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Topic: Exploring NW Montana -- kayak fishing lakes?  (Read 2399 times)

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Dark Tuna

  • Lingcod
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  • "Dark Tuna?"
  • Location: Redmond / Sammamish, WA
  • Date Registered: Aug 2014
  • Posts: 453
My daughter and I are looking for a camp site near some kayak fishing lakes in NW Montana.   We're not looking for deep water, but a possible trout/bass/kokanee site surrounded by places we can explore by foot or truck...

First place that pops out in a basic search is Lary Mary Ronan State Park, if that's any help slimming down the million and a half options.

Any suggestions for "must go" or "must not go" places in that part of the state?

Thanks in advance!

2015 Jackson Big Tuna (tandem) (dark forest)
2016 Hobie Outback LE (screamin' orange)
2014 KC Kayaks K12 (the better half's, in camo)
2015 Jackson Kraken 13.5 (bluefin)

Raymarine Dragonfly; BB Angler Aces; Kokatat Hydrus 3L SuperNova Angler Dry Suit; Stohlquist Fisherman PFD


bb2fish

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  • Location: Oregon
  • Date Registered: Feb 2013
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I wish I would have paid more attention as a kid growing up in NW Montana, then maybe I could recommend some places to fish.  All I can remember is that we went places and caught fish!!  ;D  :banjo:

I think Ashley Lake was one: https://www.visitmt.com/listings/general/lake/ashley-lake.html   Another might be Little Bitterroot Lake.  https://www.fishidy.com/map/us/montana/little-bitterroot-lake   I did quite a bit of dock fishing on Flathead Lake -- there are a million places to go just on that body of water alone!

Good Luck and have a wonderful trip.


pmmpete

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  • Location: Missoula, Montana
  • Date Registered: Jul 2013
  • Posts: 1989
If you will be in Montana in the second half of July or the first half of August, the lake whitefish should be biting on Flathead Lake.  This involves anchoring and jigging in 55-70 feet of water, often only a short distance from a launch site.  Lake whitefish are fun to catch and very tasty, and you can hope to catch a bunch of them in the 20 inch range and bigger.  The limit on Flathead Lake is one hundred fish per day or in possession, because there are a lot of lake whitefish in the lake.  You may pick up some lake trout while jigging for lake whitefish.  Good places to fish for them from a kayak are from Big Arm State Park and the fishing access northwest of Elmo, and in the narrows area, because you can fish pretty close to a launch site.

Flathead Lake is a big lake with reaches of up to 28 miles, and wind and waves can brew up quickly on the lake.  So avoid Flathead Lake on days which are predicted to be windy, and have a game plan for fishing other lakes in the area if Flathead Lake is predicted to be windy.  For example, if you enjoy lake whitefish fishing, and Flathead Lake looks bad, I have heard that there are lake whitefish on Echo Lake, which is located north of Bigfork.  There are bass, perch, and other fish in various reservoirs to the south of Flathead Lake.  I have not been fishing the lakes in the Kalispell area.
« Last Edit: June 28, 2018, 03:10:44 PM by pmmpete »


Dark Tuna

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  • Location: Redmond / Sammamish, WA
  • Date Registered: Aug 2014
  • Posts: 453
Next week is July 4 week, and being is July 4 is a Wednesday, everybody and their dog is going out.

And so are we (with the dog, even).

Reservations for camp sites were hard to come by which limits our base of operations, but we found a site at Logan State Park on Middle Thomson Lake for 5 nights.   Write-ups say it's good for bass, rainbow and brown trout.  My Navionics maps show a deep hole > 150 feet in the middle, and a couple others in the 80-100' depth elsewhere in the lake.  Anything wonderful patrolling the depths I should seek???

Ashley and Bitterroot are not far away.   I'm sure we'll be exploring the area.   The lake whitefish sound awful fun to go after, but there's so much in the area I wonder if I would have enough time!   I've never sought either whitefish or lake trout, having been weaned on salt water fishing, so if they're on our target list, pointers to info is welcome so I'm carrying close-to-the-right gear without taking the whole garage with me.   And my daughter's even more a novice that I and she looks to me for guidance!  Lol!

Thanks for the wonderful info!

2015 Jackson Big Tuna (tandem) (dark forest)
2016 Hobie Outback LE (screamin' orange)
2014 KC Kayaks K12 (the better half's, in camo)
2015 Jackson Kraken 13.5 (bluefin)

Raymarine Dragonfly; BB Angler Aces; Kokatat Hydrus 3L SuperNova Angler Dry Suit; Stohlquist Fisherman PFD


