Long Way From Home!

Moon Phase:
Fishing Time: 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Weather: cloudy, 80's, rain storm moving in

With a company truck and free gas to expend while living in Ogden I decided to take a drive up north after work today and visit a reservoir I had only heard about and read reports of. Newton Reservoir is north west of Logan and only a short distance from Idaho. I went there because I heard there were some nice Largemouth and the occasional small Tiger Musky. When I got there I realized I may have made a mistake because the reservoir was very low in water due to the current drought we are in. It is also a very small narrow reservoir and it is packed with water skiers. I wasn't sure if there was room for me on my tube. Of course that isn't going to stop me from my new found addiction to Largemouth Bass! Right where I launched my tube was an old log that was sticking out of the water and with my knowledge of bass I figured no better place for them to live, so I threw out my chartreuse spinnerbait before I got in my tube. On the second cast I caught the first Largemouth of the day. Unfortunately it got off right at shore so no pic. I then launched the tube and began fishing. I was having trouble landing anything with the spinnerbait but was hesitant to switch because its a great lure to land bass and Musky with, but I soon changed to a bright green zoom worm rigged wacky style on a drop shot set up. I was using bright colors cause the water was really murky. First cast I could tell I had found the panfish and they wouldn't leave it alone. I soon pulled in this monster Crappie. Then I caught another small Perch that fell off right at my float tube so I decided I had better go back to a bigger bait cause I didn't want to deal with these pesky things. I put on a bright multicolored spinnerbait. It wasn't long til I landed this medium sized Largemouth! Soon after I started getting pummeled by wake from the skiers and I wish I would have taken a picture to show how close they were coming to me! It started to get windy and a storm was moving in so I decided that I had better get off the lake any way. This picture shows the storm. When I was driving away from the lake the sun was going down and the sunset was absolutely gorgeous. I snapped these photos and they came out really cool. The way the sunset was reflecting off the water made it unbelievable, and if you look close at one of the pics you might see an animal hiding. It was an interesting trip to Newton Reservoir but I'm not sure it got my attention enough to ever make it back again, but who knows what the future has in store!

Story to Remember!

Moon Phase:

Fishing Time: 8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Weather: sunny, clear, 90's

Now that I live in Ogden 5 days a week I figure its my best chance to focus my time on these elusive Tiger Muskies. I decided to give it a try from my float tube last night, but didn't get to Pineview til 8:00 p.m. I hit the Sportsmans Wharehouse in Ogden before I went because I wanted to buy some of those bucktail spinners that I hear everyone talk about for Musky! I picked a couple up along with a size J13 jointed Rapala in Perch pattern. When I got to the lake the sun was already going down so I went to the closest place possible which was right near the dam on the north side. It was a treacherous climb down the steep bank with my float tube but I made it none the less. As soon as I got on the water my phone rang and Cari was on the line. Cari can talk for hours and I didn't want to waste time because I only had 30 min. to an hour to fish. So I threw out this 6 inch chartreuse bucktail spinner and kick trolled while I talked to her. 3 minutes into our conversation I had a whopping hit and the fight was on! I yelled to Cari that I would call her back and threw my phone in my side compartment of my float tube. I started fighting this mystery fish and I thought to myself this is probably a small Musky or a good fighting little Bass. When I got the fish close to me I realized something different. The fish took off and headed strait to the bottom. I noticed my drag was to tight so I loosened it a bit and realized this was a very large fish! It took off a ton of line but I was able to play it right and get it back to the surface. I don't need to describe what it looked like when it hit the surface, you can see exactly what I saw from this picture! I was stunned!!! Now I thought, "What in the world am I going to do with this thing!"
I could tell that this sucker was really long, but
until I tried to pick him up I had no idea of the girth, and when my hand squeezed against his belly he thrashed so bad that I was soaked. The worst part was that my float tube was soaked, along with my phone and camera! My phone instantly went into fried mode and started vibrating constantly. I think that is the 14th phone I have gone through this year (No lie). I didn't care at the moment though, and my camera was fine. I tried for literally 5 minutes to try and get this thing onto my float tube, not wanting it to get away but at the same time not sure if I wanted it right next to me either. It's head was the size of my arm! There was a guy fishing about 100 yards from me on a pontoon and I finally called for help, desperate in what to do. He yelled back to me, "I was wondering when you were going to ask, that's a monster!" We both started paddling towards each other and I soon realized that my tube was slowly loosing air. This monster had thrashed so hard he punctured my tube! I handed my pole and my camera to this guy and then I was able to grab the fish with both hands and hold it up for a picture before I let it go. Without that guys help I would have surely lost the fish! He took the pics and I let him go, grabbed my camera and pole, yelled thanks and paddled my butt off towards the shoreline. Here are the pics of this monstrosity!

