Launched At Houseman Yesterday

[Quillback]

I went in pursuit of the elusive walleye yesterday, and they were elusive, I did pick up one keeper that was barely over the 18" mark. Also caught a nice 15" rainbow. Talked to sevral other folks that were targeting walleye, none of them had caught one. Lots of active trout in the shoal areas, wish I had brought my trout stuff with me. There's a shoal about 2 miles below Houseman where there's a brush island in the river, trout were feeding on surface flies there, if you're a flyfisherman and have a boat, I think you could do well down there. And from what I saw, you would have them to yourself, I didn't see any trout fishermen down there. Being that far below the dam, they probably aren't recent stocker fish either.

[Martin]

Quillback, what did you catch your walleye on ?

[Quillback]

#7 Firetiger Shad Rap.

[hoglaw]

Is there a take-out between Houseman and the bridge at beaver? It looked on Google Earth as if there was a boat ramp between the two, on the left as you head downstream. Looks like this area might be ripe for a canoe trip, but it's an awfully long float to the Beaver bridge.

[hoglaw]

Oh, and is there lots of boat traffic up that far?

[Quillback]

If rps sees this he could fill you in on the takeouts, I don't know of any besides Houseman and Beaver, and Holiday Island. There wasn't that much traffic last Saturday, but it was a cold and rainy morning. 3 rigs at Houseman when I put in and maybe 8 when I left in the evening. I might be down there tomorrow morning, I wanted to hit Beaver Lake around Indian creek, but it may be kind of windy on the big lake.

[rps]

Open to the public - the dam, Parker, Bertrand and Houseman then Beaver. Open with permission - Spider Creek. Bertrand is just above where Spider Creek comes in. Other access points require private permission. Where you put in depends on intent and vehicle. For example, with a Supreme 20' river boat and a mixed trout and walleye intent, I would put in at Bertrand or Houseman this week. Walleyes and whites with a semi vee boat, I would use Houseman. Clear as mud, right? PM me if you want more detail.

Good luck.

rps

[Martin]

Met my buddy Friday, noonish, and fished from the Houseman area down a few miles. Threw jigs and jig & minnow for 4 hours or so with nothing to show but one very small bass. (We were targeting walleyes).

Decided to troll cranks at about 7:00 p.m. and caught a fat, heathy, walleye keeper 10 minutes later. Had another fish on within 5 minutes of the keeper eye but it came unbuttoned before we even got to the rod.

Oh yeah, the walleye was an 18 1/2 incher, so, nothing to scream about, but we were happy to get one in the boat.

Put the walleye back since it's spawning season (read: I was too lazy to clean one fish when I got home) so I don't know if it was full off eggs or what, but it was F A T .

Very little boat traffic for a Friday afternoon / evening run. All the boaters were very curtious and gave each other as wide of birth as possible. A very nice day of fishing !