Fishing Time: 7:30 am to 3:00 pm
Weather: Mostly Sunny, calm, T-30s
Moon Phase: 62% Moon
Location: Fish Lake
Best Baits: 6-inch tube jigs (white and rainbow) on ¾ oz jig
head
Who Went: Casey Davies, Stuart Dahl, Dunc
My cousins have been fishing Fish Lake and asking a lot of
questions on location and techniques to catch a trophy lake trout. I’ve helped them as much as I can, and finally their efforts paid off. I got an excited phone
call while they were on the ice followed by this photo. They couldn’t weigh it, but it
was the biggest trout they have ever caught.
This got me excited to get down there myself. I haven’t been there for a
few years, but it’s always in the back of my mind as I’ve had some memorable
days at Fish Lake. A couple buddies from
work wanted to make the trip so we headed to Richfield the night before
to ensure we got a good night’s rest and were there at first light.
The morning was beautiful, and we made it to the lake on time, but Casey’s gas-powered ice auger had plans to try and ruin our day. We spent a good 30 minutes trying to fix it but to no avail. I had my ice chisel, but with 12-inches of ice and 3 holes it took another 30 minutes until we were ready to fish. An hour or so late, but we were finally setup.
I dropped my Active Target II down the hole and got it dialed to our depth. The active target is truly amazing. We watched fish come in and look at our jigs and was able to gauge their reactions. This helped to know what jigging techniques worked best. You can literally see the fish and watch as they swirl or nose down on your jig.
Once we figured out which technique worked
best Casey hooked up with the first mack of the trip.
We continued fishing, but unfortunately fishing with 3 in
the same tent made things a bit difficult.
Stu and I kept getting our lines crossed and we had to cut off and re-rig three
times. We continued fishing and had a
nice group of 3-4 fish show up on the Active Target and sure enough, I hooked up with one. However, on the
hook set I snapped the butt end of my rod.
I could still fight the fish, but I had to do it with no support below
the reel. Then a few seconds later I
realized that I was also tangled with Stu’s line. Trying to work through the chaos the fish
decided to wander over and wrap up in Casey’s line, so now I was
fighting the fish with a broken rod and tangled in both Stu’s and Casey’s line. It was a mess! Somehow, we got him onto
the hard deck only to see that he was barely hooked. What a crazy fight and a miracle we landed
it! The fish weighed in a few ounces shy of 10 pounds.
Fish continued to swim through and I ended up hooking another one only to have it come off below the hole. It was small, so I wasn’t to upset. At about 11:30 the fish were gone so we packed up and moved closer to shore to see if any splake or rainbows would play. We never did find the trout, but Casey found a bunch of perch that kept him busy.
We enjoyed the scenery watching the bald eagles come down and pick up the fish people had left on the ice. At one point there were 8 bald eagles on the ice standing next to each other. It was a gorgeous day at Fish Lake. We didn’t encounter any wind all day. It was a fun and successful trip.
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