Ice Augers

A couple of people have recently asked me how I fish through the ice. How do you dig the hole through the ice? I explain, of course, that this is done with an ice auger. It is like a big drill for use on ice. I have a power one run off gas and also a manual one. I usually use the power one, especially if the ice is over a foot thick. On the latest trip to Fish Lake the ice was 20 inches thick so I was glad I had a power one. The trip before that, if you read the post “Ice Fishing at Fish Lake” you will recall that the power auger wouldn’t start and Bill and I had to use a manual one. This worked fine although we did limit the number of holes we drilled because it is a bit more work.

Bald Eagles and Turkeys

Upon arriving at the frozen lake this week, there was a bald eagle on a nearby tree that seemed to be waiting for our arrival. It watched as we hiked across the ice but as we started the power auger, it flew away. I love seeing wildlife like this on my fishing trips.

On the drive to the lake and on the way home, Bill and I saw a few wild turkeys. The last wild turkeys I saw were in Zion’s National Park. My family used to see them in Indiana as we drove along the more out of the way roads.

After Bill and I had counted the perch we had caught, to make sure we were only keeping 50 each, and were starting to head back to the truck, two eagles were flying overhead. After we were 30 or 40 feet away from were we were fishing, the birds swooped down to investigate. They were interested in any fish we left behind. Indeed, there was one small perch that we released that wasn’t able to swim back down to the lake depths that the eagles would have found. I’m glad the eagles were able to get a good meal out of it.

Tarter Sauce

When I eat fish, I like tarter sauce to go with it. I have put together an easy, yummy, home-made tarter sauce recipe that I’ve been experimenting with lately.

Howard’s Tarter Sauce

1 cup mayonnaise

4 slices of pickles or equivalent, chopped

1 tablespoon of minced onion

2 tablespoons lemon juice

½ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

A couple of shakes of salt and pepper


Chop the slices of pickle into very small pieces. Add to the mayonnaise. Add the other ingredients and mix well. Refrigerate at least an hour. Since the minced onion is dry, it needs a bit of time to rehydrate so it will not be crunchy. The flavor of the tarter sauce also seems to improve after sitting a couple of hours. Enjoy!!!

Perch Fry

With all those perch I caught at Fish Lake, I was able to try using the smoker to cook the fish for pulling off the skin and de-boning and then frying the fish in a batter. This time, I did not marinade the fish and did not add the wood chips to add the smoke flavor. Since the perch are so much smaller than white fish, I cooked the fish in the smoker for only 1.5 hours at 225 degrees. After cooking, the skin easily came off. The meat also easily pulled off the bones except for the bones from the rib cage. These I had to pull out by running a fork or knife along them to dislodge them and then they came right out. The meat stayed together quite well and was perfect for dipping in batter and frying.

For the batter I used a mix from a box called Fish'n Chips Seafood Batter Mix made by McCormick. Turning the stove to medium, I added enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the frying pan. I dipped the pieces fish meat in the batter and placed them in the pan for a couple of minutes then turned them over and let them cook for another couple of minutes. Since the meat had already been cooked I wasn’t concerned with cooking the meat itself, just the batter on the meat.

Perch is my favorite fish for eating. They are not fishy tasting at all. My favorite part of this cooking experience was the next day when my daughter Madison, who is a picky eater, came home from school. Walking into the house she asked “Dad, do we have any more of that yummy fish that we had for dinner yesterday?”

Smokin' White fish

The rivers I frequent seem to have an abundance of white fish. White fish is reported as an oily fish that is excellent for smoking. I mentioned this to my wife, who by the way loves to eat fish. Well, guess what I got for Christmas?




On the last trip I made to the Weber River I kept four of the many white fish that I caught. They were good size, 17 to 19 inchers. I buried them in the snow as I continued to fish and then I gathered them up and placed them on a stringer during my hike back to the truck. The limit for white fish in Utah is 10.

At home, I cleaned the fish and placed them in a brine marinade to soak refrigerated overnight. Here is the recipe that I used which is from the Masterbuilt smoker manual:



Water 2 cups

Soy Sauce ¼ cup

Teriyaki Sauce ¼ cup

Salt ½ cup

Lemon Pepper 1 tsp

Garlic Salt 1 tsp

The next day, I sprayed the racks of the smoker with oil and soaked a ½ cup of alder chips in water for a half hour. I set the smoker temperature to 225 degrees and the timer to 3 hours 30 minutes. Then I took the fish from the marinade and placed them on the smoker racks. I drained the alder chips and placed them into the smoker and started another ½ cup soaking. In a half an hour I drained the other chips that were soaking and placed them in the smoker. This kept the smoke going a good solid hour.

At the end of the 3 ½ hours, I pulled the fish out. The skin had turned somewhat hard and was easy to pull off. Smoking the fish with the skin on has a couple of advantages. It is easier to pull the skin off after smoking, and most importantly, it retains the juices and keeps the meat moist.

Next I pulled the meat off the bones with a fork. An advantage of smoking the fish whole is that the meat comes easily off the bones, whereas if filleted, you loose a lot of the meat.

