Granby cherry popping

[Dkreager]

Decided to skip out on the sausage fest and head up for my first go around with granby. The spot I found on the map looked to be about a 5 minute hike from the house and it ended up being over a mile lol. I moved after lunch and fished in that spot until about 6pm. Man I'm hooked, I'm pretty sure I sunk a hook in a 30". Yanked on it and it felt like i hooked the bottom of the lake and all at once line was coming off pretty steadily. He ended up spitting it after my hook opened up a little bit. Very frustrating fish but man are they fun to get ahold of! Got a couple screenshots of the fish that were interested but weren't fooled

[DrCro]

Congratulations! I remember my first time, it hurt a little, I hooked into a nice one, but not good enough apparently. To this day I am still learning how to set the hook with an attitude.

Glad you got into some, it is often times easy to get skunked at  Granby. 

[Baetis62]

Well done! I love the Splat of a good fish in graph mode.  Any condition updates you might be willing to share?  Anxious to get our from Dike 3.

[Dkreager]

Well done! I love the Splat of a good fish in graph mode.  Any condition updates you might be willing to share?  Anxious to get our from Dike 3.

As far as ice goes I saw 8" in all 5 locations I punched holes in. About 3" of snow. Some spots looked kinda slushy?? Idk my rule of thumb is if it doesn't look like the rest of the lake it's probably good to stay away. The guys on the quads and sleds didnt seem to mind them though. I caught all my fish between 30' and 50' if that helps. Tube jigs and sucker meat is what I had on all day. Took an hour or so to find a color they wanted to eat and not look at lol. Talked to another group and they were right at 30' and having about the same results I was about 60 yards away and a little deeper. My sonar is the little deeper ball and their flasher is not so great. I'm really new to having any sort of electronics so graph mode is a little easier for me to see what's a fish and what's a bubble coming up lol.

[TimK]

Nice job!  Granby is a fickle b!tch, but that tug will get ya.  Getting a snow mobile for Granby makes a huge difference, at least now when im getting skunked I can cruise around enjoy that 

[CO_Dinky]

Good work!     Granby can give you the skunk easier than you might think, so you did good, especially if this was your first time out there.  Certainly did better than we did at the sausagefest skunkfest... 

[Dkreager]

Yeah a sled would make life much easier! The size of this place is insane! If your not catching fish you may as well start catching a buzz!! Still would have been fun to go put a face to the user names and wet a few lines.

[Bigassbassman]

Nice, glad you found some.  As others have said, without a snow machine that lake is kinda large.  You sure get a workout trying different spots.  It’s also a really good place to learn how to read bathymetry charts.

[Dkreager]

Nice, glad you found some.  As others have said, without a snow machine that lake is kinda large.  You sure get a workout trying different spots.  It’s also a really good place to learn how to read bathymetry charts.

Yeah thanks to CO_dinky hooking me up with the link to those topo maps I was able to find a few spots not to far from the road and they didnt have a ton of people on them.  Way less crowded than the marina at boyd last weekend lol. Caught another 20" this morning and the bite has slowed a bit in the last hour. I think the weather moving in is pushing the fish around

[DanDANthefisherman1]

Good job at first try. Try using big tubes without sucker meat. Keep jogging and looking for reactions .

[CO_Dinky]

Yeah thanks to CO_dinky hooking me up with the link to those topo maps I was able to find a few spots not to far from the road and they didnt have a ton of people on them.  Way less crowded than the marina at boyd last weekend lol. Caught another 20" this morning and the bite has slowed a bit in the last hour. I think the weather moving in is pushing the fish around

No problem! Definitely the best maps available for this state. You can thank guide Bernie Keefe (a friend of mine) for a good portion of the Granby map shown there.

