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Headed for Lake Ballinger for some fishing with my friend Pete. Fishing has been rather slow lately... Pete tried Green Lake during the week and only hooked one, on several days out. Thought Ballinger would be a bit more "fisher friendly"?! Arrived at 7:15 AM, fishing by 7:30 on the pier. Joined almost immediately by another fisherman, Dave.... Alexi arrived a bit later. Temp at outset was 38 degrees and the lake was fogged in... no breeze at all.... lake a dead calm. Water temp was 44 degrees at 10'. Began with Power Eggs (red) on one rig, Nightcrawlers on the other. Almost immediately, we were all getting hits... some of them very hard, mostly with worms or NC... could not buy a hook-up.... over and over, we reeled in empty hooks. About 9:00, Alexi hooked and landed a nice 13" Rainbow. After re-baiting my hooks on both PE and NC, I changed to an old standby, yellow PE, and about 10:30 had a very hard hit and landed a very colorful, 14" Cutthroat... don't often catch the Cutts on PE! By 11:00 the fog had lifted and we had a very pleasant winter day at the lake. Pete left, frustrated, about 1:00... lots of hits, but no fish. I continued on... several more fishermen on the pier, a couple on the lake in a pram. About 2:30, had a very hard take down on a NC... the way the fish fought, I figured something in the 18" range... took a while to get it to the pier... when it finally came into sight, I realized that it had been foul hooked... the hook had become embedded in it's skin, just forward of the tail... how it got there, I could never guess!!! Anyway, shook off a 13" Cutthroat to fight another day. Continued to have bites the rest of the afternoon, but no hook-ups. By 3:00 a steady breeze began to blow from the south, bringing a real chill... all the other fishermen left the lake shortly thereafter, I continued 'til 5:00 then went home to a loving wife and a hot dinner!
Through the day, I counted at least 20 fishermen, but saw only the two fish caught. Patience and persistence will ultimately pay off, Spring will finally arrive and there will be fish for all!!! PTL!
Fourth photo is of the Lake Ballinger swimmer, swims most every day, all year 'round! Brrrrr!

Anonymous

2/5/2013 6:37:00 AM

10 Hours at lake Ballinger? I wish i had that kind of patience. Thats hardcore.

Spiegel

2/5/2013 7:55:00 AM

That's a nice cut. If you have a boat, I would say either Beaver Lake or Blackmans Lake, they are both good winter producing lakes. However, from shore, not so good, as the fish move to points away from the public piers (though not away from shore) On Beaver, there's a flat to the left of the park about 200 yards from the left most edge of the park, fish the drop-off of the flat where it changes from 3 to 4 feet deep to 6 to 8 feet deep.. On Blackmans, straight across from the boat launch there's a section of undeveloped shore. Find where they are holding (they move every day, but stay in that stretch) at about 6 to 8 feet deep. When I lived in WA, most every time I went on winter to either lake I would catch a limit (3 fish at Blackmans, or 2 brood-stock plus 1 or 2 regular at Beaver). Alright, 4 is not a limit at Beaver, but for me 2 brood-stock is, the smaller ones are the bonus.

Elijah.Loves.Fishin

2/11/2013 11:42:00 PM

i saw you on the dock that day. i was the one out in the livingston. tried trolling a little bit of everything and even tried stationary fishing a bit. no dice for us.

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