Bear Lake Cisco Update January 18, 2011

After a very warm weekend with high winds the last two days, there is no longer any ice on Bear Lake. In fact the Utah State Park Marina has thawed and boats can now be launched at the marina, First Point ramp and Cisco Beach ramp. There is no snow along the east side at this time. The courtesy docks have been removed at First Point and Cisco Beach due to icing problems on the docks.

Anglers (both boat and shore) have been doing excellent for cutthroat trout and a few lake trout. Best luck has been off 2nd Point jigging and off South Eden jigging and trolling. Try depths of 40-70 feet. Use 3/4 -1 ounce jigs tipped with cisco, sucker or carp meat when jigging. The trollers are using downriggers and doing well using small flatfish and rapala-style lures with rattles in them. You can fish from shore at the Utah State Park marina and anglers are picking up a few rainbow and cutthroat trout. Try powerbait or mealworms under a bobber or spoons and spinners casted from shore. There is currently about 6”” of snow along the west side of the lake.

No cisco have showed up along the shorelines at Cisco Beach or the marina as of today, but anglers fishing from boats have been able to snag limits of cisco off the “rockpile” area the last two days. They are also catching some nice sized cutthroat, some over 6lbs, off the rockpile area using tube jigs tipped with cisco and vertical jigging spoons such as castmasters. Anglers also reported catching some Bonneville whitefish using small vertical jigging spoons and ¼ ounce jig tipped with salmon eggs. Remember, the limit on cisco is 30 fish (daily and possession) so count your fish carefully. Also, remember that a person may not possess a multipoint hook with a weight permanently or rigidly attached directly to the shank (commonly called a snag hook) or a weight suspended below a multipoint hook unless the hook is on an unweighted dropper line that is at least three inches long.