Back to the Gorge

Moon Phase:

Fishing Time: 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Weather: partly cloudy, breezy, high 20's

Who Went: JJ, Ed, Me

We made a quick and dirty trip to the Gorge this weekend, with many adventures along the way! We headed up in the Kinder family motor home on Friday night after work. It was a good ride and we parked 20 yards from the lake at Swim Beach, where we planned to fish in advance. We slept in the motor home and got an early nights sleep, even though it went against what some of us wanted! We got on the lake early and found a depth of 100 feet of water and set up shop! We fished for 3 hours without so much as a bite! We had a few followers but none that would take what we were offering. Swim Beach through the ice is known for very few bites, but monster fish if you can land them! I was jigging my second pole and Ed was over looking at the fish finder with JJwhen I looked over at Ed's pole and it was doubled over and about to go into the water! I ran as fast as I could and grabbed the pole just before it went down. When I pulled it up the fish started taking drag and I knew this was not a small fish! I fought and reeled in the fish until Ed finally made it over. He took over from there and that's where it went down hill! As he was trying to reel it in using baby steps, it came unbuttoned! Those are the ones that haunt you! We will never know what was on the other end! Oh well, that's what makes fishing exciting! We fished for about another hour and JJ made fun of me for bringing my famous ice fishing meal including, Ding Dongs and a Mountain Dew.After awhile we got an itchin to just catch some fish! We decided to head to the old reliable hump off Buckboard Marina! The way there was another adventure in the making! As we were driving we saw a guy off the road with no help having arrived yet. He was a little shaken up, but okay. The roads were snow packed and very icy, so when the guy told me he was going 55 mph I was not surprised to see him off the side of the road! After some pushing and hard work we had him back on the road again, and we continued on our way to Buckboard! Then as we were trying to make it down the dirt road to Buckboard Point, the motor home got stuck on a snow drift! It had me a little nervous but with some digging and more pushing we made it out in less than a half hour! Finally we were there! I even got the GPS to work so we walked straight out, and right on top of the hump we like to fish! GPS is amazing! It didn't take long to find fish and I was on the board within minutes.Then the tides changed and I soon found out that the Kinders were in the money hole! They caught about 9 to my 3 before I decided to hole pirate them and get into the action!We stayed til dark and had a blast catching Lake Trout! No big ones though, and the curse still lurks with me! Some day it will happen! The sunset was gorgeous as usual! The trip home was a little scary! The wind picked up bad and the roads were completely iced over! JJ was not liking it one bit! It made a 3 hour ride home into about a 4 and a half hour ride. Scary, but we made it home safe. can't wait to go back! Flaming Gorge is by far my favorite place to ice fish!

Where To Go?

Moon Phase:
Fishing Time: 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Weather: Partly cloudy, high 40's
Who Went: John Schuler, Me



This years ice fishing has been extremely tough! All through January we got pounded with snow! It must have snowed almost every day! It has been a nasty winter! This does not make ice fishing very easy without snowmobiles (which I don't have). There is around two feet of snow on every lake! Choosing a place to fish has been mind boggling! It's just too hard to find areas that havn't already been hammered by other fisherman! With all this in mind, we saved money on gas and hit Jordanelle. Driving through the Hailstone campgrounds the snow on the sides of the roads must have been ten feet high. The walk wasn't to bad if you stayed on the packed down snowmobile tracks, but if you ventured off, you were trudging through snow up to your knees! We finally found 30 feet of water, after drilling a bunch of holes at 50 to 90 feet! When we dropped down, John instantly started getting hits by the Perch! He caught Perch all day long, most of them being finger length, with a handful pushing 11 inches! I tried to stay away from the Perch as much as possible to find the trout! I found a five, but they were all Rainbows around 12 inches long.It was a beautiful day and we both got sunburns. The future looks grim for this years tail end of the ice fishing season. Im not sure if its even worth going out in this winter wonderland! But you know I still will!

Perch Bustin at Yuba!

Moon Phase:

Fishing Time: 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Weather: Morning snow, clear afternoon, high 30's

It was time for a little perch bustin and Yuba was the place to be! On the way down it was a total blizzard and we were all packed in the Kinder motor home! We saw these elk just off the road on highway 89. When we got to Yuba and it was already packed!We set up shop right in the middle of the pack and started throwin the perch on the ice! JJ started it off with a nice perchzilla! Soon after we all started landing fish, except Ed!

My moms friend Teri Vanwinkle has a nephew, John, that moved here from Ohio and she said he liked to fish! So I invited him along for the ride and he said "cool I've got all my gear." Little did I know that meant surf rods made for catching ocean fish! Here is a pic of his rod.
We all laughed at him but it didn't stop him from slaying the perch with the rest of us, oh except Ed! We were all using various perch busting small lures and jigs tipped with minnow or meal worm and then we each put out a pike pole with an anchovy, but none of us had any takers. We were trying hard to get Ed on the board. We were all just knockin em dead and Ed could not even manage a bite! I finally gave him my pole and put him in my hole with my jig and the fish finder to see if we could land him a perch!
After a few misses and us pokin fun at him, he finally got on the board with a nice perchzilla!

We stayed until about 1:00 and then got a weird urge to try Utah Lake! So we stopped with 33 perch and hit the road! I left my camera in the motor home when we got to Utah Lake, but it wasn't that exciting anyway. JJ landed 1 perch and we stayed for an hour or less and then headed for home! We definitely got our perch fix in for the year and thats enough for me. Now I wanna find the big fish! It was a really fun trip for a change though!