I had a chance a while back to fish for Burbot one night on Flaming gorge. I had never done it before so I read up on it and we decided to try it. We figured we had nothing to lose but a little sleep "right!?!".
Everything that I read was kinda generic and not very specific. The info I could find basically said to fish the Wyoming side of Flaming gorge, north of the Buckboard marina and find where the water was less then 50' deep and off a rocky point. The articles also said to fish at or near the bottom.
After a short trip up lake and a little searching we found a place and decided it was time to fish. The jig of choice was a 1/2 oz glow in the dark jig with a glow in the dark curly tail body. We tipped it with a piece of sucker meat just as the posts had described and started fishing. Now picture this; three grown men and a boy on a boat in the dark, all with headlamps on trying to catch a fish that none of us had caught before. All we knew about Burbot was that they are pretty ugly but they are supposed to taste like lobster. Rumor has it they have a nickname of poor mans lobster, well we looked the part.
After about 10 minutes of fighting the I-pilot on my electric motor, it finally calmed down enough to hold us over the right depth. Guess when you push the anchor setting on the motor you need to also select A,B or C not just expect it to know, darn technology. Well it didnt take long and we started to actually catch a few fish. First it was Chuck with a small mouth bass, then a few small Lake trout and finally a Burbot. Of course it was caught by Hunter, then the next by Hunter, then the next, do you see a pattern starting here? I did... Then Chuck got one, then another, and I started to wonder what was going on back there, so I headed to the back of the boat to see what the heck the Bigelow boys were doing that I wasn't. Seems they had a better spot than I did, and they were not about to share, no matter how much a cried and begged. So I returned to the front of the boat and tried to catch my own Burbot.
After getting my jig back down to the bottom it was then that Hunter caught another Burbot, and his time it was a dandy,
Well to say the least I was now determined to catch one. But not before both Chuck and Hunter were able to get a few more into the live well, was I finally able to get a couple into the boat. By this time it was getting pretty dark and the only light we had was the full moon. The fishing had really slowed and we moved to a few other places that fit the criteria and fished a little more catching just a few. It was pretty late by then and we had a long trip back to camp across the very dark lake, so we packed it in and headed back.
If you have never driven a boat in the dark on Flaming gorge, or any big body of water, I suggest you have a good fish finder with a GPS. The little Rhino 530 I had was ok, but looking down at that little screen and then up and down again, while hoping you don't hit an island you can't see, is a little nerve racking. But we arrived safely at camp around midnight.
The only advice I can give anyone on Burbot at this point, is they are right near the bottom. We found them within a foot of the bottom, most of the time we let the jig sit on the bottom and then the Burbot would pick up the lure. You also need to charge the jig often with a bright flashlight or even better a good UV flashlight. We would just let it sit there for a few seconds then do a slow lift, and it would just get heavy, not a hard quick strike like what other fish strikes felt like. One thing we did find out the hard way is, do not lip them, they do bite hard and have small teeth and they will draw blood. Most of our fish came just before dark and a little after, it seemed the later it got the slower the fishing got, but we could have been in a poor productive area. Overall it was a lot of fun and we plan on doing it again, with one exception. Next time we will launch from Buckboard or further north. Anvil is a bit of a trip in the dark.
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