# Otter Creek 11/08/08



## Flyfish4thrills (Jan 2, 2008)

My father and I fished Otter Creek this Saturday, 11/08. It was a beautiful day (no wind...which is rare for that lake, plenty of sunshine, and good fishing). We got a late start (11am), but still had a pretty good day. We caught over 20 fish (lost count). Fish were between 16 - 23.5 inches, with most around 18 inches. They were very hard fighters, diving, jumping and running with the line. The 18-20 inchers were fat--around 3 - 3.5 lbs. We saw some VERY BIG fish on the fishfinders....probably the biggest I have seen on the sonar to date (for bows, cutts, and browns).

We caught most of the fish towards the northern end of the lake. We caught 2 on silver/blue Kastmasters, about 8 on Lucky Kraft's, and 10+ on white curly tail grubs. I don't know why, but I have been using more bass equipment to catch trout lately, than traditional trout equipment (my usual favorite of flies). I had thought that plastic grubs worked best on cutts, but bows like them equally as well (big ones, anyway). For those of you interested in what they are eating: I pumped the stomach of one (but they were all regurgitating the same thing), and found thousands of green bugs. Maybe you can tell me what they were. I _think_ they were scuds. However, were very small and so they didn't look like the ones I normally see on other lakes/rivers (these were size 26-32???.) The pics look like they are gelatin blobs, but when they got wet (with a drop of water), they would swim around and you could see their body structure better...appearing identical to scuds when swimming). Maybe they are larvae (my bad, but I'm not as advanced in entomology as some fisherman). I may not know what it is, but I could find something to imitate it!!

I was feeling bad, since I had hooked into a big fish and it broke my line (and my lucky craft with it)! I had the drag set really low, but obviously it was not low enough. $15 down the drain. Oh well. A few minutes later I would have my revenge. I hooked into something that felt like the bottom......then it began to move! After quite a few runs, and a giant leap, I saw what I had hooked! It took a while to finally get it to the boat. I netted it, and then had a giant grin on my face. I was not the biggest fish in the lake (I know there are some BIG ones in there). It sure made my day, however. 6lbs, 23 1/2 inches.
After the sun went down over the mountain, the catching stopped.
I also hooked into a freshwater clam with my Kastmaster (strange, I know). I never thought they were indigenous to Utah lakes. I think it may be an invasive species. I took some pics of it and posted them on the General Fishing and Questions Board. Check it out. I sure hope it is nothing bad. I actually brought it home, in case somebody wanted to look at it closer. I hope doing so was not illegal. I was hoping to help prevent another invasive species ruining our waters, if at all possible. Check it out.


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## REPETER (Oct 3, 2007)

Beautiful fish. Looks like nice calm water other than when you were fighting them. I bet that fatty caused some big waves. :mrgreen:


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Really nice fish!!!

Great report, too. Man, you're making me want to blow a tank of gas right about now.

I have no idea what your forage globs are, but those clams are all over in Koosharem, too. I'm not sure of their origin, but I don't think that they're native.

Tank fishies.


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## Poo Pie (Nov 23, 2007)

Holy Schnikies! Big fish! Thanks for the post.


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## .45 (Sep 21, 2007)

Poo Pie said:


> Holy Schnikies! Big fish! Thanks for the post.


What Poo Poo said !! *(())* *(())* *(())*


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## pescador (Jul 2, 2008)

Nice fish, thanks for the report and pic's, those are bigones. Keep it coming.


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## Greenguy88 (Sep 7, 2007)

Piggy bows man! COngrats on the catches and thanks for sharing


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## Nueces (Jul 22, 2008)

Very nice fish! Thanks for posting. I have never seen a stomach pump like that. Interesting... :?: 

How would you tie a gell ball with a green streak in a #26? :?


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## Nor-tah (Dec 16, 2007)

WOW!! Looks like the good old days my grandpa talks about from down there!! Way to go!! So when do I get to tag along on the boat!?


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## orvis1 (Sep 7, 2007)

Very nice report and a great big one to boot! Sorry about the lucky I have lost a couple there on those sneaky devils as well. You are making me excited for ice off at the OC!


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## BRN (Sep 18, 2007)

Don't worry, those big mussels are native.
The stomach contents are zooplankton--#1 forage for trout in most reservoirs.


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## The Naturalist (Oct 13, 2007)

Flyfish4thrills said:


> ..... I pumped the stomach of one (but they were all regurgitating the same thing), and found thousands of green bugs. Maybe you can tell me what they were. I _think_ they were scuds. However, were very small and so they didn't look like the ones I normally see on other lakes/rivers (these were size 26-32???.) The pics look like they are gelatin blobs, but when they got wet (with a drop of water), they would swim around and you could see their body structure better...appearing identical to scuds when swimming)....


Hard to tell from the picture how small. I'm not familiar with size 26-32. Would you say less than 1/4 inch? Could you tell if they had one eye spot or two? Scuds should all have two eyespots like other freshwater shrimp, the critters in the picture appear to have only one eyespot. There are other freshwater crustaceans that have the one eye spot, but these are usually less than 1/4 inch, such as a giant Daphnia (water flea), or copepods, which is what these resemble. Anyway, great pictures. Otter is one of my favorite fisheries.


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## Flyfish4thrills (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks for the responses. I didn't think twice about zooplankton. I looked up daphnia and copepods on the web to learn more. The ones in my pictures when swimming, appeared to be copepods. However, they more closesly resemble daphnia in appearance, so I'm not really sure. I believe they were about 3mm long, on average. I found this pic on the web at http://www.springhalen.dk/Daphniamagna.jpg which looks very similar (general color, eye spot, green stripe). [attachment=0:13k7ccr1]Daphniamagna.jpg[/attachment:13k7ccr1] However, up close, the ones I saw appeared to have legs under their body. Are new scuds small like this? Anyhow, they had thousands of them in their guts......overflowing. Just catching them and basic handling would cause them to regurgitate them up. I found a couple of flies for them (tied in clusters), but not sure how they would work.


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## The Naturalist (Oct 13, 2007)

Flyfish4thrills said:


> .......However, they more closesly resemble daphnia in appearance, so I'm not really sure. I believe they were about 3mm long, on average. I found this pic on the web at http://www.springhalen.dk/Daphniamagna.jpg which looks very similar (general color, eye spot, green stripe).......... Are new scuds small like this? ......


Yeah - my first impression was they are a variety of Daphnia - just don't usually see them that big. The green stripe is their gut full of single celled algae. The circular objects in the upper back (on the web picture) are eggs.
Small scuds should look like big scuds only smaller.


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## FROGGER (Oct 1, 2007)

Nice fish, what a gorgeous :shock: day, make me jealous....


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