Fished Coffee Pot for the first time this year in my jonboat with a trolling motor. After a long spell of wind and rain, the skies parted and the lake was placid. Tried looking for crappie just off the boat ramp but didn't see anything substantial on the finder. I decided to troll for trout. Boated a nice rainbow on a perch colored trolling fly within the first 5 minutes of trolling right outside the narrows leading into the main lake. It was likely 18 inches, but I threw it back to fish some more. Caught and released a second bow that was not as big, but it was long in the jaw, and must have been in that lake for a while. Trolled up to the southwest end of the lake and saw some good size fish on the finder. Hooked about 7 fish total, including some great fighters, but they spit the hook before I could see them. I hooked one on a black trolling fly. Ran into another guy who said he had good luck on olive green flies.

I ventured beyond the main part of the lake through the shallows at the far end. Normally there is only 1-2 feet of water and it's hard to get through. It had about 4 feet of water when I was there. I spent about an hour trolling around beyond the shallows in those lake extensions to depths of about 18 feet, but came up empty. The water had lots of junk in it, looked like cow pies floating all over.

All in all another good early season day at Coffee Pot.

commando29

3/24/2017 10:45:00 AM

Thanks for the report. I'm a bit new to trolling. I've only ever used crankbaits, spinners and spoons. Can you explain what a trolling fly is? I'm guessing it's something bigger than the flies used by fly fishermen. Sounds like I need some new gear for my tackle box ;)

fishinPA2016

3/24/2017 12:17:00 PM

A trolling fly is just a fly like a wooly bugger or other fly made of a combination of feathers and yarn that looks like a baitfish. I used a fly rod with a sinking line. However, you can use a spinning rod the same way. Just add the banana weight of your choice to your regular line to get it to sink below the water, trail the fly behind it 12-16 inches, and troll slowly ato about 1-1.5 mps dragging it throught the water. You can vary the weight or the amount of line you let it out to adjust the depth. I sometimes use a trolling reel with a counter on it to be more precise with the amount of line I let out. Or you can just count how long the line is going out in seconds. Once you hit the fish, just recall the weight you used and amount of line you let out to reproduce the conditions that worked. Yet one more option is a trolling reel with leaded line, that gives you about 5 feet of depth per color you let out. Have fun!

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