pmmpete

  • Sturgeon
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  • Location: Missoula, Montana
  • Date Registered: Jul 2013
  • Posts: 1989
It's a bit early for really good lake whitefish fishing, but here's how to fish for them in Flathead Lake: Buy a Zimmer Rattle-D-Zaster about 1.5" long or a similar vertical lead jig.  Dark green or light green are good colors.  I prefer a pretty heavy lure so I can clearly feel the bottom when jigging.  Rig a fly 12"-16" above the jig, either on the leader to the jig or on a separate leader.  Bait isn't necessary, but you can put maggots, Berkley Gulp maggots, pieces of worm, or other bait on the jig and the fly.  Dick Zimmer at Zimmer Tackle in Pablo can get you set up.  Good places to fish in Big Arm are (a) From Big Arm State Park, straight out from the boat ramp and left (north) all along the campground, off the point to the left, and around the point along the north-facing shore, or (b) From the Elmo boat ramp, straight out from the launch site, or left along the shore.  Paddle out into 50-70 feet of water, just outside the weed line, and follow that depth, looking for large fish right on the bottom, which will be lake whitefish with some lake trout mixed in.  When you find fish, anchor over them or point yourself into the wind and paddle or pedal gently to hold yourself stationary over the bottom. If you see a group of motorboaters jigging, head over and join them.  Whitefish fishing is a social sport, motorboaters won't mind if you fish near them, and you can talk with the motorboaters and get advice.  Jig gently right above the bottom, tapping the bottom regularly.  Occasionally you may want to jerk the jig up 3'-4', which may produce some snagged whitefish.  Lake whitefish bite gently, but when you set the hook, they fight like crazy.  Bring them in carefully and slowly, as they have delicate mouths. The whitefish will really be biting in a couple weeks when there are lots of baby perch for them to feed on, but I am told they are out there now.  You will occasionally pick up lake trout while jigging for lake whitefish.  It's predicted to be pretty windy for a couple of days, so I'd wait until about Tuesday, July 3, to try jigging for whitefish.  The best fishing is for a couple hours after first light.

There are many other places where you can fish for lake whitefish on Flathead Lake, but I suggest the two I mentioned for kayak fishing because you can catch a lot of fish within a couple hundred yards of the launch sites.

Lake whitefish are very tasty either cooked or smoked.  When I fillet lake whitefish, I remove the pin bones by cutting off a strip of meat above the pin bones, and then removing a sliver of meat with the pin bones.  You can leave the skin on for smoking, but I remove it from fillets for cooking. Unfortunately there aren't any fish cleaning stations on Big Arm.  Here's a couple pictures of Amik fishing for lake whitefish in front of Big Arm State Park.

If you want to try jigging for lake trout on the bottom in 180-230 feet of water, the rig and jigging technique are similar, but you'll need a bigger lure to get down faster, and you'll want to put a small piece of cut bait, perhaps one inch square, on your lure. Again, Zimmer can set you up.
 
« Last Edit: July 01, 2018, 10:23:24 PM by pmmpete »


Amik

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  • Location: idaho
  • Date Registered: May 2015
  • Posts: 40
Can’t wait to get up to Flathead again, this time with the new Revo and little more experience. Last year Pete took the time to give me some whitefishing lessons and it made for a great trip and a freezer full of fish.


Dark Tuna

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  • Location: Redmond / Sammamish, WA
  • Date Registered: Aug 2014
  • Posts: 453
Thank you for all the ideas and advice!   All I can provide in return are a few stories.

My daughter and the dog and I did spend the better part of the week camped in Logan State Park on Middle Lake Thomson after leaving western Washington around 4am Sunday.  The area is fantastic and is more alpine forest than our local forests.  For those unfamiliar with northwest Montana as we were, there are many places to wander.  We stopped in Troy to pick up fishing licenses, deciding on the two day variety and choosing Tuesday and Wednesday to fish.

Once you're in the area you need your paper maps or a Garmin or other downloaded maps -- we were 30-40 miles from the nearest internet.   I use a neat app on my iPad called "iHikeGPS" from a gentleman in Boulder, CO who's been building mapping applications for the Apple world since the 1990's at least.  From this app you can download 24k USGS quads, 24k Forest Service maps, 100k topos, ...  (There's a companion "iSailGPS" that downloads NOAA charts I've not investigated in detail).   Monday we drove around Ashley Lake and noted the wind kicked up.  Seems to do this a lot during our trips.

Tuesday and Wednesday we were skunked on Middle Thomson.   I figured my Dragonfly went bad cause it wouldn't read any more than 25 feet while clearly the map says I'm peddling in 60-100 FOW.   And it was raining.  And blowing.   We were told there were trout, bass, kokanee and pike in the lake.  Anybody who was fishing was after pike.   And of course I've never fished for pike and had no idea what gear to use.   So we trolled a bit and jigged a bit for trout, feeling blind because I couldn't see below 25 feet on the finder.

During a shore break in the afternoon a local said the 25ft reading was a layer of salmon.  ... WHAT???   This wasn't a small area issue with the Dragonfly -- it was  the whole lake south of the park!  That many kokanee???   So I made a few adjustments and we didn't even get a take-down.   Both days.   >:(

While dirt roading another of the Thule foot holding the roof rack and the Hulivators broke hold.  That led to replacing the feet to a newer model after a trip to Kalispell.

Other highlights were the fireworks in Troy, playing dodge around all the deer (we lost count somewhere over 30) and a herd of moose on US 2 and Thursday touring Glacier National Park.

Next time I head to the area, I definitely need to enlist the aid of a "guide" or fellow kayak fisherman who knows the destination.   This time Flathead Lake wasn't in the cards, we'd want a camp site closer to the action!

Thanks again for the pointers!


2015 Jackson Big Tuna (tandem) (dark forest)
2016 Hobie Outback LE (screamin' orange)
2014 KC Kayaks K12 (the better half's, in camo)
2015 Jackson Kraken 13.5 (bluefin)

Raymarine Dragonfly; BB Angler Aces; Kokatat Hydrus 3L SuperNova Angler Dry Suit; Stohlquist Fisherman PFD