Help a Newbster Out

[pushbutton]

There is a 36 acre lake stocked with bows not to far from me. It is bowl shaped with max depth around 40 and heavy weedlines to about the upper teens by mid summer. There is also little dissolved oxygen past the upper teens. Have never fished for them before, and my question is with what, where, and what time of day should i be fishing for them, first in the spring after stocking and then later during the hot part of summer. There will be plenty of dink sunnies in competition.

[itchmesir]

Panther Martins.. size #3 and up... right after ice-out i'd expect them to be deeper.. but once it starts warming up i would look for shallow flat areas(5FOW or less) in the early morning or dusk... when the water will be at its coolest.. stocker bows are really dumb.. so it shouldn't be too tough

[Nate McVey]

Panther's are good, so are Little Cleos, Krocodiles and Mepps. I've always had good luck early morning and evening, but have caught fish midday if it is overcast.

[reinhard1]

since this is a dnr stocked lake, it's normaly a put and take lake. with weeds all around the lake up to a certain depth on opener if off shore, some of the lures described above will do well. also, my favorite in lakes of this nature is a slip sinker with a crawler injected half way with a single hook. just put enough air in the crawler to make it float. you can test it by just throwing it in the water in front of you. prop your rod up with a forked stick, leave your bail open and wait for the line to go out [indicating the bite].

in a boat i would use small spoons and spinners early for they will be near the surface and in shallow chasing bait. by summer assuming the lake doesn't get hammered by fishing pressure i would skip the shallows and concentrate on deeper running stick baits and troll somewhat deeper than early in the year. the oxygen level seems to go down to 17 feet so nothing deeper than that i would fish. naturaly the water would be cooler close to that 17 foot mark and i would concentrate in 14 to 15 feet deep in the summer.

ice fishing if permitted normaly after jan. 15th, the rainbows would be in the shallows for the most part in less than 10 feet of water. small panfish jigs with eurolarva or waxies would be in order. i'm assuming this is a designated trout lake so no live bait [minnows] permitted. personaly in a lake of this size and if the dnr only stocks it once a year i would only fish it during may and june and then wait till next year unless they stock it twice [once in the spring and once in the fall for ice fishing]. hope this helps. good luck.