Grand Lake is currently in full blown summer mode and that means lake traffic is at its peak right now. Between the sail boaters, kayaks, paddle boards, and rental boaters, there are people everywhere on the lake. Please use extreme caution when navigating on the water. I witnessed a lot of close calls while out fishing this week. Water is being pumped from Shadow Mountain and that has flushed a ton of dirty water and plant life into the lake. With this pumping comes stained water as well. The surface temps have spiked in the past week and the lake is sitting at about 65-68 degrees depending on the weather and time of day. The two river inlets have stopped pumping in good amounts of run off and most of the current is coming in via the connecting canal with Shadow Mountain. The rainbow and brown trout fishing remains good but we found that casting the typical hardware is difficult right now because of how much cabbage you hook up with retrieving your lure. We switched things up a bit and started casting slip bobbers with small jigs and continued to have great success. Tipping the jigs with a small piece of nightcrawler proved to get the most action. Lake trout fishing remains good but the fish are spread out all over the lake. We used a hunt and spot technique this week in 35-80 feet of water to catch our fish. Small soft plastics tipped with a very small piece of sucker meat seemed to get the best action but moving around a lot, locating small groups fish and anchoring on top of them was necessary. Fishing with Bernie Guide, Jake Foos
Williams Fork - Ramp hours are 6AM to 8PM. The lake is at 100% capacity. Inflow is 121, outflow is 129 cfs. Surface temps are running 65/66 early in the AM in the main channel warming to 70 in the afternoon. Visibility is very good with the west side of the lake being clearer than the east side. The Lake Trout bite is very good early AM,but slows around 10 to 10:30AM until late afternoon. Look for active fish in 70 to 90 feet of water. Small tubes or grubs tipped with sucker meat fished tight to the bottom is getting bit by all age groups. The bite is light and fast so keep those lines tight. Lake Trout have been keeping me entertained so I haven't fish for Northern's but the guys I've talked to are getting some follows and an occasional hit in the west bays and inlet area. Best time to fish is early AM and a few hours before the ramp closes. Calm sunny days mean a lot of casting and very little action. Rainbow and Kokanee fishing is very slow due to low population. Fishing with Bernie Guide - Randy H
Lake Granby - With the summer heat the water temps are warming in to the low 70’s during the afternoons. With that the Rainbow trout and Brown trout bite has been very focused on the first and last light times of day when its cooler out. A variety of presentations will produce bites including various bait, bright and flashy kastmasters or a jerk bait worked with an erratic retrieve. The lake trout bite has been very good as of late despite the warming water temp. The lake trout have continued their push deeper being found mostly in water from 50ft to 100ft deep. A variety of soft plastic jigs in natural colors tipped with a small piece of sucker will produce bites. Use those electronics to find the groups of fish and be active about moving when the bites stop coming, even a short move has been making a big difference in whether or not the fish are biting. Stay safe while enjoying the water and deon’t forget your rain gear when headed out we have been having frequent afternoon thunderstorms, bringing some much needed rain! Fishing with Bernie Guide, Dan Shannon
The Fishing with Bernie team has been guiding in Grand County for over 25 years. For more info please check out www.fishingwithbernie.com, www.facebook.com/FishingWithBernie/ or our Instagram pages https://www.instagram.com/fishing_with_bernie https://www.instagram.com/fishingwithaltitude
