Cutbow Trout

Merry Christmas y’all! It’s been so warm lately, frankly I think the fish are confused. They were feeding hard for the past couple months just waiting for the ice, and now they don’t know what to do. My past few sessions were a tough bite. Went out on a glassy Christmas Eve and found one decent cutbow, about 22”.

One decent fish out of 40.

Finally got a nice day in Cheyenne. Got some fishing done before heading back home to Oklahoma later in the week.

I injured my back a couple days ago lifting a load of scrap metal into the truck. Carrying the kayak was painful but I couldn’t resist taking it out on this calm afternoon. Caught a nice cutbow that chased all the way to the surface, and followed it up with a couple of nice smallmouths caught deep off the bottom. The first smallie was 17” (another master angler qualifier), the second around 15”. Although smallmouth are susceptible to barotrauma, I rarely see it on this lake (whereas I do see it more often on deep walleye here). The first was fine but the second one had pop-out eyes. However, I could see on sonar that it swam back down to depth quickly. That doesn’t preclude the possibility of post-release mortality, but from what I’ve seen over the years - if a fish can swim back down quickly on their own, it’s a good sign that they’re going to be ok. The ones that can’t swim back down are typically in trouble.

Couple little guys on the jig this morning.