Devan S.

Yeah I've seen the Arkansas, Blue River, Dillon Reservoir, Twin Lake, Turquoise lake, Half Moon Creek all seem really close to our intended path. Just seems a lot the web searching I've done talks about fly fishing stuff which I really don't have right now or you bait fish in the reservoirs. I'm not against either one but times short and it seems if either of my preferred methods would work I'll let it fly.

I understand......trolling bags have saved the day for me a dozen times or more.....cheap insurance if a trolling battery dies and you just ain't ready to quit.

What make and model are those rods?

3 is fast for crappie and frankly I wouldn't target them at that speed. the 1.5-2 mph is a better start. The big problem I have isn't them biting as much as at 3 mph you pull right through their lips on a shorter strike. Every year though I catch some trolling for whites at that speed so it can be done. The other problem when you get up to those speeds is the lure wanting to roll out on you. The S pattern is a great suggestion. Another one is to "pump" your rod occasionally especially if you see fish schooled on the graph sometimes that quick burst can trigger a bite. I have never used snap weights so how do you all control depth in those cases?

Speed wont make any difference with depth. Line size/length of line out dictates almost everything when trolling. My preference is 10/2 braid but many can and will use larger size line(braid allows you to feel much, much better when you get to talking about a 100'+ ft. of line out). here is a dive curve for the 6cm size. Speed will be dictated by how aggressive fish are. Often times I can troll with my outboard at 3 mph and catch whites, crappie, and walleye but sometimes it takes the trolling motor and 1.5 mph or 2 mph to get less aggressive fish to bite or not to pull off).

Am planning on being in the Leadville area over memorial day weekend. Highlight of the trip will be hiking Mt. Elbert however......hoping to get some fishing in if possible. Obviously runoff can be and issue and likely will so while I would love to hit some rivers it may be out of the question. I may only have a day or 2 to fish maximum. I am admittedly not a trout fishermen in the normal sense. My arsenal includes jerkbaits and jigs...the end. I have a fly rod...all I have is bass poppers, jigs for whites, and some streamers for bass. My goal is simple catch fish(I'm not even picky enough to say I'm set of trout but that seems to be the major target). A lot of what I see on the web is fly fishing which have me concerned since I'm not the least bit familiar in the sense of small subtle presentations(mending, caddis, nymping, swinging all seem as foreign to me as speaking mandarin......I kid....kind of) A.) is it possible to fish with a spinning reel and jigs/jerkbaits? or is this something I need to start looking at the uber small (match the hatch) and really get setup for on a short notice. B.) Does lake fishing in the area lend its hand more to my style of fishing? I wanna do the picturesque fly fishing the mountain stream but also realize this is short notice so guides are out and I don't want to completely spend a ton of money to get setup on a way to fish that I'm not totally into right now. C.) Anything/anywhere else between KC and the Leadville area that may be worth a several hour detour to do(either non fishing or fishing)? At this point I am super flexible....plan is camp, sleep in car, whatever...only thing really set in stone is to climb Mt. Elbert and even that is flexible depending on the weather.

Both braid and mono use plastic polymers, both of which take reasonably long to decompose in the environment. There is enough difference in polymers used and in processing that it would be impossible to make a blanket statement to compare the 2 but generally speaking were talking over human lifetimes to be thoroughly decomposed in the environment. With that kind of timeline, I don't believe you could claim one is really any better for the environment. I believe the claim of degrading was along the line of UV breakdown, development of memory, kinks in line ect. all of which reduce the strength compared to the advertised strength. A significant amount of this degradation isn't due to true breakdown of the materials(in a environmental sense) but more in line with the stretch/yield factors. You eventually yield mono to the point that it will not go back to its original state. At that point, something has to change oftentimes the polymers split or the cross sectional area is reduced leading to a reduction in strength but at the end of the day those polymers are still there just no longer acting in accordance to how you expect them too. I use 10/2 braid on my trolling rods. That line certainly isn't getting used like it would on a jig rod but I know when I get hung up to the point I cant get lures off, it often takes looping the line around a boat cleat to break it/pull free and this stuff is often 3-4 years old before I even consider changing it out.

That's all I can think of....I guess running up on shore would work but would first responders do the same thing if it looked like it was going to hit a marina or dock full of other boats?

Whats the standard procedure to stop a boat when its a run away like that? Seems like the get really close and jump aboard method may has a heck of a risk factor if you miss.

The other problem is at 915 removing volume in anticipation shows a huge difference on the overall lake level opposed to removing the same volume at 925' as the lake spreads out. To remove enough volume to consistently compensate for these large scale events means lake levels could be below 900' or below. You have one drain in anticipation and miss and you could see even larger lake level swings then we do now.

