Weather: Partly cloudy, no wind, warm, 40’s
Moon Phase: 80% Moon
Location: Flaming Gorge Reservoir
Bait: 7 inch tube jig, burbot green
Who went: John, Rick, Me
John and I arrived in Manila, Utah around 6:00 p.m. on Friday night and checked into the glorious Flaming Gorge Inn Motel, yeah right. It was a dump, but good enough for a few fishermen to lay their heads for a couple nights. Our buddy Rick was meeting us up there but didn’t arrive until midnight. In the meantime John filleted his bluegills from Pelican Lake on our TV table and I watched espn. Once Rick arrived we hit the sack, but I only got about one hours sleep that night after listening to all sorts of interesting noises that came out of John’s mouth! You might as well have stuck an air horn in my ear and rang it off every half second it was that loud! Rick got about the same amount of sleep, but either way we were mack fishing so we were happy as a kid on Christmas! We met up with a local mack expert that I had been talking to on-line, and he took us to his favorite spot to fish through the ice. We fished there all morning with Rick, John and I all landing lake trout from 15-25 pounds.
We then ventured out onto some thin ice (2 inches) trying to be the first ones to fish one of the best areas. John was a little sketch about being the biggest guy on the ice and it got to the point where every step he took cracks would form around his feet. We laughed a little at his expense!
I was the big loser at the new spot missing 3 fish in the span of one hour! After a few cuss words and finally settling down, the fishing completely shut off, which is normal for lake trout, so we gathered up our gear and prepared to move to another spot in search of the dreaded burbot. To fish for burbot your best odds are at night, so we loaded up the ice shack and heater and hit a rocky outcrop and fished in about 20 feet of water. We finally got the technique down after someone fishing the same area showed us that aggressive jigging was the key to catching these ugly things. Most of them were small, but Rick did land one decent sized one.
The excitement for burbot wore off pretty quick so we called it a night. John had to work the next morning so he grabbed a rockstar and hit the road for home while Rick and I went back to the motel and got what felt like the best sleep I’ve had in years! We woke up early the next morning and were on the ice before light. The fish seemed a little more moody than they were the day before, but I did luck out and land a 17 pound fish when he hit as I was dropping my jig to the bottom (complete luck), but besides that we had a rough morning.
I finally got fidgety and decided to move out to another hole close by, and man I'm glad I did! On my second drop down I could see a fish on my fish finder racing up to my jig. As soon as it hit, my pole doubled over and line started racing off my reel. I instantly knew this was not the same size fish we had been catching previously and yelled over to Rick to come over. The fish went on three long runs lasting about 15 minutes before I was able to get him up to the ice. Then we spent another 5 minutes trying to get his head out of the ice hole so that Rick could land him. Once we pulled the fish onto the ice I just sat there in awe!
We weighed him quickly and took some photos and then slid him back through the ice and off he swam to live another day.
It was a trip and a fish I will never forget, and meanwhile this fish has now become famous. Rick submitted it to the local outdoor TV show Roughin it Outdoors and they will be airing it on January 29, 2011. It will also be in the Salt Lake Tribune in the "Away" section as the Hook Shot of the week on February 6, 2011. The tribune outdoor writer, Brett Prettyman, posted the fish and story on his Salt Lake Tribune Outdoor Blog site on January 28, 2011, and an editor from BoatU.S. ANGLER magazine took notice and emailed me saying they loved the picture and want to put the photo and story in there April issue. The recognition for this fish just keeps pouring in! The editor for the magazine told me she would enter the photo into a national contest and if I win they would mount the fish for free. This is by far the most famous fish I have ever caught!!!
It was a trip and a fish I will never forget, and meanwhile this fish has now become famous. Rick submitted it to the local outdoor TV show Roughin it Outdoors and they will be airing it on January 29, 2011. It will also be in the Salt Lake Tribune in the "Away" section as the Hook Shot of the week on February 6, 2011. The tribune outdoor writer, Brett Prettyman, posted the fish and story on his Salt Lake Tribune Outdoor Blog site on January 28, 2011, and an editor from BoatU.S. ANGLER magazine took notice and emailed me saying they loved the picture and want to put the photo and story in there April issue. The recognition for this fish just keeps pouring in! The editor for the magazine told me she would enter the photo into a national contest and if I win they would mount the fish for free. This is by far the most famous fish I have ever caught!!! 
