Blue Mountain Lake

Anyone fished Blue Mountain or the Petit Jean River recently?

I'm thinking about driving out there Thursday but don't know how the drawdown has affected everything.

Heard they have a temporary ramp built but have not been yet.

Just called the COE office and the lady there said the river might be 1 or 2 feet low. She said they put in a low water launch at Ashley Creek. I also asked her about the big fish die off they had in the hot weather (approx. 3000 fish) and she said it didn't have a big effect on the population...
I'm gonna go anyway and I'll post a report.

You won't recognize the place if you have not been in the last 3 months. Take a camera and photograph all of the stake beds and brushpiles that are 5 to 6 feet out of the water.....on the south bank from the damsite park area you can see trees that appear to be 100 ft long on their side in what I think would be the river channel. Hise Hill ramp ends 5 ft in the dry. Damsite park ramp is 3 ft in the dry and rock piles have been placed in front of it. Grass and weed growth has been good from what you can see at the launching ramps. The old Ashley creek ramp was dry and although a very shallow slope...it was 100 ft from water 2 months ago.

4 weeks ago you could still launch at the 3rd bridge ramp at Sugar Grove.

Well we went out on the Petit Jean Friday and the girlfriend caught a nice one on the first cast with her new pole. It was really slow going the rest of the day tho. We launched out of Hise Hill, they have put in a really nice low water ramp. The last time we were there the water must have been 10 feet higher cause were paddling into the trees and catching them.
We gave up about 2:30 and drove over to Ashley Creek. There is a low water ramp there, you drive on a old road on the dry lake bed to get to the gravel ramp at the river channel. We didn't launch - instead we stood outside and watch a storm blowing up the valley from the West. While we were there a doe came running across the lake bed about 100 yards away and jumped into the river, swam it and ran up the hill on the other side.
We then drove to Waveland and it was all dry - there really isn't a lake anymore, just the river in the old channel. I did mark some brush piles on my handheld GPS for future reference.

Chazrull,

Thanks for the update. Did either of the low water ramps look like I could launch a 20ft fiberglass boat without tearing it completely to pieces....did it appear that they are letting folks ride 4 wheelers around the lake to GPS spots?

Basscat1

Hey Basscat - I sure you could launch at Hise Hill with no problem. I wouldn't advise it at Ashley creek. I did see what looked like 4 wheeler tracks on the lakebed at Ashley creek but couldn't tell you if it was "officially" ok.