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.