John and I had a trip planned up at Flaming Gorge to fish for lake trout, but decided we might as well head that way a little early on Friday and get in some bluegill fishing at Pelican Lake first. I left my house at 4:00 a.m. to pick up John before making the 3 hour trip with only a few minor stops and arriving at the lake around 8:00 a.m. We had the lake all to ourselves the whole day, and by noon the ice looked like swiss cheese after we drilled hole after hole trying to locate where the bluegill were at. It was interesting because once we found the depth where they were holding (20 ft), every hole we drilled had fish below. Problem was it seemed like we fished out every hole after 4-5 fish, so we’d have to move and drill another hole to find happier bluegill. We ended up repeating this process all day long and kept about 25 of them for John to fillet, but the final tally was much higher than that.
It was a perfect day with blue skies and no wind. This was my first time ice fishing Pelican Lake and it was fun catching bluegill, but I would be lying if I said that Flaming Gorge wasn’t in the back of my mind the entire time. John loves his bluegill though, so he was happy. We hit the road around 2:00 p.m. and continued onward towards Flaming Gorge, but stopped to look at the impressive Flaming Gorge Dam before reaching the small town of Manila, Utah where we were staying. Story to be continued…
In another attempt to land a pike or musky through the ice, Rick and I headed to Yuba Reservoir. Yuba is a lake we have successfully fished for big pike during the summer months, but are eager to land one of these big fish through the ice. We arrived at the lake a little after sun rise and were excited to see that the lake had just recently froze, and even though we have had record snow fall this winter, the ice was covered with only a skiff of snow on top. This makes walking easy, and for us it meant that every corner of the lake was accessible by foot, with a little work. We looked at our map and pointed out a few areas that have produced pike during the summer and we decided to make the trek. According to the map we were looking at approximately 2.5 miles each way! The journey wasn’t bad, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t sore by the end of the day. Once we arrived at the pin-pointed location, we set-up some tip-ups baited with anchovies and sent them down near the bottom in 20 feet of water. We used our fishing rods and tried to entice some perch out in the deeper areas (25’-30’) using ice flies tipped with wax worms. After close to an hour of fishing one of the flags on the tip-ups popped up and it was game on! We ran over there and Rick carefully took the line in his hand and set the hook! At first it seemed as if he had missed the fish, but then he told me there was definitely something there, but it didn’t feel very big. He was right and we were very disappointed as he hoisted out a 12 inch perch!
That’s a big perch, but not what we were looking for. We re-rigged the tip-up and sent another anchovy down thinking the perch was a fluke. After another hour with no bites on the tip-ups or our rods, we went exploring a few other points with only a fish finder and ice auger in hand, hoping to find an area with good pike holding structure. Unfortunately with the lake being so low during the winter, it was almost as if Yuba was like a big bathtub and gradually just got deeper as you made your way from shore to the middle of the lake. The structure was all the same, making it hard to pin-point any areas that would seem more productive than the other. After drilling multiple holes and unsuccessfully finding any structure, we headed back around the point and into the bay we were fishing. As we made our way around the point we noticed that one of the tip-up flags had been tripped so off I ran. When I got there I grabbed the line but the fish was gone. Now we were kicking ourselves thinking we missed our chance at a pike through the ice! We re-rigged with an anchovy and sent it back down. Shortly after re-baiting, the same tip-up tripped and I ran over and set the hook on a fish, but again was disappointed when I realized it was another big fat perch, and no pike. Now we knew the first perch wasn’t a fluke and were discouraged thinking no pike were even around. The tip-up flags began popping up regularly now and every time it was another big perch. I landed one perch on my rod, but the rest were all on tip-ups rigged with a full 6-inch anchovy and being inhaled by 12 inch perch!
We moved the tip-ups into shallow water (10-15 ft) and tried there for around an hour before packing up and making our way all the way back to the car. We stopped and fished at the dam for a few minutes hoping to find some perch in the deep 45 foot water, but all we found were a few non-biters. We dragged the sleds up the hill, packed the car, and left Yuba discouraged, sore and tired as we drove home depressed that we will never land a pike or musky through the ice. I don’t know anyone in Utah that can consistently land musky, pike, or walleye through the ice and the weirdest part is that it is very common on the lakes back east and up north. What makes Utah so different? I don’t know the answer yet, but I do know that my next ice fishing trip will be somewhere I can catch a fish!