Big Lake

Boat ramp hours are 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. If you’re looking for rainbow or brown trout, as the saying goes, “the early bird catches the worm.” Or if you’re the last one out of the water, the best times are early and late in the day when the sun is rising or setting.

Lures with erratic action such as a Little Cleo Spoon, jerkbait or beadhead streamers such as a Wooly Bugger or Egg Sucker Leech have proven successful when working rocky shorelines or coves. Lake trout have definitely moved deeper, but they are not stopping yet. Look for them in 60 to 100 feet of water. A black maggot with a 100-gram glowing head with a small piece of sucker and your favorite scent attached to the tip has produced the best success lately.

Traffic on the water is still heavy and should ease in the coming weeks. Please take care of yourself and be aware of others when you are on the water.

Williams Fork Reservoir –

The east boat ramp hours are 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Currently, water levels are dropping rapidly. The lake is 98% full. Inflow is 43 cubic feet per second, outflow is 156 cubic feet per second. Surface temperatures have risen to 66 degrees Fahrenheit in the early morning and warm to just under 70 degrees by midday. This is driving lake trout to deeper, cooler waters. Visibility is about 12 feet on the west side of the lake, 10 feet or less on the east side, where free-floating algae accumulates from the wind.

We are still catching some lake trout in 60 feet of water, but most of the fish are in water depths over 70 feet. The dog days of summer are here. The lake trout are starting to bite, right now we are seeing 8 to 12 fish per trip. Depending on how many fishermen I have in the boat, we fish with three to four different jig types and colors, all of which bite equally. When you find biters, they will bite on any type of plastic you drop. A soft presentation fished on or just above the bottom works right now.

Pike are slow as usual, partly due to a decline in the population and the fact that many of the larger fish are no longer in their original habitat. They have moved to deeper waters where food is available, making them difficult to catch. Please practice catch and release of all pike caught.

Brown trout forage on the rocks north of the east boat ramp and in the bay before the sun hits the water. The lake has not been stocked with rainbow or kokanee salmon since 2019 to keep gill lice under control, so fishing for them has not been particularly successful.

Lake Granby

Boat ramp hours are 6-8 p.m. Water temperatures range from 65 to 70 degrees, warming to just under 70 degrees by the afternoon. Water levels are 95%, or about 3.5 feet, below peak. The pattern for rainbow and brown trout continues. Once the sun hits the water, the bite slows until it stops. Small, crawfish-colored Dynamic Twitch Tubes used on rocky drop-offs or jerkbaits used in transition areas between mud and rock have proven to be a reliable pattern.

Despite the rising water temperatures, trout fishing in the lake is still very good. Look for trout in 20 to 30 meters of water in various large lakes where there is deeper, cooler water nearby. A dark colored 100 gram jig head with a pink glow tube or a maggot tipped with a very small piece of fresh sucker bait has produced bites. Later in the day, when the fish become finicky, you can remove the tail of the maggot or make the tube smaller to keep the fish biting.

As always, pay attention to the electronics. If you have fish and they aren’t biting, it’s time to find similar structure and another group of fish. They are guaranteed to bite somewhere in the lake.

The Fishing with Bernie team has been guiding in Grand County for over 25 years. For more information visit FishingWithBernie.comor visit us on Facebook.com.