reservoirs just just North East of Preston, as I hear there are trophy bass in a couple of them. A: All of the little reservoirs around Preston can offer good fishing from time to time. Almost all of the land surrounding these reservoirs is private so please be respectful of the landowner’s property because they can make public access much more difficult. Several of the reservoirs have special regulations so make sure you have a copy of the regs handy if you are going to be fishing these little reservoirs. Most people fish them for planted trout, which can be fun, but I like the variety bass, tiger muskies, bluegills, perch, walleye and crappie offer. All of the lakes that are right next to preston take a few more weeks to freeze when compared to reservoirs like Island Park /or Devil Creek. I doubt I'll be ice fishing any of the lakes around Preston until the end of december if not latter. Currently LMB can be found in Glendale, Twin Lakes, Condie, Winder, Lamont, ?Johnson? and Foster. Any of these lakes could produce a LMB over 16" but Condie, Twin Lakes and Glendale have been the best big bass lakes. LMB over 16" aren't very common. Out of the hundreds of LMB that I have caught in SE Idaho I would guess that less than a dozen of them were 17" or larger. As far as I know Oneida and the Bear River are the only places in the Preston area that have SMB or Walleye. For the past couple years the fishing for 8"+ bluegill was best at Twin Lakes and Condie. In the past Lamont, Winder and Johnson have offered some good bluegill fishing but were hurt by the drought. There was more water in these reservoirs this year so next spring all five lakes mentioned above could offer quick action for bluegills. I know perch can currently be found in Oneida, Condie, Winder, Twin Lakes, Glendale and Foster. Lamont and Johnson were drained a few years ago and I don't think there are currently any perch in either reservoir. Condie is probably the best perch reservoir currently. I have heard that Montpelier Reservoir has had some good perch fishing in the past. I don't know what the perch fishing in Montpelier Reservoir is currently like but it might be a better option than driving over to Preston. There are a few crappie in Glendale and Foster but I have never caught any. In 2004 a few black crappie were caught for the first time in Twin Lakes. Twin Lakes might offer some good crappie fishing in a couple years or they might completely disappear. Even though I like fishing for different species of fish I think it is still better to leave the planting up to the F&G. Lamont and Condie are the only lakes in the Preston area that currently have Tiger Muskies. If you really want to catch a Tiger Muskie you would be better off fishing in Utah IMO. Oneida Reservoir seems like it should be a great fishing reservoir but it has never been very good. I would like to spend more time fishing Oneida but it is hard to spend much time there when I can make a short drive to another reservoir that has much more consistent fishing. IMO all of the smaller carp (carp less than 10lbs) in Oneida are part of the reason it isn't a very good fishing Reservoir. Treasureton is the best trout fishing reservoir in the Preston area. Make sure you check the special regulations before fishing Treasureton. The Bear River also offers some good fishing for planted rainbows and the occasional brown. Trout fishing can be good in any of the other Preston lakes but it mostly depends on what has been planted lately. The Cub River and some of the creeks in the area also offer some decent trout fishing but private land makes access difficult at most places. There are also a number of other reservoirs, creeks and rivers in SE Idaho that would be worth your time to check out if you like to fish new places. [signature] Re: [BrianID] Preston Lakes & AF sturgeon - JoyRide - 11-23-2005 I'm the yahoo Brian is talking about that asked the pile of questions. I really appreciate all the detailed information. I have just started fishing again this year after a 20 yr hiatus. I grew up in Southern Utah so all I knew how to catch were dinky planter trout, big catfish and of course the occasional carp and bluegill. I had no Idea that all these different species were so near me. I thought most of them were either up north or back east. I've met a few of the fellas on the Utah board and wouldn't mind meeting a few on this board. Maybe even hooking up for a little fishin'. I think I will give ice fishing a shot this winter. Maybe I can figure out this jiggin' thing! lol Don I'm about 12 miles out of Montpelier and 35 miles from Preston .... at the bottom of Imigration Pass. [signature] Re: [BrianID] Preston Lakes & AF sturgeon - OldJigHead - 11-23-2005 BrianId: As usual, thanks for the great post. Your posts are always thought provoking and sometimes I get downright "fishy" after I read them. More water in the reservoirs down in Preston area is a good thing. Might be a very good upcoming season for some fat ol' Bluegills. [url "http://flyfishseidaho.net"]http://flyfishseidaho.net[/url] [signature] Re: [OldJigHead] Preston Lakes & AF sturgeon - windriver - 11-23-2005 I haven't fished Montpelier for about five years, but in the past I enjoyed icefishing there. There were some large Kokanee in Mont. and some perch. The majority of the fish were stocker trout. There is an old creek bed that runs through the middle of Mont. Res. If you park about half way down the Res and slide down the steep bank, and then use a fish finder to find the old creek bed you can find some really hot fishing. It depends on how deep the water level is but the fish were always in the creek at about 40-43 ft. as I recall. I don't think we ever left Mont. Res without catching and releasing 40-50 small fish. Good Luck Windriver [signature] Re: [Guest] Preston Lakes & AF sturgeon - BrianID - 11-25-2005 Guest, Thanks for the info. If your not already a registerd member or fogot your username/password I hope you take a few minutes to register a user name and come back often. Here's a link. [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/community/community.cgi?do=user_signup"][/url][size 1] [/size] I forgot about the F&G poisoning Montepilier Res for the walleye. I would love to have more places to fish for walleye but agree with you 100% that they don't belong in Montepilier Res and one should never plant fish illegally. Hopefully the F&G killed all of the walleye but I wouldn't count on it. I would guess that the perch will be back in full force within 5 years even if the no bucket biologist plants more perch. If you look at the history of poisoning lakes with rotenone, 100% success isn't common. There are several examples of lakes in Eastern Idaho the F&G have poisoned without success. Island Park Res has been poisoned multiple times but has been unsuccessful which isn't a surprise because it has to many tributaries and springs. Roberts gravel pond was unsuccessfully poisoned for bullheads and perch. Both of those species started showing up regularly a couple years after it was poisoned. The biggest poisoning failure is Golden Lake in Hairman State Park. It is a small lake and it and it's tributaries were poisoned several times but the rainbows keep showing up a year or so after it is poisoned. Golden Lake isn't open to fishing and public access is limited to a 1/2? mile hike so I don't think it would be a likely target for a bucket biologist. With that said I hope the F&G was very agresive in their poisoning efforts at Montpilier Res and all of the Walleye were killed. [signature]