I am going to camp at Mardon resort in a couple weeks and will be bringing the boat. I have never fished there and have not really done much Bass Walleye fishing. Any tips would be greatly apreciated, hope to get my 2 boys into some fish.

Jeff

you should have no trouble at all finding fish. i've never been good at walleye fishing, so i concentrate on bass and spiny rays. fish around rocky areas(goose island, lind coulee, face of the dam etc) with a 3" grub on a 1/4oz jig, usually in colors like pumpkinseed. jig it in the upper part of the water column since the rocks can be real tackle grabbers, the smallies should be everywhere and they don't take much enticing to get them to chase your bait. here's a tip though, remember to bring lots of extra grubs, the bass will tear them to pieces.

as for crappie, perch, etc just fish off the dock for them with either worms or crappie jigs. i caught 10 good sized crappie on 10 consecutive casts with a jig off the dock last year, it can be some really good fishing at times. theres also some huge trout to be had in the reservoir, i've seen quite a few caught over 10lbs

I hear the walleye are back to biting over there, but also heard they're getting a muddy taste. The person who gave that opinion said he didn't think they were worth keeping when they taste that way.

Thanks Guy's!

I am going the 20 th thru the 25 th.

Jeff

jeff:

partner and i fished potholes today, specifically targeting perch. we, as well as 3 other perchers in another boat, could only find dinks, 4 or 5 inches long in 11 or 12 feet of lind coulee water. of course, we tried deeper because “that’s where the bigger ones are” but could not locate any.

while searching the deeper water outside of lind, i dropped my thermometer to 40 feet and discovered that it was 58 degrees down there, versus the 75 degrees on the surface.

when you get to mardon’s, ask the folks in the store for current fishing info. i believe they try hard to steer you in the right direction. and they can sell you most any kind of lure that interests you. fishing from the mardon dock can be productive, maybe particularly at night. today around noon there were 15 or 18 folks fishing there, sitting on the benches and enjoying the sun.

the southerly wind today, jeff, was stiffer than forecast and the dunes/crab creek areas up north were not exactly fun fishing; controlling the boat took too much attention and slow trolling or jigging were unworkable. i haven’t tried a sea anchor yet, but if you happen to have one be SURE to take it with you. a surprising number of boats ended up fishing in the protected waters of lind coulee; when we drove across the dam, there were NO boats working goose island or the rocks between it and the dam, and that surprised me too.

the irrigation drawdown has lowered the water a lot; i hope you are good at backing your boat trailer a long ways down the ramps. the water skiers and the wave runners began being a bit bothersome this morning before noon.

good luck to you, jeff, and please let us know how you and the kids do.

john

wooldridge, I was over there a couple of weeks ago and they were getting some nice walleye on the potholes canal where it goes into I believe Soda Lake. Just follow the gravel road in by the canal and try it where the canal comes into the lake. They were using nightcrawlers. Good luck.

i haven't caught a decent sized perch out of potholes in years...not sure why. i know there's a limit on them now, i really hope it doesn't turn into a moses lake kind of story

however the smallie fishing has been great in recent years, i've caught some nice ones. crappie have been plentiful for me, but the bluegill and perch seem to be small and few

Moses Lake has great big perch that for some reason go nuts early in the spring.
Usually I'll go out there and fish off of the I-90 bridge and just slay 'em. But in the summer they are few and far between.

Ken

thanks again!!

And I will give a report,

Jeff