What's happening at the Berry

Fishing Time: 7:30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.

Weather: Cold, no wind, single digits

Moon Phase: 71% Moon

Location: Strawberry Reservoir

Ice Thickness: 12 inches

Bait: White tube jig tipped with minnow

Who Went: Hunt, JJ and his friend Dave, Newt and his friend Chris, Rick and his friend Chad, Me

Every year when I put up my new calendar I mark the 26th of December as "the best fishing day of the year". Strawberry Reservoir usually freezes right around Christmas day, and if you can time it right, which is usually around the 26th, the fishing can be rediculously good! I recorded my personal best at the berry on this day two years ago when I landed 51 cutthroat trout, including a nice 24 inch, 5 pound cutt. That being said, this morning started with great anxiety and anticipation to duplicate the years past. This year was a little different though, as temperatures have been very cold and Strawberry has been frozen for almost two weeks now, the ice has already felt the footprints of many fisherman hoping for the same success we have experienced. We got to Chicken Creek East early in the morning and walked out onto the ice in -11 temps before the sun started creeping over the mountains. We set up shop at an extending point where I have had a lot of success in the past. Once the fishing began I instantly hooked into my first trout of the day. Once released, I dropped my jig down again, and before it even got to the bottom I was already reeling in another one. This one was nice and probably hit the 4 pound mark. Thoughts of a great day started to enter my mind! I dropped my jig down again, but this time I sat there for an hour with no bites. To make matters worse, none of the other 7 guys I was fishing with had any bites either! We decided to go on a fish hunt and hiked close to another half mile out to the island to see if the unchartered territory might bring more success. I managed to catch two more fish out of the area but that was it! We moved again with the same result, only this time I landed one fish. The rest of the group was still skunked! Two guys I was with decided to give Strawberry the birdie finger and left early, while the rest of us made the trek of a lifetime across the entire bay over to a little cove we felt might hold fish. When we got there I quickly hooked up with a fish and the others started to get angry with my success. Soon after though,

they all got into the mix each catching a few of there own.

JJ landed this cutthroat that had no color at all! I think it could have been an albino. I took a close up picture to show how the fish literally had no color pigment at all!The somewhat faster fishing didn't last very long and soon enough the boredom got to us. We decided to have an Ice Auger Championship, "man vs. machine". Hunt is probably the fastest I have ever seen at drilling a hole through the ice with a hand auger, so we put him to the test. This is the results of round one...

Since JJ encountered some starting malfunctions we decided to give him another chance in round 2...

It was a tight race, but it looks like if the machine starts quickly it will make it through 12 inches of ice faster than man. After that excitement was over we decided to call it a day. As we crossed over the entire bay to get to our cars we ran into some interesting moments. The crystals on the ice made for some cool pics.

We also ran into some sketchy areas in the middle of the bay that looked to be open water and some very thin ice. It was like a mine field and we had to be very careful all the way back to our vehicles.

Solitude on Ice at Utah Lake

Fishing Time: 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Weather: clear, calm, 30's

Moon Phase: 5% Moon

Location: Utah Lake

Ice: 4 inches

Bait: Glow Tube tipped with minnow or worm

Who Went: Me
One of my ice fishing goals this year is to land a walleye through the ice. I made my first attempt tonight at Utah Lake. I arrived to the warm springs near the "L" at Lincoln Beach around 4:30 p.m. There was absolutely no one around and it felt like I had the whole lake to myself. First thing I did was walk onto the ice and drilled a hole to check for strength. Ice was a solid 4 inches so I was good to go! Gathered my gear and walked out to an area that looked walleyeish. I drilled about 12 holes in all different depths and locations. Next thing I did was go back to the shore and sit there for 45 minutes. Sounds crazy I know, but I have heard that this is the secret to walleye fishing at Utah Lake. The lake is very shallow and walleye are so timid that you have to be very quiet, so you don't spook them off. You can't be trudging all over the ice drilling holes in 5 feet of water right above their heads! Once my 45 minutes was up I tippy toed as quiet as I could out onto the ice and began fishing each and every hole. I saw a fair amount of fish on my fish finder that came up to my offering, only to move on without a bite. I stuck it out well into dark but it wasn't to be, so the walleye go up 1-0 in the series this year.

