Quick Trio Trip to The Gorge

Fishing Time: Friday to Saturday

Weather: Windy!  Cold!

Location:  Flaming Gorge Reservoir

Moon Phase: 8% Moon

Best Bait: White Tora Tube w/ 1 oz jig head

Who Went: Bobber John, Rick Everson, Dunc

The Trio felt a Gorge trip was needed as it’s been a while since we all went together.  We talked about it and decided we should hire Captain Jim to help us find more fish and let him control the boat while we focused on fishing.

The guided portion of the trip was kind of a bust.  Don’t get me wrong, Captain Jim put us on fish.  In fact, he put us on more biting fish than I’ve ever seen.  But the Trio turned into amateur hour and missed more bites than should be allowed in a lifetime, and I was the worst.  I hooked up once, but got my glove caught in the reel and couldn’t get it out.  I ended up losing the fish.  It was flat out embarrassing.  That was the first time I’ve ever seen the entire group get skunked with Captain Jim.

After the guided portion of the trip was over my favorite foe, the wind, began blowing and didn’t stop the rest of the trip.  We had a couple hours of bearable wind the next morning and took advantage of it by hiding down in Sheep Creek, and Rick hooked up and finally put one in the boat!

The wind continued through the night, but we really wanted to get out and do some burbot fishing.  We packed our ice fishing gear and headed north near Buckboard and set up the shack to get out of the wind.  The fishing was decent, and Rick and John caught a couple hogs.  Man, they are ugly.

The last day was so windy we really shouldn’t have even launched the boat, but we are gluttons for punishment.  We headed to Antelope Flats and started searching our usual haunts.  We found one hump that had some active fish and dropped our jigs.  By now it was literally all we could do to keep our feet and not fall.  We really couldn’t fish effectively, but I was determined.  I decided to use my ice fishing rod to better control my presentation and it did help.  Out of no where I got a bite and laid the wood.  Unfortunately, my rod didn’t take the force and snapped in two.  There was pieces of rod and braided line all over the boat and I was frantically trying to figure out how to put it back together cause the fish was still on!  Bobber was helping as I tried to hand line the fish.  It worked for a while, but finally popped.  When I pulled in my line the leader to braid knot had failed.  Probably because I put to much force on the hand line.  Either way it was pure disappointment and I had to think about it the entire drive home.