Got on the water at about 9:00 and fished all day. Boated more than 20 I'm sure, but only 8 of them were big. Released all but 5 of the smaller fish, kept those 5 because it didn't look like they were going to survive.

Fishing this lake once or twice a week since 6/24, I've noticed the big fish are getting harder to come by. Initially, about 75% were in the 14" plus range, now it's dropped to maybe third. Also, the big fish are starting to get some red in them. Not all of them, I'd say roughly half of them are starting to turn. The meat is still really good though. I'm thinking there are another couple weeks left where good eating large fish can still be caught.

We worked the usual areas around Yellowstone point and between Yellowstone and English Point. Lots of small fish in that area but boated a few big ones as well. As it started to get late, with only 5 big ones in the boat, we headed west from English point, following the shoreline a couple hundred yards out, and then veered in the direction of the boat launch. Shortly thereafter, we bagged 3 big ones within 5 minutes. So this is where the big ones have been hanging out all day!

Our gear was pretty standard, a snubber followed by a small sling blade dodger followed by 8-12" of leader to a hoochie or wedding ring. We played with different colors and the most productive was the duller pink, not the bright pink. But as the skies grew dimmer, the bright pink started catching a few. Hoochies were outperforming wedding rings, which is another trend I've been seeing on this lake. We tried several dodger colors as well, they seemed to want a straight silver color UV. Also we played with several scents, the only one they seemed to want was Graybill's salmon.

All fish were caught on downriggers. We caught fish from about 35 feet to 50 feet. Around 40 feet was the overall best. We were running 2 poles.

It was well into the 90's and the skies were foggy with smoke from wildfires. Lots and lots of recreational boats, we were rocking and rolling all day.

All in all a nice day on the water and came home with enough fish to make it worthwhile. Like I said, I think the lake is almost done for the year for the biggest fish anyway, I think they'll all be spawned out here shortly. Can't wait until next spring to catch some of the ones we threw back after they've had another year to grow.