Huntington

Fishing Time: 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m
Weather: High 20's, slightly cloudy, with 30 mph winds
Moon Phase: 23% moon
Location: By the dam, Huntington Reservoir

Bait: Pearl white or chartreuse whatta crickets tipped with carp minnow or meal worm

Ice Conditions: 12" thick

Who Went: Me

Not to many people have the urge to wake up at 5:00 a.m. after ringing in the new year to go fishing in sub zero temperatures. Call me crazy but that's the first thing I thought about doing! I was heading south on I-15 by 5:30 a.m. and had a feeling of freedom being by myself and knowing that nothing is stopping me from going anywhere in the state that I might want to be! The target destination ended up being Huntington Reservoir, up Fairview Canyon. I stopped off at the store in Fairview to grab me a snack and a Mountain Dew, and then continued on my journey to the reservoir. I got there while there was just enough light to see and was disappointed at what I found. The wind was whipping at about 30 mph with gusts easily exceeding that! I don't have an ice hut so I honestly thought about turning back towards home. I'm glad I didn't! I got out on the ice and nestled up in a spot near the dam. I was the only one there and the silence of the mountains gave me a surreal feeling inside. As I started to drill through the ice with my auger I noticed that I wasn't making much ground. I soon realized that my auger was broken! I sat there and couldn't believe it! I didn't know what to do. There wasn't a soul around and I was sitting on top of 10 inches of ice with a lake right underneath me that I couldn't even fish! It took me about 40 minutes using every ounce of energy that I had to force my auger into drilling through the ice! There was no way I was getting more than one hole out of the auger so I stuck my fish finder down the same hole I was fishing and called it good! I turned my fish finder on and to my surprise there were fish everywhere! I dropped down and it was on! I was catching fish all the way through the 22 foot water column, even up to 5 feet under the ice. I made it to 20 fish in about 2 hours and then it slowed down only slightly. I got to 30 fish by 11:30 and my fish finder was still showing fish everywhere. The Tiger Trout that I was catching are a very aggressive fish as I found out. I would reel my bait up and away from them and they loved to chase it and then hit it. It was funny as sometimes I would reel up my bait real quick and they would start chasing it, then I would just stop reeling and I would feel a bump on my line cause they were chasing it so fast that when I stopped they would run right into it. The wind made my decision to leave sooner than expected but I was happy getting 30 onto the hard deck! My pictures were not as good as I wanted, but that was because every time I tried to take one my chair would go flying in the wind, or my bait cooler, or anything else that wasn't bolted to the ground!
As I was driving home across the summit of Skyline Drive I couldn't help but stop to take a picture from the top looking down over the valley and small towns below. It was a well needed trip catching fish, as my after Christmas trips didn't treat me as well as they have in the past!