Elusive Macks and Hungry Burbot at Flaming Gorge

Fishing Time:  Saturday – Monday

Weather:  Perfect.  No wind, clear skies, T-40s

Moon Phase:  67% Moon

Location:  Flaming Gorge Reservoir

Bait:  Lake Trout: 7-inch tube jig (rainbow color), Burbot: 3-inch glow curly tail grubs tipped with carp meat

Who Went:  John, Me

The year 2012 ended up being the warmest on record for the state of Utah and because of this, many of the lakes and reservoirs did not freeze.  I only ice fished twice last year with one trip on a half frozen Fish Lake where the search and rescue had to be called out to save a man on a snowmobile that broke through the thin ice.  Needless to say it was an odd year and I was excited that things are back to normal this year with my favorite ice fishing lake, Flaming Gorge, already froze as far south as Swim Beach.  Flaming Gorge was one of the lakes that did not freeze over last year.  This year I spent 3 days fishing Flaming Gorge in beautiful blue sky weather with no wind, rain or snow, and a solid 4 inches of safe ice.  Bobber John and I spent each day searching for trophy lake trout and each night searching for the ugly burbot.  Here is the recap…

Saturday:  Left my house at 3:00 am, picked up John at his house, and we were on our way.  We arrived to Flaming Gorge in the dark and got lost on the dirt roads leading to our parking spot at Anvil Draw.  This had us off to a late start and by the time we made it onto the ice, there were already people fishing our GPS spots.  We walked a couple hundred yards to the north to some waypoints I marked last summer from the boat and tried our luck there.  We didn't see many lake trout on our fish finders all morning and the ones that were there didn't seem happy.  John had one fish on first thing in the morning, but it came unbuttoned a few seconds later. 

By noon we gave up on mack fishing and took advantage of a few spare hours of daylight by marking my GPS unit with all the roads that take me to my favorite mack and burbot ice fishing spots.  This will help me in the future so I don’t get lost when arriving in the dark.  We ended the day at our usual burbot spot at Holmes Crossing, but we were only able to put 2 burbot on the ice that night.

Sunday:  We tried a slightly different location for macks and fished off Anvil Point.  We arrived to the lake well before sun up in order to beat the crowds.  It seemed like we had the entire lake to ourselves and coincidentally it was our best day of fishing.  Macks were showing up on our fish finders all morning and seemed very active.  Bobber John made the highlight reel when he put this 20 pound mack on the ice by mid morning.

I had one fish on for a second, but it came unbuttoned a few seconds later.  John and I both had multiple hits all morning, but just couldn’t seem to stick them.  John did land one more pup mack at around 4 pounds, but that was it for the day.

We drove around for a bit that afternoon looking for a potential burbot spot and found some rocky shoreline that looked promising.  We hiked out to the spot just before dark and chipped out a bunch of holes from 20 feet to 40 feet deep.  

This spot is now our new burbot honey hole!  We made a pile of burbot on the ice before calling it quits around 9 pm.

Monday:  We fished the same holes as Sunday off Anvil Point.  Got there early again and it was a good thing because people started showing up everywhere.  By 8 am I had a group of 10 dudes fishing 50 yards from me and drilling holes non-stop.  Apparently, more people get Martin Luther King Jr. Day off from work than I thought, and I’m pretty sure it was affecting the fishing.  All I heard were power augers running all morning.  The fish were not active at all, but John still managed to put a couple pups on the ice, to keep his spirits up.  One was pushing 7-8 pounds.  I got skunked on macks for the third day in a row! Ouch!!!

Conclusion:  It was another tough trip for me, but the more I fish that lake the more I’m getting used to it.  Problem is when you know what those big fish feel like on the other end of your line, you become just like a drug addict searching for that next high.  You will do anything to find it again!  We were probably a few days late on fishing first ice and unfortunately there were already holes everywhere.  All it takes is one week of getting pounded with pressure from other fisherman and the fishing gets tough quick.  On the flip side, we were a couple days early for fishing the Swim Beach area further to the south.  It was capped, but only had about 1.5-inches of unsafe ice.  I always seem to be a day late or a day early!  It was a depressing drive home as we headed down Parleys canyon leaving clear blue skies behind us and entering the inversion covered Salt Lake Valley where unfortunately we live.