Early Ice Fishing in 2009

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

Weather: Windy, partly cloudy, 20's

Moon Phase: 84% Moon

Location: Scofield Reservoir

Ice: 6-7 inches

Bait: Ice Flies tipped with meal worm or worm

Who Went: Dave, JJ, Me

I know it's a little early for ice fishing, but the itch started early this year, and I heard that Scofield was already frozen with the recent cold snap we've had. With that said, we made the trip to one of the coldest places on earth! When we got there I was shocked that my truck said it was a cozy 9 degrees. I was expecting temps in the negatives. I stepped out of the truck and soon realized that with the wind, my expectations were met. It couldn't have been over -10 with the windchill factor! Half the lake was still open water so we were careful as we walked out onto the ice and checked it for strength. It was solid as a rock so we made our way out to a spot that looked good. We set up shop and we were all glad that JJ brought his new ice fishing shack that is about the size of a house. It fits three guys very comfortably and I am amazed how far the ice shack engineers have come in building these things. It went up in under 5 minutes. As soon as we started fishing we began getting hits and seeing fish all over the fish finder. We had a hard time hooking anything for the first half hour until Dave hooked up and we found out why. We were sitting right in the middle of Chub City! We started landing little chubs left and right! We started getting some trout in the mix as well, so we just stayed put since the weather didn't really give us the urge to move. The trout were all small and we caught cutthroats, rainbows and Dave landed one Tiger Trout. Once the weather calmed down a bit we decided to venture to some new holes. I think we should have done this a few hours earlier but oh well. We didn't catch as many fish, but the ones we did catch were trout. JJ was having a tough day so he decided he was gonna start fishing out of Daves hole .We ended the day with a total of approximately 40 chubs and 36 trout. Trout totals were me at 18, Dave at 14, and JJ with 4. The ice fishing has officially started and with the cold weather sticking around the other lakes are probably close already! As we walked off the ice I took some photos of the open water out in the distance. If you look close in these last two pictures you can see it just past the guy in the orange pumpkin suit.

Last Boating Trip of 2009 at the Berry

Fishing Time: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Weather: Foggy morning then clear and calm

Moon Phase: 77% Moon

Location: Strawberry Reservoir

Water Temp: 39 degrees

Bait: White tube jig tipped with minnow or worm

Who Went: Phil, Troy, Me

The picture above is what it looked like at Strawberry Reservoir when we showed up on Friday. It was about 20 feet of visibility at the most. Lucky for us I have a gps and we were able to navigate the lake just fine by following the gps maps on my lowrance fish finder. This picture shows how important the gps was for going through tight terrain with no visibility. The red lines indicate our traveling path. We had nothing to go off other than electronics! Crazy!

Phil and I heard some good reports about the Renegade area so that's where we started fishing. Phil's cousin Troy started out with the hot hand and started landing fish immediately, and soon after Phil and I started getting into the mix. The fish Phil is holding was around 4 pounds.

This fish I caught had some plastic surgery gone bad...

We caught fish all morning in complete fog and calm water. It was cold, but with no wind the conditions were bearable. The fog didn't start burning off until around 10:00 and once it did we realized that we were not the only boat in the area. There was a boat next to us that was reeling in what looked to be a very nice fish. We motored a little closer and watched as they landed a very nice cutthroat. They yelled over to us and asked if we had a scale they could weigh the trout with, so I brought mine over to them in hopes of getting a better look at their nice fish. I took a picture of it, but it was from a distance and doesn't do the fish justice. It weighed just under 7 pounds. After Renegade we went on a journey fishing every corner of the lake. We never found anywhere that was extremely fast fishing, but we seemed to catch a few at every stop. We went a little ways into the narrows and in one spot had to trudge through some thin ice. I was a little nervous about scratching my boat, but it ended up being fine. The narrows were gorgeous as usual, but the fishing was slow. I have never seen the lake this calm and it lasted all day long! In one little bay near the marina I landed this nice fish that went just under 5 pounds.We ended the evening fishing the last hour of daylight in the back of East Portal Bay near the marina. The fishing picked up and made for an exciting finish with me and Phil fighting for the crown of most fish caught in a day. Phil went on a three fish run and tied it up making it very interesting, but then I caught two insurance fish right before dark to seal the deal. I ended up with 18 fish on the day and Phil at 16. Troy didn't keep track but he was probably close to both Phil and I. It was a great way to put the boat into hibernation for the winter with one last successful trip. Now it's on to ice fishing...

Walking Thistle Creek

Fishing Time: 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Weather: Sunny, clear, 50's
Moon Phase: 15% Moon
Locations: Thistle Creek, Spanish Fork River, Hobble Creek
Bait: #1 Gold Mepps Spinner
Who Went: Phil, Me