This was probably the craziest 30 min. of my life! I have never been more stressed, losing my phone and almost losing my camera which had 600 pictures from Alaska on it, and then paddling to make it to shore so I wouldn't sink to the bottom of Pineview Reservoir. But it was also the most exciting time trying to land this monster keep it on long enough to get pictures of it and get it back into the water to swim again. The only way to describe it is to go back to your wedding day and think about what a blurr it all seemed like after it was all over. This is what this 30 minutes was like for me! The bad thing about this is that I was so excited that I never took any measurements nor did I weigh it. But after doing a lot of thinking and not wanting to over shoot the actual size I figured this fish was around 40 inches long and weighed anywhere from 12 to 15 pounds! To help you judge, I measured from across the length of my float tube today and from edge to edge on each side it measured 42 inches. Now look at the pictures above and you be the judge. Either way this was a big freaking Tiger Musky!

Early at Pineview!

Moon Phase:

Fishing Time: 4:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Weather: sunny, clear, 100's

I got a phone call on Saturday night from Barclay Emery saying "We're going to Pineview tomorrow so we will meet you at the freeway at 3:00 a.m. and don't be late!" I thought about it for a few seconds and said, "I,m in! see you tomorrow." So at 2:45 a.m. the alarm sounded and I was off. I think this is the earliest I have ever gone fishing before and Cari let me know that I had crossed the boundary line of being normal. I just smiled loving every minute of it! We got to the lake in the dark and launched and rigged our poles at the same time. We drove through the dark over to Cemetery Point and started casting. I was throwing a big White Bucktail Spinner and had no luck for the first two hours. Rick Everson started throwing a topwater Buzzbait and after awhile he finally got hammered by something big and for a second we thought we were going to land the first Musky of the day, but the Musky had other ideas. He bit right threw Ricks braided fireline. This scared me cause I only had 8 lb test, but I had a 20 lb steel leader on the end so I felt I could handle a fairly large fish. I threw on a big perch pattern topwater popper and on my first cast I landed a Smallmouth Bass. Soon after Barclay landed this nice 2.5 pound Smallie on a Jointed Rapala in Perch pattern. Then on the next cast Barclay managed to get snagged and break his pole trying to get it free. It must have been a nice pole that breaks before his line does. This picture tells the story. After landing a couple more Smallmouth we moved over near Anderson Cove and I started throwing a big chartreuse spinnerbait. I threw it right into some willows sticking out of the water and something smacked it. It fought like a freight train and now I was sure we were going to land our first Musky of the day, but instead I landed this 4 pound Largemouth! After the excitement of catching this pig was over we decided to focus on some bass since the Musky were not hitting. We caught a few more Smallmouth but no more lunkers. We soon wanted to get back to the Musky fishing so we thought we would try a different tactic. We trolled up and down the shorelines with no more excitement than the occassional snag. Just before we reached the point of trolling exhaustion I had another snag. My drag started zingin line off but only this time it was different. My pole started bouncing and I soon realized I had a fish on! I started reeling it in when the fish broke water. It was a confirmed Musky sighting and my heart started racing. I got it right to the boat and it leaped about three feet in the air and tried to spit my big perch pattern Jointed Rapala. I thought he was going to be successful but Rick did a good job of landing him and getting him in the boat. I was pumped with landing this 30 inch Tiger Musky so I had Barclay snap some photos and this was the best he could come up with. I've seen some bad photos in my day but this was at the top of the list! I gave him hell for the rest of the trip. We continued to troll for an hour or so with no more hits and the temperature had reached a 100 degrees so we took off. I was a happy successful fisherman with my Musky and lunker bass in the record books and I think Pineview might be on the list for some more action in the future!

