was kindly submitted by Ron Schlauch

My name is Ron Schlauch, and I have been fishing Rifle Lake for several years with my boys and my "fishing buddy" Steve. We like to fish up at the east end of Rifle about 44 miles east of I-5. You take Kosmos Rd. about 4 miles east of Morton and follow it to Taidnapam Park (great
facilities/tents and RV hookups). There is a bridge to fish off of or bank angling right by the
park. We usually fish off the bridge using slip bobbers, or with about 3/4 to 1 once of lead a barrel or bullet weights work the best and a 7" -14" leader. This is the way most of the people fish up at the bridge. The best bait I have found is worms and popcorn shrimp. We have had very good luck fishing this way. I thread 1/2 a worm on my leader and pull it up the leader a ways. I then put 2 or 3 shrimp on my hook(#6-#2) and slid the worm back down till it reaches the shrimp. I know it sounds like a lot of bait for the fish up there but they hit so light you need a couple of shrimp on there to take a couple of strikes.

I have also used power bait, several varieties, but the worms and shrimp seem to do the best. I have tried just worm and switch back only to watch someone down the bridge using just worm catch a big one. we have had good luck using just shrimp but always go back to the combination. The problem the first time we fished up there was when we caught the first fish. My friend Steve and I were standing by the rail and caught a big fish, around 15" - 17", and got it about half way up and it shock off. Well, on the drive home I thought about this problem and pulled in to the drive and saw a old trout net that I had. It was a large trout net, about a 20" opening. I looked at it and found some rope and tied a triangle on the loop and then tied a long piece of rope, about 50', to the top of the triangle. The next day we went fishing again and Steve hook a nice 16" fish and I lowered my net from the bridge into the water and Steve moved his rod over and brought the fish to the net. I pulled the bet up around the fish and pulled it up that way. One thing I found out is I need to weight the net so it sunk in the water a little and so the current didn't move it around to much.
Ron Schlauch