[Dkreager]

Day 2 of the trip I got out early since the wind was supposed to pick up around 12 I wanted to be on the fish and have the hut all secured before it hit. I found the fish again right where I had left them the night before. Little bit slower bite today but I think that was because of the weather coming in. Ice was making a lot of noise, I poked my head out to see what all the noise was about and saw a good sized pressure ridge forming about 150 yards away. Me never actually seeing one form I figured I'd ask if we were still safe. The older guy laughed at me when I asked if we should be worried. He was having the same luck I was which was nice to hear. I'm pumped I had some success on that massive lake on my first go around with her. I'll be back up there soon. If you happen to be up there with a snow machine and you see some poor ***** dragging a sled full of stuff out to the middle of no where, would you mind carrying my auger?? I didnt want to kill that fish but she completely swallowed that jig...

[CO_Dinky]

Have a trip planned up there in a couple weeks to take my buddy's son's Scout troop fishing (took them to Terryall last year).  Glad to hear the ice is doing well!  If we can use the quads it makes our life a LOT easier!

No worries killing the fish.  It's actually good for the lake to keep a few of the smaller pups.  We usually keep some in the 16"-18" range for the smoker.

[TheLegend87]

Planning in heading up there on Friday ! Is there enough ice for a wheeler or sled yet ? Any tips would be appreciated as well ! Thanks in advance

[Dkreager]

Planning in heading up there on Friday ! Is there enough ice for a wheeler or sled yet ? Any tips would be appreciated as well ! Thanks in advance

8" everywhere I went, i was one of the only ones without a sled or 4 wheeler. I caught all my fish between 30 and 50 feet of water. All one tube jigs with the sucker meat

[TheLegend87]

Awesome ! Thank you sir ! We'll give it a whirl and see how it goes. I'll report back after the trip

[troutbiscuits]

Awesome, thanks for the Report.

For X-Mas my wife rented a cabin up there for the 18th through the 20th. Looking forward to (hopefully) getting her into her first Lakers. The Topo maps are an excellent idea, I will be doing the same thing. 

[Dkreager]

Awesome, thanks for the Report.

For X-Mas my wife rented a cabin up there for the 18th through the 20th. Looking forward to (hopefully) getting her into her first Lakers. The Topo maps are an excellent idea, I will be doing the same thing.

That will be sweet! I wanted to get my old lady on some but our son wasnt feeling to well so she couldn't make it out with me this time.

[Dkreager]

Is it common for you guys to miss / loose quite a few?? As I said before, when I decide to set that hook I'm done playing but I lost more fish after my first couple cranks on the reel up there than I have any other time I've been fishing. Maybe cause I was just using the jig heads you buy in the pack for like 3 bucks??

[TimK]

Is it common for you guys to miss / loose quite a few?? As I said before, when I decide to set that hook I'm done playing but I lost more fish after my first couple cranks on the reel up there than I have any other time I've been fishing. Maybe cause I was just using the jig heads you buy in the pack for like 3 bucks??

Missed hooksets for me and many others are very common.  I went 4 for 12 the other day at Willys, including missing the same fish 6 or 7 times.  Lakers have very hard mouths and good hooks are a  must.  Mike at Granby bait n tackle makes pretty nice tube jig heads with trokar hooks.  Sometimes those 16-18" lakers are prettty good at evading the hookset.  I feel my hookup ratio on 22"+ fish is very good though.  Braided line has less stretch but freezes up outside a shanty.  I have a M action spin rod with braided that doesnt get good hooksets, but my MH 40" baitcaster thumps em good with  just mono.

[SLAYERFISH]

Try working a blade bait. They haven't seen many up there-

[JohnnyO19]

Tim is spot on about their mouths and the importance of sharp hooks. Another thing, if using sucker meat, make sure there are no scales on the point of the hook. They can get in the way of a good hook-set.

[Dkreager]

Try working a blade bait. They haven't seen many up there-

Never heard of them but I'll definitely look them up. I appreciate it!

[Dkreager]

Tim is spot on about their mouths and the importance of sharp hooks. Another thing, if using sucker meat, make sure there are no scales on the point of the hook. They can get in the way of a good hook-set.

Yeah I was careful of that. I fished a lot with live bluegill down on the Tennessee in northern Alabama. Missed a handful of good flatheads cause of those scales lol