The weekend forecast called for snow, snow, and more snow so I got my hours in for the week and took a half day off on Friday to go fishing. I talked to my cousin Phil and he wanted to go, so we decided with the limited time we had we would run up to thistle and walk the river for a couple hours. When we got there we saw an SUV parked in our fishing territory and soon realized that they were working the same stretch of river that we planned on fishing. It was frustrating but we headed down to the river anyway. In the first decent fishing hole we found I had a fish on with my second cast. It was a about as good a fish as your going to get on Thistle Creek so I had Phil take my picture with him before letting him go. As I was letting him go, Phil had a fish follow his spinner down the river and then the fish just stopped and stared at it when Phil couldn't reel in anymore. So Phil dragged the spinner up stream for about a foot and the fish took it. We thought it must be the dumbest fish in the river and we got a pretty good laugh over it.
I casted one more time into this hole before moving on and caught another small brown. I told Phil after taking some pictures, we won't have to worry about pulling out the camera anymore in between fish since it's kind of a pain while walking the river. Little did I know those would be the only 3 fish caught all day! We continued upstream and started to notice a lot of footsteps in the mud and realized there was a reason we didn't catch anymore fish. Those two guys had obviously beat us to the punch and fished that stretch of the river just before us. We decided to leave and head down the canyon and try a stretch of the Spanish Fork River where a guy that Phil knows claims to catch 5-6 lb Browns on a regular basis. When we got there the river looked good but the water was flowing extremely fast. We could barely wade through it without losing our footing and falling in the river. It might still be a good spot, but not when its flowing like that. Then we went back to Phil's house and grabbed his two boys and took them up to Hobble Creek. I had to move some tables at our family cabin for thanksgiving so Phil helped me out real quick and then we ran down to the river so Dax and Stratton could catch a fish. It was tough fishing such a small stream with a spinner. If we would have had a worm I am sure we could have caught fish, but the only thing we came prepared with was a Mepp's Spinner. We had fun walking the stream anyway with Dax and Stratty. They found sticks and ran around having a good time. I can't wait until Devin is in the mix running along with them!

Returning the Favor

Fishing Time: 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Weather: Sunny, clear, 50's
Moon Phase: 65% Moon
Location: Price River
Bait: Orange glow bugs
Who Went: Rick, Kobe, Sheldon, Me

Back in the middle of September I took Rick Everson on a trip to Flaming Gorge to show him my technique on how to land big Lake Trout. Due to bad weather and inactive fish, we didn't land the big one we were looking for, but Rick was nice enough that even though we didn't get what we were looking for, he followed up on his end of the deal and took me on the river to see if we could find any big ole Brown Trout that might want to play. Rick brought an extra fly rod for me to use. Yes I said fly rod! I decided it would be fun to give it a try. I know I bag on it quite a bit and usually call them lint throwers, but I actually had a lot of fun doing it and might be purchasing a fly rod of my own very soon. We fished on the Price River right below the Dam at Scofield Reservoir. We hiked in about a mile and a half and then worked our way back to the dam hitting every promising looking hole on the way upstream. It was a fun way to fish as we all had polarized glasses and we were basically sight fishing. See a fish and cast to it trying to entice a bite. We were using glow bugs, which look like a big orange fish egg, as we were expecting the browns to be spawning. We seemed to have just missed the spawn, but the glow bugs were still working well. The first fish I tried to cast to made for quite the experience. I snagged about twelve bushes, tangled my line about ten times, and couldn't get the fly anywhere near the fish. After this first blunder of trying to get the fly fishing down, I felt I picked it up fairly quickly and didn't have many other problems, but that first attempt took a lot of patience from Rick and I think he thought he was in for a long day! Two other guys came with us and they were both fly fisherman as well. Kobe works with Rick and then Kobe's cousin Sheldon tagged along as well. Rick is a really good fly fisherman and landed the first fish we saw on the river. We soon found a hole that was stacked with fish and had some nice ones in the mix. We all started landing fish from this hole and this is where I caught my biggest of the day. Rick also caught fish out of this hole, including a new addition to the Price River, the Tiger Trout.

Sheldon got in the mix with a nice cutthroat...Then Kobe landed this nice brown... I continued to catch fish all the way up to the dam and had a great time. I made Rick take some actions shots of me fly fishing cause I told him my other fishing buddies would never believe I actually went lint throwing!

Rick took big fish honor for the day with this fat brown... I almost hit for the cycle on the river as I caught browns, cutthroats and a tiger trout. All I needed was a rainbow, but it wasn't to be. I had a lot of fun fly fishing and I could see me doing it once in awhile just to get out and walk the rivers. I don't spend enough time on the rivers now that I have my boat.

Fall at the Berry

Fishing Time: 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Weather: Windy, Windy, Windy, sunny, clear, 50's
Moon Phase: 80% Moon
Location: Strawberry Reservoir
Bait: White tube jigs tipped with minnows or worm
Who Went: Phil, Mike Zenger, Me

