May 2002 - Flaming Gorge Utah

Mike Shaw and Jim Eck fished Flaming Gorge for one week in May of 2002. The target was giant lake trout and the goal was to catch them on the big 9 and 12 inch MS Slammers. Previous years have produced many fish in the 10 to nearly 30 pound range for Mike and crew and this year was no exception with 18 fish boated during the week ranging from 12 to 20lbs. The trip started off a little slow on the first two days with no fish in the boat, but on the third day the bite picked up steam and for four days they averaged 4 or 5 trophy fish per day.

The weather was unseasonably warm this year in the Gorge for May with daytime temps between 70 to 90 degrees. The lake was also fairly low and dropping over a foot per day with the hot weather. As such, Mike and Jim used two strategies to target the trophy lakers. In the morning hours Mike and Jim would troll between 4 and 5mph in 20 foot of water using the 9" rainbow trout Slammer. Their tackle consisted of 50 to 80lb braided main line with 25lb test florocarbon leaders. Mike said when the fish hit the rods were absoultely pegged to the holders and laying up on the sides of the boat. This technique produced a number of nice fish on each of the days where the fish were biting.

In the afternoon and mid-day hours Mike and Jim moved into 30 to 60 feet of water and used downriggers to get down to the fish. The deeper fish preferred the 12" kokanee colored Slammers in green and blue. Even on the downrigger Mike still keeps the boat moving at 4.5mph to trigger the big mac's into biting. It's called speed trolling for mackinaw and it works! For the downrigger trolling they used 25lb Big Game Supreme line with no leader on 8' rods. Several fish right around 20lbs fell for this technique.

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