Trip of a Lifetime!

Moon Phase:

Fishing Time: 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Weather: rain clouds, low 60's

It's a trip that most only dream about in their lifetime, Fishing in Alaska! My family and I had the opportunity to do this while vacationing in this beautiful state. Ketchikan, Alaska was the location, and Salmon were our target! The Kings were running and the Silvers and Pinks were also in full swing. We chartered two private boats with 6 of us in each. On our boat was me, Cari, my mom and dad, and also my sister and her boyfriend Mike. The picture above was of our boat. On the other boat was my Grandpa and Grandma Houtz, Uncle Dick and Aunt Bonnie, and Uncle Alan and Aunt Sherri. We took a cab about ten miles to the outskirts of Ketchikan to a small marina where we departed towards the ocean blue. The great thing about this location is that we started fishing literally 100 yards from the marina. We trolled with spoons and dead herring. We had four poles out on downriggers from each boat and they were all staggered at different depths. It wasn't more than 5 minutes into fishing that our boat started landing fish! I caught the first one and finally found out what its like to reel in a true ocean Silver Salmon! Then before our guide could even get all our poles back in the water we had another one on and this time it was my dads turn. He also braught in a Silver. Then again before all our poles were out we had another fish on the line. This was some fast action, and Mike brought in his own Silver Salmon! Our guide was

getting flustered and even admitted that the action was not usually this fast. Meanwhile the other boat was yet to catch a fish! Finally we had a small lull in the action which gave our guide a little time to get all our poles in the water, but it didn't take long til Cari was tangling with one a salmon on the end of her line. She brought in the first King Salmon. She could barely hold the pole with this thing so she resorted to putting the pole between her legs! This was pretty funny to see, but she landed it and made me a proud fisherwomans husband! Mean while on the other boat they were bragging that grandma had brought in a 17 pound King Salmon. We pinned them as telling fishing stories, but soon found out that this was no lie and in fact she did land the biggest fish of the trip! Soon after on our boat my mom landed her first fish of the trip with with this Silver Salmon! Then after a lot of persuasion from all of us, Jess decided to get in on the action and caught a beautiful Pink Salmon.

The Rotation continued and we continued taking turns and catching lots of salmon. they were all in the range of 7 to 12 pounds and we had a blast! We figured we landed somewhere between 20 and 25 fish. The other boat only landed 5 fish total but had the biggest fish of the trip with the 17 pound King that grandma tangled with! It was a fun outing with the family and when we got back to the docks we all took pictures to show off all the fish that we caught!

The great fishing was not the only thing that made this trip a good one, the scenery was amazing and I can see why people can move to Ketchikan and fish the rest of there days forgetting that the rest of the world exists. This was a special trip with my family and I will never forget it!

Quick Trip!

Moon Phase:

Fishing Time: 7:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Weather: sunny, clear, 100's

It was the day before our big trip to Alaska and I had the day off to prepare so I decided to make a quick trip to none other than the I-80 Pond. I didn't stay long but it was a good trip none the less. I caught a ton of small bass with only this one coming in at around 15 inches.
I have never in my life fished at one location with as much consistency through out one summer than I have at the I-80 ponds, but it has been so much fun with the catch rate and the size of the bass that I have been catching that it has been well worth it. Not to mention the location is much closer than anywhere else!

Back to the Pond!