Of course, the fish were very delicious. I will keep experimenting and let you know what works. This method I just tried worked well for fish that you will eat right away. Some variations I would like to try are: 1. smoking the meat so it dries and can be kept for long periods of time, and 2. using the smoker to cook the fish for pulling off the skin and de-boning and then frying the fish in a batter.

Ice Fishing at Fish Lake

My wife gets up every morning at 4:45 to exercise so when Bill and I planned on a trip to Fish Lake, leaving at 5:00 AM would be no problem. I told Jennifer to wake me when she got up and I’d be set. Bill was right on time. We loaded my gear that I had assembled the night before. I placed the worm containers in my pockets so they wouldn’t get put in the back of the truck with the rest of the gear and freeze to death. I ran into the house and quickly put on some sun screen and we were on the road by 5:10.

Fish Lake is a three hour drive from Salt Lake. When we arrived at the lake, we found that the road leading to where we wanted to go had not been plowed so we parked at the gate and just hiked across the ice. For some reason the power auger wouldn’t start. Luckily we had a manual one. Rick had actually given me one when he moved to Texas and I told him that it would be perfect as a backup for when the power auger wouldn’t start. Thank you Rick! The ice was about 20 inches thick.

Using Bill’s fish finder, we located an area where the water was between 15 and 40 feet deep. We drilled several holes at various depths. I put a white paddle bug on the swivel that I had attached to three feet of 8lb fluorocarbon leader. This was attached to 20lb spider wire. I then put some Stanley’s Ice Off Paste onto the guides. Since the guides on the ice fishing poles are a lot larger that those of a fly rod, the Stanley’s Ice Off lasted the whole day without having to re-apply. I pulled the meal worms out of my pocket, broke one in two and placed it on the paddle bug’s hook. I then lowered it through to hole and worked out enough line to hit the bottom. I could tell when I hit the bottom because the line went slack. I planned on reeling the line up a foot or two off the bottom but as I started to real up, I felt a jerk. (Ya okay, a jerk at one end of the line waiting for a jerk at the other end). I pulled up on the rod sharply and was fast into a fish. Pulling the fish out of the hole and onto the ice I found it was a 6 inch perch. I pulled out the 2010 Fishing Regulations and checked that the limit for perch was 50. The limit for trout is 4. What are the chances of catching 50 perch and 4 trout?

Have you ever had one of those days when the fish just keep biting all day? Bill and I couldn’t even leave the line in the water long enough to eat a sandwich for lunch. And we certainly didn’t have time between strikes to set up a second pole. As Bill told me, this is every fisherman’s nightmare.

Luckily, interspersed with the perch were trout. You could always tell when you had a trout because rather than a light, jerky pull; you would feel a stronger, steady pull. This would usually be in one direction and then the other. The first trout I caught was an 18 inch rainbow. The next 3 were splake. A splake is a lake trout/brook trout hybrid. They have white spots on their sides like a lake trout but vermillion markings on top like a brook trout. They are sterile and have a fast growth rate. Bill and I ended catching about 80 perch each. We let the smaller ones go. This would have been the perfect situation for introducing a child or someone new to fishing. Such fast, continuous action would have kept a kid entertained all day. It even kept us dads entertained all day.

Note:  I know this doesn't exactly fit the topic of Fly Fishing, but in the winter sometimes the fastest fishing is through the ice. 

Ice On The Guides

Last Saturday was a nice, clear day, although somewhat cold. At the river it was 26 degrees, somewhat colder than the water itself which was 37 degrees. With the air temperature below freezing, I pulled out some Stanley’s Ice Off Paste. It is a paste that you can put on the guides to help prevent them from freezing up. It actually reminds me of fly floatant when it is cold and a thick paste.

There were three cars at my original destination so I headed a little further upstream and parked near the bridge. There were only two cars there and I could see one fisherman working his way downstream so I decided to cross the bridge and head upstream. Saturdays are usually more crowded but at the same time, I’ve always had good luck on Saturdays. Often I see people leave just as I arrive in the afternoon. Sure enough, the fisherman who was fishing upstream was just headed back to the truck so I had the whole upstream section to myself.

The water is a little deeper under the bridge so I thought I might as well at least give it a shot before hiking further upstream. I cast upstream and across as I usually do, allowing the nymph to sink and then float drag free under the indicator as it works its way downstream. I raised the rod to pick up line and prevent drag as the indicator came closer and then lowered the rod and gently flipped the line upstream as the indicator floated past. This is when the indicator hesitated and I lifted the rod. I could tell right away from the head-shake it was a big white fish. After an embarrassingly short fight for an 18 inch fish, I slid the fish up on the ice to remove the hook. There’s nothing like catching a fish on the first couple of casts to warm up the reflexes. Further up stream at the next hole, I caught a couple more white fish and then a couple of nice brown trout. It’s nice to know I can catch something more that white fish.

Back to the Stanley’s Ice Off Paste, it worked well at first but after a half hour and three or four fish later, I could feel that the line was not shooting out the guides as well as it was earlier. I put more paste on the guides after breaking off the ice. This kept them free again for another half hour or so. In the end, Ice Off Paste works, but you do have to keep applying it every30 to 40 minutes or so.