Slow Start to the 2012-2013 Ice Season

Fishing Time:  10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Weather: partly cloudy, no wind, T-30s

Moon Phase:  98% Moon

Location:  Strawberry Reservoir (Chicken Creek East)

Bait:  White tube jig tipped with meal worm or minnow

Who Went:  Mike Kraus, Rick Everson, Barclay Emery, and Ryan Watson

As usual I fished the first safe ice at Strawberry Reservoir to end the 2012 year.  It was a different crew than I’m used to fishing with, but we had fun all the same.  We arrived at the Strawberry Marina around 7:30 am to a ghost town.  I didn’t see one fisherman on the ice.  This made me a little nervous about the ice conditions, so I went into the marina store to get the scoop.  They said people were all over it yesterday, so I drove us over to my favorite spot and we made the dreadful hike in two and a half feet of snow down to the lake.  

Unfortunately the area I chose did not have safe ice and was flexing beneath our feet as we made our way out towards deeper water.  I pulled out my ice pick and with one good thrust I was through the 1.5-inches of ice and into water.  As miserable as the hike down to the lake was, we turned right back around and back to our vehicles.  We drove all the way to the other side of the lake to Chicken Creek East and made yet another long miserable hike past the other fisherman in the area to find some solitude.

We didn’t start fishing until around 10:00 am and probably missed the best fishing of the morning, but even so, I have never experienced this slow of fishing on the first ice trip of the season at Strawberry. I’ve had 50+ fish days on the berry at first ice and it usually is always good fishing.  This trip was the exception and we saw very few fish on my fish finder all day.  The 5 of us landed 11 fish total.  Barclay caught the most with 4, and Mike caught one at the very end of the day with this nice chunky rainbow.  

It was a strange first outing to start off the 2012-2013  ice fishing season.  Hopefully 2013 will treat us a little better.    

Lunker Largies on Falcon Lake, Texas

Fishing Time: Sunday – Tuesday

Weather:  Clear skies, no wind, T-80s

Moon Phase:  62% Moon

Location:  Falcon Lake, Texas

Bait:  Texas rigged plastics (flukes, senkos, lizards)

Who Went:  Rick, John, Hunt and his family, Me

Our Texas bass fishing trip finally arrived and started by landing in Austin, Texas on Friday night.  Hunt picked us up from the airport and we went back to his place to get settled for the night.  Hit up Sixth Street in downtown Austin for some amazing Texas barbecue and then cruised the night life for a couple hours with Hunt.  Woke up early on Saturday and met Hunts dad, grandpa, uncle, and two cousins in San Antonio, then all drove down together to Zapata, Texas which is the border town near Falcon Lake where we fished for the next three days.  We stopped to look at the Rio Grande River just outside Zapata.  The river is the border between the United States and Mexico.

 

We stayed in a duplex rental home with Hunt’s family on one side, and me, Rick, John, and Hunt on the other.  The owner of the rental home (Billy) also rented us his 20 foot Skeeter bass fishing boat for the 3 days we were there.  The plan was to go on the water with him for a few hours in the morning to learn his boat and then drop him off at the docks and fish for the next 3 days.  Hunt and his family paid for a guide each day and did not fish with us until the last day when Hunt’s family went home and he joined our group.  Here's how it all went down...

Sunday - We launched the boat about 30 miles south of where we were staying down near the dam on Falcon Lake.

Billy decided to fish with us for the day and took us to his best spots where we began fishing by Texas rigging large flukes, lizards, and senkos in dark colors.  We used 3/8 oz tungsten bullet weights and 6/0 Gamagatsu hooks.  Billy owns his own tackle company so we just pitched in and bought some of his supplies.  The targeted structure was rocky bottom in 10 to 20 feet of water.  The more rock we found, the better our success rate was, but also the more tackle we lost!  We mainly fished near the damn and a little on the Mexico side of the lake.  We found a great rocky bottom near the damn that ended up producing most our fish.  The first day we landed quite a few fish in the 5-6 pound range, which had us pretty excited, but Billy wasn’t impressed and wanted us to land the monster we came to Texas looking for.

