burbs in open water.

[wrenchmonkey]

I know its way early but a friend and myself who enjoy Burbot were talking the other day about wanting to try to catch them in open water. Does anyone know anything about doing this? How, what to use, depth of water ect. I would probably be trying to do it on gull or sylvan. I have never done it but would like to. Also I want to try for whites in the open water. something else I want to try and know nothing about.

[J-C]

From what I understand in the evening and night is the best time unfortunately I've never caught burbot other than hard water so I'm not much help with specifics.

[BEL]

Whites are easily caught in late summer/fall I'm told, SE portion of Sylvan Lake. People I know have caught them with flies. I read an article (I think AO magazine) where a couple of guys used bobbers above a split shot and wire worm--barely moving or trolling. Gotta find the depth where they are living. My son used to catch burbs in Marina Bay when fishing for walleyes. It is closed tll July, at least under last years regs. Hope this helps. BEL

[alodar]

They also like dew worms

[Levy]

We have Caught burbs in open water during the day northern sask fishing for lakers in about 90 ft of water. We weren't watching the down-riggers and were on bottom so my guess would be fish as deep as you can just make sure your not fishing in oxygen deprived waters. "http://www.alms.ca/content.php?content=1#whatis" There are some reports on this website that should give you an indication of what depths are anoxic at what times of the year in Sylvan Lake. If i remember correctly anything under 4 mg/l dissolved oxygen is consider anoxic (unsupportive to fish), however 6 mg/l is typically the lowest concentrations fish will put up with. Just a guess based on what my experience has been.
For the whites you might want to try fly fishing when there's hatches. I often see whites swirling on surface to eating bugs in the summer, in my area. I usually just troll around them for big pike but have had a couple bite small Rapalas near surface.

[Daceminnow]

i've heard rumors that guys do very well in the spring night fishing on the oldman dam reservoir. anyone else heard this?

[Dust1n]

marina bay for sure we getem at the marina all year round not any but we do get em for the best bets go wake up early like 4:30am and bve there at 5:30 use a pickeral rig with a nightcawler tipped with a fat minnow and place it infront of the water creek from the golfcourse area and this works well in spring and latefall we get a whol bunch before sun up then they just leave...
i haveseen em swimming around in the lighhouse too but they wernt intrest in aything even a deadstick minnow. we tried leeches and worms aswell. they look like a black ghost in the water swimmingnea surface at niht and thers tons of burbot near the peir in mid summer on the east side of the peir there they they bite reddevil spoons twitched on the bottom in front of there noses and they just snapp at it wth no bait. good luck.

[KegRiver]

I offered some tips on open water fishing for Burbot on the North Saskatchewan river thread.

I have never caught them in winter. Always in open water, mostly from mid summer till fall. I have not tried to catch them in spring.

They do seem to be more active at night, but I have caught almost as many during the middle of the day. Probably because that is when I do most of my fishing.

One last thing. I have never had one take a moving bait. Leave the bait sit on the bottom, sometimes for hours.