Chub Slayers

[LOAH]

The original plan for this week was a trip to Scofield with the family, but my wife backed out and I jumped at the rare opportunity to get out with my friend, who has a very unusual work schedule which normally keeps his weekends booked.

My good friend Holdsworth had never fished Scofield and I hadn't been there myself for quite awhile, so we decided to make a Sunday out of it.

On way to the lake, I thought it would be nice to stop along the highway and pick on the lonely cutts in Soldier Creek. Just a quick stop, we were in and out in 10 minutes. Holdsworth reported a couple of missed bites and I was able to pick up a small cutt and my first brown from this creek.





Once we had arrived at Scofield, we fished the shorelines near the dam and were fast into some 13 inch cutts and rainbows with big heads and skinny bodies. Lures weren't working too well, but minnows and nightcrawlers did the trick.

We fished for a couple of hours before deciding to try the creek, below the dam. Right as we were leaving, I hooked into one of the fabled chubs of Scofield, which I'd heard a lot about but never actually caught. It was about 7 inches long and plump.

At the river, we didn't get much accomplished, but we ate some lunch and fought the wind for awhile before bagging that idea and fishing the lake again.

This session at the lake was quite different from our first, with only chubs hitting our offerings on nearly every cast, even lures. It was a massacre and the crayfish surely thanked us. The rare trout, although small, was something to celebrate when they came to visit.

Here's Holdsworth with a small tiger:



We noted that whenever a cutt or a rainbow was caught, they were sickly looking with big heads and skinny bodies, but the tigers seemed to be pretty thick at any size. The chubs were all large and portly with big round bellies. The smallest chub of the day was 5 inches, the largest at 14 inches (really), and the average went about 10. Scary.

After hours of wading through chubs and the odd troutling, I finally got a break when I threw a worm out to the middle. Right after it hit the water, it was in the mouth of a really aggressive tiger trout that fought like mad. What a relief it was to finally fight something to my hand!



It measured 19 inches, so back it went to grow a few inches.

A short while (and a bunch of chubs) later, another worm casted toward the middle brought in a solid tiger, this time a hook-jawed male. It fought strangely and it was hard to figure out what was going on until it was visible.

When I got it to shore, I noticed it had wrapped itself up in my line, but when I went to remove the hook, I realized that it wasn't my line in its mouth! Someone else had caught and released it, leaving the deeply swallowed hook and some extra line (as they should in a slot situation).

So how did I hook it, you say? Well I'm not sure how it managed this mess, but it somehow wrapped itself in my line to the point of no escape. The hook wasn't even embedded into anything.

Technically, I suppose, this will go down as a foul-roped fish. It was also 19 inches and swam off strongly.





Now that's a total of two fish I've roped in my life. Neat!

After the 2 big fish, the chubs kept us busy for a short while longer, until the sun hit the horizon. At that point, our fishing day was over and it was time to drive home, reflecting on how much Scofield has changed in such a short amount of time. It's a sad situation and the chub problem will likely get worse before it gets any better. The big fish might be able to coax me into another trip this fall, but that's iffy at best.

See ya later, Scofield.



Happy Fishing, Humans.

[ibenick]

Excellent report Loah!

[NevadaAngler1]

Excellent photos of your fish... Love Em!