I only had to work a few hours on Friday so I called my cousin Phil to see if he wanted to make a late morning run up to the berry. I think he was pretty excited about the phone call and so the plan was made. Phil's buddy Mike Zenger also wanted to go and the smack talk of who would catch the most fish began before we even got on the road! We got up there around 12:30 and were welcomed with gale force winds! We headed through the white caps past Mud Creek Bay and back into Strawberry Bay where we started our day. On the first drop of the day I missed two good hits and I had no idea that I was about to put on a clinic on how "not to" set a hook all day long! Zenger caught the first fish to start us off and the smack talk started to get good. Phil also started catching fish as well, but I was still fishless! We also ended up fishing at Chicken Creek East, and the back of East Portal Bay without much success. The weird thing was we actually got a decent amount of hits throughout the day but just didn't land many. I was the worst missing hit after hit, but Phil also missed quite a few and Zenger some as well! With about an hour left of daylight, Phil had a slight lead on the fish count and Zenger was right behind him. I was in last place with 1 fish and about 30 missed hook sets! It was frustrating to say the least! The wind was still whipping so we decided to hide behind the mountain over at Haws Point and try our luck there until dark. It ended up being a good choice. The wind finally died down and we started catching some fish. Unfortunately we only had about half an hour to do it until dark. Phil and Zenger continued to battle for supremacy while I stayed at the bottom. The final tally was 9 fish for the winner Phil, 8 fish for Zenger and 4 for me. The weirdest part of the trip was that we never found any areas where we continually saw fish on the finder. Even when we started catching them at the end, they were not showing up on the finder. We just couldn't find any good concentrations of fish! We had a blast though and want to get back up there before winter sets in, so I'm sure we will!

Check Off Another Species

Fishing Time: 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Weather: Windy, warm, sunny, clear, 50's

Moon Phase: New Moon

Location: Round Lake- Uinta's

Bait: Renegade and Mosquito flies behind a bubble

Who Went: Justin Hunt, Josh Newton, Dustin Pelligrino, Me For a long time now I've read reports about fisherman making these long hikes deep into the Uinta's to find a species known as the Arctic Grayling. I was always intrigued by this small fish that looked so different in pictures than anything else I have ever caught. Well I got my chance to go after them this weekend when my deer hunting group decided to hunt in the Uinta's. I did my research on where the best place would be to catch grayling and found that there is a reason people hike so far to catch this species. The only lakes that hold Arctic Grayling are the highest lakes in the Uinta's and all require long rugged hikes. After studying maps and talking to everyone I thought would have helpful input, I decided on three lakes that all held grayling and each sat about a half mile away from each other, Round Lake, Sand Lake and Fish Lake. All three lakes sit at 10,000 feet in elevation and require a rigorous 4 mile hike in, and that's just to the first lake which is Round Lake. Its another mile to make into the last lake which is Fish Lake. It looked tough and steep on the map, but the fishing sounded promising! We of course got a late start on the hike, getting to the trail head around 11:00 a.m. Grino had his rifle just in case a monster buck showed its face, and Newton and I were both armed with pistols on our sides for deer purposes, but more importantly, in case we ran into a hungry black bear.

The hike was absolutely gorgeous, but very difficult and when we started seeing these tracks all the way up the trail, we were glad we brought protection. We hiked through many different types of terrain on the way up and took pictures all the way. We started out in the quakies and then hit a small meadow with the Weber River running through it. The lakes we hiked into are the headwaters of the Weber River. After the meadow it was straight pines so we knew we were starting to gain in elevation.

Not to long after hiking into the deep pines we hit some steep rocky conditions along with some snow. It was like this for about 2 miles!

After trudging through the snow with wet feet, we finally made it to the first of the three lakes. We only rested for a minute before we tied on a fly and a bubble and started casting. I had two hits on my first cast but had nothing to show for it. It has been a few years since I last fished using a fly and a bubble and it is a difficult thing to master especially for a bass fisherman like myself. I have a tendency to rip lures through a fishes mouth with my hard hook sets, and fishing with a fly and a bubble requires very finesse hook sets, and even more so when your catching grayling which are a small fish to begin with and have very small mouths.Finally after about ten missed hits, I hooked and landed my first ever Arctic Grayling! It wasn't a state record by any means, but it was a beautiful fish.

After that it was Hunt's turn, but he started out with the hot hand for cutthroat. He must have landed a half dozen of these guys before finally landing his first grayling.

Then it was Newtons turn... And Grino's turn... And then there was a grayling double up by Newton and Hunt... After about two hours of fishing we all landed quite a few fish and had a lot of fun, except for when I slipped and fell shin deep into the lake! We didn't make it to the next two lakes cause we just didn't need to. We caught plenty of fish in Round Lake. We also wanted to hit the trail going down in the light and do a little evening hunting. We still ended up hiking the last mile in the dark. We hunted pretty hard on the hike down and even took a side trail for probably another half mile round trip, but didn't find anything living. We got to the truck in pitch black conditions with no moon and we were all beat! It was a full day and felt like a great accomplishment. We must have hiked close to 9 miles total. That only leaves one fish on the list of gamefish in Utah that I haven't caught, and I have a feeling there might be a story of that one being caught very soon!!!