New Waters - D.M.A.D. Reservoir

Saturday morning came early for us at 4:30 am, loading up and preparing for new waters. I had been looking at this water for some time now because it holds Walleyes and Catfish. D.M.A.D Reservoir, I still haven't learned what it stands for, is a shallow basin lake on the Sevier River drainage. Being shallow, and I mean shallow average depth today was 4 ft., it is also a warm water lake with Walleye, White Bass, White Crappie (one of the few lakes with them), Catfish and Yellow Perch. Parker and I were on the road by 5:00 am to our new destination about 2 hours from our home we arrived there around 7:00 am and fish were actively jumping. We thought this is going to be a good day on the water. On the water and lines in by 7:15 we started with what the reports said were the hot tickets, Catfish we had shrimp on the hook, and we casting chartreuse green jigs and rapalas. We fished up the lake toward the inlet thinking early spring the walleye would be stacked up, fished for about hour slowly moving and positioning ourselves where we saw the right structure on our electronics and reading the bank for points, brush, and rock out cropping’s. We threw different types jigs and rapalas all day as we moved around and tried different presentations for the set lines we were using for the Catfish. 

We fished until noon, Parker had to get back for work and having not so much as a sniff at anything we were throwing at them we decided to chalk it up as a Bluebird day on the pond and go get lunch. Not a single fish was hurt in today's adventure, but we did have good time at a nice desert lake with high cliff walls and sandy shore lines. At its deepest I doubt the lake gets over 8 ft. in depth on average, some pockets of deeper 20 feet and river channel but mainly flats with some reeds along the banks. We worked our electronics to find what we felt were great holing spots for the fish we were targeting. Sometimes, time given isn't enough for time needed to find the pockets on new waters. No excuses we bombed on our first outing to D.M.A.D Reservoir we will return with a better scouting report and better understanding of the layout of the lake. 

The lake is primitive in that there are no services available and the ramp is a single wide quite steep drop in. Reports said that it is a recreational lake but I don't think I would put my ski boat on it. We had UTV's riding the banks and lots of water fowl with us all day. We pulled into one of the reed islands of the lake and started pitching jigs and out of the middle of the reeds a big Canadian goose came blasting out, we almost jump out of the boat not anticipating having a big Canadian explode out of it and so close to us, we had a good laugh at each other as we calmed back down after the adrenaline rush and focused on the fishing again. Wish I had the video camera rolling it would have been a good clip.

As we were leaving we had 5 Black Hawk Helicopters come right over us at low altitude doing practice maneuvers, we waved and took a couple pictures of our brave and unselfish military in action, thanks for all you do for us and our country!!