Fishing Report

December 11, 2011

WAITING FOR SPRING

Well, I got a little lax on the fishing reports the last month. I did get a few decent trips this fall on the Missouri River and got some nice fish, but now I am about done for the year. The last trip down river had sheets of ice floating around and it has gotten colder since, so I will probably wait for spring.

That is OK I guess, it is that time of the year. I will start doing the fishing reports again next spring.

For now, I am working on the Montana Walleye Circuit Kick Off for the January issue of Fish Tales.  Tournament applications will be available on or about January 15 on line at the Walleyes Unlimited website as well as in the January issue of Fish Tales.

Have a Happy Holiday season.

Dale Gilbert

November 12, 2011

Missouri River

Last week got a chance to spend another day on the mighty Missouri River. Fishing was pretty fair with some nice walleye on jigs with Gulp minnows – again. One of the things I really like about this time of the year is how those fish will sometimes just thump those jigs. Nothing really big, biggest was about 22″ but they were all nice, fat, and healthy fish. Interestingly we caught only 1 sauger, all the rest were nice walleye. (All caught and released for another day)

 

Dale Gilbert

October 31, 2011

MISSOURI RIVER

Fished the lower Missouri River this past weekend. It was a super time, nice weather, nice fish, great food and great company. Fish were caught with jigs and cranks. My personal best is per the following caught on a Fin-tech Nuckle Ball Original jig tipped with a 3″ Berkley Gulp Alive minnow in a new penny color, tipped with a small piece of crawler.

We also caught some pretty nice sauger.

Dale Gilbert

October 26, 2011

LAKE FRANCIS

October 19, 2011 fished Lake Francis by Valier. Water temps have dropped to 45-48 degrees which appears to kick off the fall bite on Francis. We caught a lot of small northerns – too many for Dale, but we also did get 6 nice walleyes by long line trolling crankbaits so it made for a pretty nice day. The largest walleyes were around 23″, very healthy and pretty fish. Smallest one was maybe a 17″ but most were in the 20-23″ range.

The northerns were mostly too small to keep – maybe 14″ – 20″ fish, a couple may have come close to three pounds at best, but they sure do like those Berkley FlickerShad crankbaits.

Most of the fish we marked were relating to weeds and laying what looked like was right in the weeds, very few higher active fish on the Lowrance screen.

Water level is still pretty high, there is still a dock at the east end ramp. The ramp is under water and I did see some people where still using the ramp in town, but it looked like it might get a little skinny for me.

Dale Gilbert

October 11, 2011

HOLTER RESERVOIR

October 10 fished Holter. Last day for fees at main boat ramp, docks were still in and fish cleaning station was still operational, but I doubt it will be for long.

Fishing was so-so, we got 5 walleyes from 14-19″ and fished about 23-30′ of water with jigs. Each place we caught fish, we did mark them on the Lowrance sonar unit but we saw a lot more we could not get to bite. Water was down to about 58 degrees, which is still fairly warm.

People were out trolling and catching trout. It was a pretty nice day to be out on the water.

Dale Gilbert

October 9, 2011

LAKE FRANCIS

October 8th, 2011 fished Lake Francis at Valier, MT with my friend Scott Achilles. It turned out to be a very nice day considering the weather and rain we have had, but the walleye bite was a little slow. The Simms Pro Dry GORE TEX suit was a really blessing in the morning since it was pretty cloudy and cool in the morning. We did catch quite a few small northerns and a couple of nice walleyes trolling crankbaits (Berkley FlickerShads), but it wasn’t the typical fall bite I would expect. The lake is pretty full and water temps are about 55 degrees. Fish were relating to the weeds in about 23-24′ of water or so.

It pays to pay attention to your Lowrance graph – these fish show up really nice on my HDS units — but it shows a whole bunch of those little northerns too, when you mark fish, you typically get bit.

 

We launched at the east end, the concrete ramp is under water and it is pretty steep backing down to it, but someone has put a nice dock there to be able to pick up your partner. The outhouse door has been blown off so you won’t have much privacy there. A few other boats where out and most are launching in town since the water levels are up.

Looking forward, I would expect the bite to improve with the weather settling down over the next couple of days and the water temps cooling off in the next week or so.

