Advice for Canyon Ferry

[chrisb1377]

Hello,

First time posting here. I am looking at doing the Ducks Unlimited Ice Fishing Derby on Feb 17th. Have never fished there, mostly Georgetown. Any first timer advice? Derby is set around the Silos Campground.

Thanks!

[mtoutdoorsman]

Canyon ferry can be very fickle to fish. When targeting walleye and perch commonly you need to get to deeper water, usually starting 25+ FOW. From Silo's depending on water level can easy be a mile and lot of fishing takes place further/deeper than that. So depending if you have transportation matters greatly. Easy route would be to follow crowds. Once fish found most normal ice baits work. Biggest thing is to get out there and give it a go. Over all I recommend Ducks on Ice usually a good time.       

[mtjohn]

Biggest thing is that you need to be willing to move to find the fish. Once upon a time you were able to fill a dump truck with 9-10" perch out there, but anymore you're lucky to get a limit of 10. They're quite a bit bigger now though.  FWP needs to stock something else for the walleye and pike to eat besides perch. I can't wait until the pike start decimating the stocked trout, hopefully they'll throw some ciscos or something in there once that happens.
MT

[BigSage]

Until TU is out of the picture, FWP won't do anything to help the walleye and perch

[meandcuznalfy]

Until TU is out of the picture, FWP won't do anything to help the walleye and perch

That'll never happen, TU is a big organization and well established, so they'll fight the walleye and pike in all those reservoirs forever

[PerchPounderMT]

Until TU is out of the picture, FWP won't do anything to help the walleye and perch

99.9% of the people making those decisions are fly rod waving members of TU so good luck.     

[BurbotsNBourbon]

Last time Canyon Ferry got stocked with anything other than Rainbow Trout (according to the FWP site) was '94 and then '86 before that... both times were brown trout.

Frances, Fresno and Nelson have only been getting stocked with Walleye for at least a couple years.

[RobG]

Do you guys have better luck fishing the old river channel, or does it matter?

[albo]

yes, and it does matter.