                           

                           

                           

Monday - More of the same and Billy joined us again for the day.  Rick landed the biggest fish of the trip with this 7 lb 10 oz beast!

We were all excited about the fish, but again Billy was not impressed!  John and I both landed fish in the 5-6 pound range, but never did put anything in the boat over 6. 

                               
                               
                               

The best part of fishing on Billy’s boat was the banter back and forth between him and us (mostly John).  He made fun of our flimsy Utah rods and tackle the entire time.  Even went as far as making fun of the way we netted our fish!  Then when John told him he would rather catch an Alligator Gar over a 10 pound bass, Billy about lost it!  It was fun giving Billy a hard time and receiving it back 10 fold, but I think by the end John was at his wits end.  All in all I thought it was nice to have a local to show us the ropes and some of the best areas to fish.  I learned a lot, and fishing deep water structure is something I’m not used to, so I felt like it helped me add one more technique to my repertoire for bass fishing.  Thanks Billy!  We were laughing as we looked at pictures of the trip and found the one below.  It pretty much sums up Billy and John’s relationship.  Billy just couldn't quite figure out the Bobber!

Monday night at dinner we were swapping stories with Hunt’s family about our day fishing and they invited their guide to dinner with us.  Their guide (Mark Diffee) had them fishing a lot of different structure and a totally different area than we had spent the last 2 days fishing and it had us daydreaming a bit.  When he offered to take us out the next day for the same price as our boat rental, we decided to take him up on it.  Turned out to be a great move, and not for the fishing…

  

Tuesday - We were on the lake with Diffee early, and fished a completely different area than the first two days (Diffee on the left).

We fished shorelines and hardwoods in shallower water, which is more what us Utah boys are used to.  We started off catching fish in the morning, but none with any size.  The biggest was a 4 pounder that I caught in what Diffee called 10 pound bay.

Hunt earned the nickname “Jersey Shore” on this trip and his dress attire should explain why…

Somewhere in this time frame of fishing we entered Mexico and that’s when the Diffee stories started getting good!  Diffee is nuts (in a good way) and has been all over the world chasing fish.  He had some Mexico stories that would blow anyone’s mind, and even had the pictures to prove it!

                            

                            

                            

By mid-day we were hungry and ready to find more fish.  We loaded the boat, grabbed a bite, and stopped by Diffee’s place to pick up some baits.  Once we got to Diffee’s the day seemed to take a turn for the better, but again, not for the fishing.  Diffee really started to open up and the stories were hilarious!  This guy could be a standup comedian and he doesn’t even know it.  He’s just a hillbilly from Arkansas with a deep southern draw and never stops talking!  Normally that would drive me nuts, but not Diffee.  The guy had us rolling the entire day and didn’t even realize he was funny.  John and I hit the wall at Diffee’s and both fell asleep for a few minutes.

                               
John just wandered through Diffee’s fifth wheel (yes he lives in a fifth wheel) and found his bed.  Only the bobber!  I zonked on Diffee’s couch.  

 

The short nap revived me and we left Diffee’s place and drove down near the dam where I layed into a good fish that may have put me on the lunker board, but it popped off near the boat.  I still haven’t forgotten about that one.  Soon it was dark and our Falcon Lake fishing was over, but the Diffee stories were only getting better the more we got to know him.  We drove back to Billy’s place and Diffee dropped us off.  Thanks Diffee, money well spent! 

We decided not to stay the night in Zapata and hit the road for Austin around 9 p.m.  Got to Hunt’s house at 2 a.m. and hit the sack.  Flew out the next morning and were in Utah by late afternoon.  This was definitely a different trip than what Rick, John, and I are used to.  Usually we fish from sun up until sundown and well into dark, then crash, wake up, and do it all over again.  This trip we were a little more relaxed and enjoyed just hanging out.  We still did plenty of fishing, but chilled a little more than usual.  It was probably the most fun out of state trip I’ve ever been on and we are already talking about where to go next.  Until then, it’s back to winter and ice fishing in Utah.

Falcon wasn't the prettiest lake I've ever been to, but it did have its moments, and the sunsets were killer.  Below are more pictures of the trip and all our scenery pictures…