Dale Gilbert

October 2, 2011

Tiber October 1st

Fished the Marias Arm of Tiber today with Dale and my Son-in-Law Carlos. It’s great to have Carlos back from a year long deployment to Iraq. Let me first say the weather man missed this forecast big time. Was supposed to be light wind and 80 degrees, but it never got much above 55 and the wind blew out of the northwest at 20+m.p.h all day. But I am actually glad to see some cooler weather get here finally. We started out pitching jigs shallow with no luck. Then..go figure, we put the crankbaits out and covered some water. The bait fish are showing up great on the Lowrance Structure Scan and where you found the pods of bait, the walleyes were there too. We ended up catching 8 walleyes between 14-18 inches. Not a great day by any stretch, but did conclude that the fish were definately on the move from where they were 2 weeks ago. The fish we caught were basically away from any structure. The most productive bait was the Purple Tiger Flicker Shad. Water temp. was 58-60 degrees and we launched easily at S. Bootlegger.

Scott Achilles

September 12, 2011

TIBER RESERVOIR

Walleye bite has slowed at Tiber. Still a few fish being caught but nothing like it was earlier this summer.  Water temps have dropped slightly to high 60′s. The water levels continue to drop but the lake is still above normal full pool. Looked at the boat ramp at the south Bootlegger and I wouldn’t recommend trying to use it yet. The water is about at the top of the ramp, but the ground is still wet and some muddy at the top so it would be best if the lake dropped another foot or two and this ground had a chance to dry out.

From spending some time looking around yesterday, about the only fish we could find were up the Marias Arm.  The main lake, mouth of Willow Creek, the slough and dike areas did not seem to be holding much in the way of bait fish, that I could find and generally, no baitfish, no walleyes. 

On the Marias arm you will find nice schools of bait fish and the occcasional walleye, northern and some nice trout.  The fish seem fairly scattered so trolling with crankbaits or maybe a spinner to cover some water will probably be your better presentation.

Dale Gilbert

September 7, 2011

Fresno, Tiber, and Frances. Sept. 3rd,4th, and 5th

My Dad was out for his fall fishing trip, and as always we fished Fresno, Tiber, and Frances. We started out fishing at Fresno with Gary Lum on the 3rd. After 8 hours of beautiful fishing weather we only had 2 walleyes. We started out pitching jigs shallow with just a few bites and 1 northern. We ended up trying all depths with just a few more northerns caught on jigs. We finished the day trolling crankbaits and caught 2 walleyes in 20 feet of water. Sept 4th: I took the whole family to Tiber. We launched at the marina and our plan was to start up the Marias Arm and work our way back to the Willow Creek Arm. The fishing was great in the Upper Marias and we caught 12 walleyes in a short amount of time. We were trolling Flicker Shads on leadcore, and also behind planer boards. The walleyes seem to be keyed in on the ciscoes and the new Racy Shad color and blue and white were the winners. I only had 65 feet of line behind the boards and 90 feet out on the leadcore. Covering depths between 10-16 feet over 20 feet of water. The largest walleye(caught and released by my daughter Katie), was 26″ and was easily 7lbs. We kept our speed between 2.2 and 2.4mph. It was a great day on the water with the family. I can’t wait to get back there. Lastly, Dad and I fished Frances on the 5th. If you want to catch some nice pike this is the time and place to go. They have an appetite and hit every crankbait I put out. We covered depths from 10-35′ and ended up with 20+ pike and 0 walleyes in four hours of fishing. The lake has come up a few feet and launching at the campground was easy. Looks like we need the water to cool a bit before I will go back to Frances. It is getting close to that awesome fall fishing. Please remember selective harvest, keep a couple under 20″ and release those big ones to spawn next spring. Good luck fishing!

Scott Achilles

August 29, 2011

TIBER REERVOIR

Fished Tiber friday Aug 26th bite was very poor. Not sure what happened to the fish or the bite, but only got 2 very small walleye and one northern. Fished Willow Creek and Maria Arm. Seems like the fish have been moving out of the Willow Creek arm with fewer and fewer fish, but I couldn’t find them up the Maria Arm either.  Tried jigging, rigging, and pulling crankbaits.

Saw what looked to be some decent fish in about 28 feet of water so tried those and out to about 35 feet but no luck.

Water levels are continuing to drop a fair amount, overall about 2 feet since last weekend – and typically that pushes the fish a little deeper. The shoreline vegetation that has been flooded all summer is no longer providing cover for the forage. Some of the trees are dead, but it looks like a lot will survive — but all the lower branches are dead. Sure is different to see.

Looks like I need to see the weather cooliing off and wait a bit for the fall bite to start.

Dale Gilbert

August 22, 2011

TIBER RESERVOIR

Sorry, I have been gone fishing in Alaska for a couple of weeks, thus no local fishing to report. Alaska was awesome with lots of salmon and halibut.

The bite at Tiber has slowed down and the fish have moved. Camp Walleye was this past weekend and some really nice fish were caught, but the numbers where down for most of the boat captains.  Fish were being caught on the main lake and also up the Marias arm in a little deeper water 18-20 feet seemed the most common.

