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!