Macman Report: Pulling perch from Elmo Bay

How pleasant has this fall been with its extended Indian summer?

The warm water fisheries continue to produce catches of bass and pike. Kicking Horse, Ninepipes and Pablo reservoirs have all had active fisheries all fall.

I’m looking forward to ice fishing in these bodies of water. With the end of waterfowl season being the normal time for them to open, but that can be late relative to when ice is formed on these reservoirs. It would be nice if we could depend on the Fish and Game people to use a little common sense and open them as soon as ice conditions are safe.

In the meantime, other opportunities are available. On Friday, Oct. 2, we fished the southwest corner of Elmo Bay near the town of Elmo for perch. Due to a full moon and high pressure, conditions hadn’t been optimal for good fishing. We found the fish hesitant to hold and take in a bait, so by fish activity standards it was a poor day. Nonetheless we hooked and landed an impressive stringer of perch.

In the past I’ve caught perch here until the end of November. I predict that this fishery will steadily improve for at least the next month. Whereas we took home 40 perch in poor fishing conditions, in good conditions a cooler full is likely. Now there will be large pike minnows mixed with the perch later on. As waters cool there’ll be lake trout in the mix. One of our two hook setups with a bottom weight baited with either night crawlers or cut perch will be adequate. The magic depth is 36 feet in week beds.

As is normal for this time of year lake trout are moving into shallow water preparing to spawn. They will be anywhere from depths of 180 to 25 feet. The shallower fish will often respond best to trolling or spin casting. Those deeper can be taken with jigs.

Lake Mary Ronan has been drawing unusual numbers of perch and rainbow trout for this time of year.

BK Zimmer operates Zimmer Tackle (www.zimmertackle.com) in Ronan. He can be reached at macman@ronan.net or 406-675-0068.