The better bite seemed to be with people pulling rigs on bottom bouncers or pulling crankbaits with leadcore line to get the baits down to the 18′ depths.

The lake appears to be dropping about 3″ a day and it is still 12 feet above full pool.  The Tiber Marina ramp is still the only usable boat ramp.

Dale Gilbert

July 25, 2011

TIBER RESERVOIR

Tiber is hot. Literally, it has warmed up and summer is here. The bite is good. Nice fish are being caught throughout the reservoir and on jigs, rigs, and crankbaits. Over the past few days I got fish in 2-10 foot pitching jigs with Gulp Alive minnows and pulling Mack’s Lure smile blades with crawlers, and pulling # 7 Berkley Flicker Shad crankbaits out in the 18-20 foot depths. Fish seem to be scattered throughout the reservoir. I caught fish by the dike, Rays Bay, Millers Slough, and the Willow Creek arm. Depth of active fish depends on the weather and wind. On the flat calm days, fish are out deep in 18-23′ and you can see them on the Lowrance graph if they are there.

The reservoir has finally started to drop – they are letting more water out and the inflows have decreased slightly. The only access to the lake is at the Tiber Marina.

If you try jigging, you need a good quality graphite jigging rod so you can feel the fish bite. I fish with Berkley 6# test Tracer Braid line which is super sensitive and it only has the diameter of about 1.5# mono. Also, the other day I did exceptionally well with the new Pink Shine Gulp 3″ minnow. This is a new color and it works.

Dale Gilbert

July 18, 2011

TIBER RESERVOIR

The water levels have come up another half foot or so to about 3011.4 feet. Incoming flows have dropped to about 2000 cfs and outflows have been increased to about 1500 cfs so at least it won’t be coming up as fast as it was. Water temps were in the high 60′s.

Fishing is good. We did well with a 4″ Gulp Alive minnow and 1/4 oz. jig today pitching into shore and working them back out. Most fish probably came from the 5-10 foot range.

Dale Gilbert

July 11, 2011

TIBER RESERVOIR

Some would say Tiber is in the toilet and literally some would be right. The lake is as high as it has ever been and some of the facilities are totally under water. The toilet at the new VFW ramp has only about 3 inches of the vent pipe above the roof sticking out of the water. The facility at the top of the old ramp is about half flooded. The lake elevation is at 3010.48 feet which is about 17 1/2 feet above the normal/full pool. The inflows are dropping slightly but they are still way more than what is being released so it is still coming up. A good part of the VFW campground is actually under water. The only boat ramp on the lake that is still accessible is at the Tiber Marina.

Not many people are out fishing and the general fishing report is poor. A lot has to do with the high water. If you go fishing there now you will be fishing areas you have never dreamt about fishing, it is like going to a brand new lake and starting from scratch — nothing looks even remotely familiar. Islands are now under water with only an occasional tree sticking up to give you a clue where some of them once were. Flooding has created new islands. Bottom line if you don’t have a contour map with GPS be exceptionally careful where you go — it is really hard to judge the location of old landmarks. The old grain bin up in the Willow Creek arm has about 6′ of water over the roof of it — amazing to see what that looked like on my Lowrance StructureScan.

With that said, however, I actually had a very good day of fishing. We didn’t catch anything really big, 21 1/2″ was the biggest walleye, but we did catch several in the 19-20″ range and quite a few other really nice eating size fish. The fish we caught were shallow in less than 10′ of water — most pitching up towards shore with a Perfection Jig and a Berkley Gulp Alive minnow. So although part of the lake is in the toilet-literally, if you are willing to fish some new ground and find them, the fishing can be pretty good.

Dale Gilbert

July 9, 2011

HOLTER RESERVOIR

July 8 fished Holter. Bite was tough for me. We only got a few small 10-12″ walleyes. We looked from the dam up to the Gates. There is a tremendous flow of water creating a lot of current not typical for this time of the year. Drifting down through the mouth at the Gates was something like about 2.5 to 2.6 mph. Lots of floating grass around the reservoir from the high water flows and the water seemed dirtier than normal. Water temps were in the 62 degree range and warmed up a little later in the day.

We did find one spot with a few fish and I missed about a dozen, so I am guessing they were small fish. Fished jigs with gulp in 14-16 foot of water.

If I went back, I would go really early in the morning or wait and fish the evening and hope for a better bite — and pitch up to shore or longline troll some crankbaits, but the long line trolling is going to be a problem with all the floating grass.

 

 

Dale Gilbert

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