All Fishermen: Wake boats destroy docks and cause massive shoreline erosion. We don't care what amount of money you bring to the economy we want them boats restricted or banned. Wake Boaters: We bring so much money to the local economy you can't get rid of us. Non-tournament fishermen: tournament fishing has become too large and we think the impacts are detrimental to the fishery. Tournament Fishermen: We bring so much money to the local economy. You can't ban us.

We will never know....IMO. The biggest complainers about the lack of bass are the tournament guys and frankly they aren't willing to give up their system(this excludes the small group on here). They want an outside resource to come to their aid. I've said it once and I'll say it again removing a bass or stressing a bass during the spawn is the equivalent to killing EVERY SINGLE FUTURE OPPORTUNITY for spawning. This isn't a guy sawing off the fillets of a limit, this is guys(hundred/thousands every weekend) killing on the magnitude of BILLIONS of opportunities. I am admittedly not a bass fisherman but you cant compare bass to walleye stocking. Very rarely is anyone consistently catching 5 fish limits of walleye on any of the local lakes and walleye receive in comparison a fraction of a single digit percentage of the pressure that the bass do. You put that pressure on that small of a resource and your talking about never seeing another walleye even if you quadrupled the number of fish stocked. Before MDC spent a dollar on stocking here is a list of things I think they should consider: 1.Ban on tournaments/possession of bass until memorial day. You wont stop incidental catches and fishing but imagine all the gain in stocking by just give nature an opportunity for a year. 2.Reduce length limit on Kentucky bass(just like Stockton) or slot length covering all bass to protect say the 50-90th percentile fish. 3.Drop the possession/daily limit(I think this should be done on just about every species on the lake). The problem with doing this would be the backlash from the same group that consistently wants MDC to spend $$$ on stocking but you cant have your cake and eat it too. After a certain period of time, if conditions don't improve under management like that then one has a valid point for stocking.

Anytime you head out and say I'm gonna target walleye and you manage to get a good 19" is a good day.

Not necessary. Frankly you should be able to catch crappie within 2-3 miles either direction of sweet water pretty easy. I haven't done any crappie fishing since early on this year but I'm hearing there is a lot of 9-9.75" fish. You should be able to make it well past the 86 bridge should you want to run that far. Google maps current satellite view has the water at a much lower level than it is today so you can clearly see where the channel is. Outside of stick here and there past Jackie Cove the only spot of any concern is right before the bridge and google maps will give you a good example of how to run it.

If you have crappie even remotely on your mind I would venture and stay towards sweet water.

Whats the record for a carp from a non-private lake?

I don't disagree with this most of the time but a large number of guys that think their doing someone a favor coming off plane aren't at all. They come off plane too late, push bigger waves by not really slowing to idle, then back to full bore before they really get by you pushing even more water. They end up causing 3 or 4 times the headache then if they would have gone by at 20-30 mph on plane and give you a decent berth. I can only think of a handful of locations from the state line down on the Kings that I can't pass someone at a reasonable distance on plane at a 20-30 mph speed unless your sitting dead center of the lake on a bend(think akin back) or the narrow channel just down from the 86 bridge or if the water is really low. Most of the spots I fish are above the bridge and in some cases the river is less than 150' across meaning legally just about every boat going by me should come down off plane and idle by. Since most of those guys run up to 50' of where I'm sitting, cut the throttle from 100% to 10%, power idle through, and get back on plane when their boat is even with mine, I would much rather them buzz me on plane at a lower speed and give me a friendly wave as they go by. Plus if they see me catch a fish 90% drop anchor right there and fish right on top of you. Don't get me wrong the best method is certain giving plenty of distance, getting to a true idle, and passing the people fishing before hammering down, but in practice very few actually go to that level in which case I wish they would just slow to a reasonable speed, stay on plane, and wave.

Man.....someone must be smuggling those thumpers up from Mississippi. Awesome.

I've got some S-wavers and some spro bbz-1. I throw them here and there but success has been limited. Like others some good looks but nothing earth shattering. I always try and target ambush points. Think large shallow boulders, shallow bluff edges, areas where I might throw a topwater over open water or timber, docks, ect. You get a heck of a splat with a bbz-1 or 168 or 200 swaver when the lure hits so I try to make mile long casts well past anything I'm targeting.

Pretty cool. I do have to give these guys credit....it appears through their pictures they generally do a heck of a job with fish care.

The only thing I use for Crappie is Bobby Garland Baby shads on a 1/16 jig head. Bluegrass is the color I use the most but I have 6 or 7 other colors.

I believe they did. However even with release boats they usually just motor out a couple hundred yards and dump them out in the middle.

This is the exact pattern we ran all weekend assuming that would be the ticket. Let me tell you 5-6 fish a day and 2 keepers over 3 days is rough when your slinging the arig......If I was smart I would have bailed Saturday and started chasing crappie or whites.

I bet Long creek will look like O'Hare next weekend. Solid stream of boats in and out.

Awesome fish