Moon Phase:

Fishing Time: 6:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Weather: sunny, 90's

Another good trip to the I-80 ponds with many more bass caught. I actually caught more nice bass today than any previous trip to the pond, but didn't land any monsters. Bass in the 15-16 inch class seemed to be everywhere! I was using my I-80 pond set up with a drop shot rigged with a power minnow in white and green sparkle. I probably caught anywhere from 15-20 bass with 10 being over 12 inches. I also had another weed diver! I was fighting a bass when it decided to do the dive straight to the pond floor and under about 3 feet of thick weeds. I had been down this road before so I knew exactly what to do. I held tight tension on my pole, waiting and wondering if this one would wiggle out like the last one caught like this. I was lucky enough that I had time to snap this photo of my rod tip and the tension kept on this fish before I landed him. You can see that I have some serious bend in my pole.Then just like my last similar predicament like this, the bass wiggled its way free and I lipped him just in time. Yet another good trip to the I-80 Pond with more to come I'm sure!

Lesson Learned!

Moon Phase:

Fishing Time: 6:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Weather: sunny, clear, 90's

With most of June being spent at the I-80 Pond I figured it was time to try somewhere new! Although I was tempted to go back for another round! Instead I hit Utah Lake in search of some hungry kitty cats! I thought I better take two poles so I could fish one for kitties and throw something else in case some of the bass were active. The problem is that two poles is kind of a lot to handle on the tube so I had a brilliant idea to take my normal pole along with an ice fishing pole to save room. My thought was that I could cast for bass with my long pole and drag a minnow for cats with my short pole. This ended up being a huge mistake and a good lesson learned! I set them both up and everything looked good. I started dragging a minnow and then casting. Within one minute a had a huge hit on my short pole so I grabbed it and tried to set the hook. Try setting a hook with a 3 foot ice pole! Ha! It doesn't work! I had the fish half way to me and he got off. I thought oh well I will re bait and try again. as soon as the little pole was in the water and I could start casting with my other pole again I got another good hit with the small pole. I grabbed it and yanked! Lost him! This was tough! I re baited and within another couple minutes another good hit only this time the kitty cat took it and hooked it himself so I thought I was good to go. Then I realized the other reason a 3 foot pole doesn't work, you can't play the fish! This was a good fish and it started fighting hard and taking line! I tried my best but after a couple minutes I lost him in the reeds. I finally wised up and rigged my long pole the same way and put the 3 footer on the shelf. Wouldn't you know it I couldn't get a hit after that! After an hour of no more hits I finally got one and pulled in a small Channel Cat! Soon after I pulled in another. Then I got another hit and this one took me for a ride. I thought I had a good Channel Cat on only to find a 4 pound carp! I snapped a photo just as my line broke! A fun day of fishing and a good lesson learned for the future! Leave the ice poles in the closet til there is a hard deck to fish from!

First Largemouth!

Moon Phase:

Fishing Time: 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Weather: sunny, clear, 90's

I got a phone call from JJ and he told me he wanted to go fishin. We tried to decide where to go and with many of the lakes fishing well right now it made the decision tough. should we hit Strawberry and go after the big trout, or Jordanelle where they are reporting some monster Smallies. Then you have Pineview where the Muskies are on fire! Not forgetting that with the temperature in the mid 90's that the Catfish at Utah Lake are probably going nuts! Its mid June which is when the fishing peaks for the year and most places are hot spots! With all these in mind we took a different approach and decided to find JJ his first Largemouth Bass! What better place to go with gas prices topping $3.20 a gallon then back to the I-80 ponds. When we got there it was approaching 95 degrees so we ditched the waders and floated our tubes in swimsuits. The fishing started off well with me landing a few small bass, but we were in search of one that would take a liking to what JJ was throwing. I have a small spot on the pond where I have caught at least a couple bass from every time I go to the I-80 ponds. So we headed there and this is where JJ landed his first ever Largemouth Bass. It wasn't a monster but he was on the board! Shortly after he landed another small bass and was now a part of the bass fishing world. I caught quite a few but never landed any big ones. JJ only caught a few but got some good practice on some of the best techniques to land bass. It was a good time on the water and we even got a bonus when on the way home we ran into a den full of baby fox's. What more can you ask for from a day on the water.