Fishing Report 2-2-10
Apparently the fish in the Jicarilla Lakes are waiting until the derby on Saturday (2/6/10) before they bite. The trend for catch rates lately has been steadily heading downhill at both Mundo Lake and Stone Lake. The weekend news from Stone Lake was sad again this week with a lot of anglers (10-15) on the ice and very few if any fish landed. Mundo Lake, which is typically the go to water on slow days has also dropped off substantially in the past few weeks. The one upside to this trend is that there isn’t really any proven strategy out there right now, which should make for an interesting competition this weekend. The ice is in good shape but the water layer is still present and slush might be an issue on warm afternoons.
At Mundo Lake there is a 3 inch layer of slushy ice on top of 4 inches of water, which is on top of 11 inches of solid ice. In the mornings and throughout cold days the top layer of slushy ice is stable enough to support a person. Mundo has been slow, and bait seems to be fishing better than jigs lately. Rosie and I were out on the ice for 3 hours this morning. I fished a number of different jigs with only one hook up. Rosie caught one fish on a green jig and that was about it for us. The 4 gentlemen fishing next to us faired a little bit better on powerbait. They had several bites, a couple of hook ups, and 2 fish on the ice by the time we left. The only other angler on the ice did better than the rest of us. He was using a peach/salmon colored powerbait and caught 5 fish in 2 ½ hours. The reports from the weekend were similar with no better than 2-3 fish per hour reported.
At Stone Lake things have been rather dismal. I only received one direct report this week, but the hearsay was pretty bad. On Saturday there were approximately 15 anglers on the ice and only one fish between them. The report I received came from a group of 7 anglers who fished 3 ½ hours without a single bite. Sunday was similar with 3 anglers reported and another skunk for all. Stone Lake is known for off and on fishing and hopefully Saturday will be an ON day. After all, one 10 pounder can make a huge difference in the ice derby.
The 4th Annual Jicarilla Ice Derby is here at last and we are expecting another great event. We have a truck full of great prizes, t-shirts for everyone, and a one day on-site raffle for tremendous hunting and fishing opportunities. Please contact Kevin Terry at 575-759-3255 with any questions or visit the
www.jicarillahunt.com website for more information. I hope to see you all out there on the ice.
Kevin Terry
Fisheries Biologist
