Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
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I'm Adam Eakle and welcome to beautiful Starvation Reservoir. Pete and Ben from Sportsman's Warehouse in Midvale called me and said 'hey let's go to Starvation and catch the Starvation Slam. I said sure, but what is that?
(Pete Milburn, Sportsman's Warehouse) The Starvation slam is you catch walleye, perch, smallmouth, and of course rainbow trout and hopefully a brown trout all in the same day and that's what we are going to try and do today, pull off a grand, starvation slam.
Starvation has been on the radar of many fisherman lately. Not only is there good bass, walleye and perch fishing, but the last couple of years Starvation has been gaining a reputation as a great rainbow fishery. Tonight, we're going to show you some good fishing, but our goal is to give you some tips and techniques from some of the best fisherman in the state to help you come out and catch some fish.
(pete Milburn) (adam) you brought a cooler for your worms? (Pete Milburn) you bet, I like to keep my worms nice and insulated. (adam) what is that? (pete) it's my Fraybill, worm and leech container. What I've done is I've froze the bottom of it. I filled it up with water and froze it. It's got two compartments in it. I froze the bottom of it, then I put ice water in the top, rinsed the worms off.
(Pete) and then you throw the worms in here, it will keep them fresh and cold all day long, even with this container out in the sun, being insulated, the worms will be perfect. Don't worry, they won't drown.
(adam) and you don't get your boat and your hands all dirty. (pete) that's right no dirt all over Adam's pretty little boat.
Tonight we want to show you a popular technique for targeting walleye. It's often called spinner rigging or bottom bouncing. Brad Cutler is one of the most knowledgeable walleye anglers in the state.
(Brad Cutler, Rocky Mountain Anglers) equipment is one of the keys for spinner rigging and bottom bouncing for walleye. One thing that is really helpful is to get a real with a flipping switch on it. What the flipping switch does is it allows you to push down, you can let the line out that you need to adjust, lift your thumb and it automatically locks you in the right depth that you need to be at.
(Brad) I like to use a two ounce bottom bouncer with generally a size 4 Indiana or Colorado blade, that's a good thing, that's what I normally start with and a two hook rig like this.
(Brad) the first thing you've got to do is hook your nightcrawler on properly.
(Brad) What you want to do is when you hook your crawler on your spinner rig, is you hook it through the front hook, stretch your crawler out and then hook it through the back hook like so, it runs straight.
(Brad) The most important thing in my mind is how much line you have out, it's very critical. If you let too much line out, your bottom bouncer goes down and it drags on the side. So you want to have it so it's just barely ticking the bottom as you go across here. The next thing is when you are hooking a fish, when you get a bite. You'll be going across, feel a bite, what you want to do is drop your rod tip back until you've got it tight again and you feel the fish and then you sweep it straight forward like that. You don't jerk it... and that will set the hook in them.
(ADAM) What have you got? (pete) feels like a rainbow. (adam) feels like a rainbow, but were bottom bouncing for walleye. (pete) well sometimes you can bottom bounce for rainbows. (pete) big ones! Starvation steelhead. (adam) that's a pretty one. Look at that he's tail walking. (adam) nice fish, dang they are thick.
I've caught every species of fish at Stravation using the bottom bouncing technique. If you've never experienced these hard fighting rainbows, here, you'd better get out and try them. They're a lot of fun for kids of all ages.
(Pete) oh look at that, she's a sow. Oh...don't break her off.
Coming up, we show the progress the DWR has made with their urban goose project, but first let's find out a little history on starvation as we check out tonight quiz question.
