Humpbacks in the Desert

Took off Wednesday afternoon and picked up a friend of mine who was flying into Boise from Phoenix for a few days of fishing, we headed out in the remote parts to fish a reservoir i had good luck with last year and to sample a couple new ones. The first morning we fished the one i fished last year and
I was in for a surprise ... I have never caught so many fish that had injected themselves with steroids....:oops:

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We started calling them piranha's when we'd catch one and they were noticeably smaller than the other fish we caught although i did catch a nicer one that reminded me of a beluga whale...

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About half the reservoir is shallow with a lot of weed beds and i assume the fish are feeding in an endless buffet line My thought is the body can't grow fast enough length wise so they grow vertically? Aside from the humpback fish we hooked into a multitude of normal fat fish. Mainly threw leech patterns and color didn't matter

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We then headed out to fish another reservoir in the area....


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We got to the reservoir and fished for a couple hours without a bump so we decided to head back to the first one. On the way back we fished a 1/2 acre pond and caught fish that were taking water boatmen off the surface, lots of small fish and a few 14 inchers...
Our original plan was to pack up and drive 3 hours to fish another one that may or may not hold good fish in numbers and we thought why leave fish to find fish since we doubted we would find any fish better than what we were catching so we finished our trip at the first one...

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Fished the last day and had major rain and wind coming... We loaded up and barely made it out of there, the roads were slimy with all the rain but got out in the nick of time.... Hopefully the fish will survive the winter and we'll make a return trip next year for the humpbacks...

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Great report as always Brian. I have seen one or two fish with a humpback like you showed but not multiple like you had. Alot of nice fish shown.

Peach
 
Twinkies fly ? Incredible fish!
Caught a few trout hatchery fish over the years that were definitely missing length. Those trout are the opposite of a kelt steelhead or a really stretched out Summer run steelhead.
 
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