Fishing Time: 8:30 am to 1:00 pm
Weather: light snow, slight breeze late morning,
T-30s
Moon Phase: 42% Moon
Location: Mill Hollow Reservoir
Best Bait: small marabou or jig head with cutter
bug (chartreuse)
Who Went: Casey Davies and 5 of his buddies, Devin, Dayton, Dunc
My boys wanted to go ice fishing over the holiday break, but finding ice is a little tough right now. With no ice on the main lakes and 50 degrees forecasted past Christmas we had to think outside the box. My buddy Casey mentioned a small alpine lake at 9,000 ft elevation that should have ice, but you need snowmobiles or at the very least a side by side to get there. I have neither of those, so I told Casey if they go and have room for us to let us know. Sure enough he called and said get up there so we met at the turn off at 8:00 and set off in his side by side with ice fishing sled in tow while his other friends had snowmobiles.
It’s a beautiful lake set in the pines, and we were the only group there. We set up shop near the dam and immediately saw fish swimming around on the active target. It didn’t take long before the boys started putting rainbows and tigers on the ice.
Casey and his crew were having the same success. I also setup the jaw jacker which finally produced and set the hook well!
It was a fun day and Devin capped it off by catching our only brook trout. It was small, but beautiful.
The fishing died
around noon and by 1 pm the boys had enough.
We loaded the gear and Casey drove us back down the hill with our sled. It was a successful first outing to start off
the 2024-25 ice season.
