Weather: COLD,
calm, Temps were -5 in the morning and single digits in the afternoon
Moon Phase: 55%
Moon
Location: Flaming
Gorge
Water Temp: 39
degrees
Best Bait: small
tube jig fished shallow for rainbows and pup mack
Who Went: Rick,
Bobber John, Dunc
Another winter trip to Flaming Gorge and just like the last
few years, there is no ice. No problem,
because I have a boat, right? Well yes,
but we were about to find out, boats don’t like temperatures below
freezing. The last couple years have
been mild and fishing from the boat wasn’t too big of a deal. This year taught us a valuable lesson of what
boating in real winter conditions is like.
We arrived late in the night to our cheap motel after
driving through a snow storm that had us on edge the entire way. The drive took over 4 hours and I slipped 5
or 6 times on I-80, which is not fun pulling a boat. However, the forecast for the next two days called
for no storms, calm winds, and cold temps.
We woke up the first morning and were greeted with -5
degrees, but calm conditions. Everything
seemed okay until the motor on the boat would not turn over. I thought my battery
was zapped, but for whatever reason after a few minutes it decided to start. Once the boat was launched it became obvious
that everything on the boat was frozen.
The pea hole on my motor wasn’t spitting water which is how the engine
cools itself, so we had to use the portable heater to thaw it out. After that it was the front thruster motor
that was frozen. We need the thruster
motor to fish, so we spent time thawing that out. Lastly, my fish finder seemed to be on the
fritz, which wasn’t really a cold issue, but more of an old issue! Not sure if it’s my fish finder or my
transducer, but one of them needs replacing.
Ugh. We spent half the morning
trying to dial in the fish finder just to get a glimpse at what was beneath
us. We ended up getting it to work okay,
but not as well as we needed it to effectively fish for big lake trout.
Frustrated, but still excited, we went to work to find some
fish. Not many fish were showing up and
doubt started to creep into our minds.
Is it the fish finder, or is there really no fish? It really put into perspective all the things
that must go right to effectively fish for lake trout on Flaming Gorge. Finally, a few groups of fish were seen, and
Rick had two bites, but missed them. He
was frustrated, but it gave us hope. The
hope didn’t last long though, and we ended the long day with no more
bites. Lame.
The second morning brought more cold temperatures and this
time my boat was completely frozen. After
pulling it out of the lake the night before I think all the water instantly
froze and this morning the boat was an ice burg. To make matters worse, the cove that the
marina sits in was frozen with about an inch of ice.
We spent the first 2 hours of the morning thawing my steering wheel, throttle, and motor to get them to move. After that we had to launch the boat into the
ice and break our way through. The boat
didn’t seem to want to come off of the trailer, but after some prodding it
finally let go and then I realized why… the running board was frozen to the
bottom of the boat and finally snapped and came off the trailer with it. Plus, my tail lights on the trailer were
smashed from launching through the ice.
Was this worth it? Not sure but
we were in too deep to quit. We used an
oar to pry and pound the running board off the bottom of the boat and then Rick
strapped it back onto the trailer using some large zip ties I had in my boat.
Okay the motor is running, boat is off the trailer, and we
fixed the running board. Ready to go,
right? Wrong. We had to slowly break through the ice and I
worried the entire time as I heard the pops and cracks of breaking ice. I thought for sure we were putting holes in
my boat. Luckily, the boat survived and
we were finally ready to fish at 11:00 am.
Not exactly the best fishing time for lake trout, and four hours later with
no bites, it started to feel not worth it.
We finished the evening by fishing the shallows trying to get the skunk
smell off the trip. We caught a couple
decent rainbows and one pup mack to end the night. We didn’t get skunked and we didn’t drive
home in a snow storm. How’s that for
looking on the bright side!
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