Well here we go again and what a great way to start the 2017 season. A beautiful week end with the weather great and one off my favorite repeat customer’s Dave Petrocco of Petrocco farms and his son Dominic from Denver.
Dave’s boy Dominic is well trained by his dad and caught a bunch of fish making for a great trip for him and his Dad. The fishing was work for them but we fished to limits of walleye and almost their limit of smallmouth bass on Sharpe and then put the boat in on Oahe for a half day of fishing for Northern and catfish. We threw back a couple of northern one around 14 lbs. and another maybe 8 lbs. and a bunch of catfish keeping five of the best eaters for their flight back to Denver.
Fishing is good but not great yet on Sharpe with limits for a lot of boats on the water but some not filling. From what I heard Wille Gloe and crew won his own Northern Tournament with a catch of nine pike for ninety some pounds with the biggest fish around 18 lbs. Most teams had two or three fish on Oahe in this tournament on Saturday.
The bite on the big lake for walleye smallmouth etc. is early and slow yet with water temps in 40’s on the main lake and in creeks up to 50 degrees. Sharpe has temps around 50 degrees now with things starting to go.
The bait of choice: minnows on jigs/pulling shallow plugs for walleye and smallmouth, and dead smelt/herring pike sets for northern with creek chubs good also.
It is great to have a sunburn and be back on the water and I will start posting reports now in a regular time frame probably around every two or three days. Weather this coming week looks not so good so watch it real close as it is always the biggest factor this time of the year. The year looks normal on Sharpe and hopefully on Oahe also but the lower end might push more boats fishing from the Cheyenne north due with the lower end of the lake spotty but we shall see as it is too early to tell. There is a lot of boats around for this early in the year so expect company at boat ramps like west bend etc. If that is a factor in fishing for you right now you can escape this by fishing Oahe but the bite is harder.
Kent “Hutch” Hutcheson
Hutch’s Guide Service
(605) 220-2844
