Ice Fishing @ Soldier Creek

Saturday morning came early for me.  I woke at 4 am but thought the boys wont be here until 5 am, so I will catch a few more minutes of shut eye.  Next thing I knew the door was opening and my boys were loading things up at 4:45 am.  Easy for Parker he works all night on weekends as he completes his BS in BioChem, Jimmy on the other hand was just anxious to get on the ice and fish, he loves fishing as much as we do, but life sometimes slows his attendance on trips.  As I stumbled and fumbled to get dressed they are out getting things ready to go.  I hit the door at 4:55 and pulled the truck out and hitched the trailer up to take the CanAm with us this morning.  We received a great report from Shifty Outdoors about the fishing and location at Soldier Creek and knew we had to get there on the CanAm.  Loading up and making sure we had everything, taking quick inventory on gear and needs, Jim realized he left his gloves on the counter at home, we needed to fill the truck and get air in the trailer tire.  We made it on the road by 5:30 am headed up the canyon.  A quick stop in Heber for the rest of the supplies and breakfast we loaded up and headed toward our destination, Soldier Creek.  The trailer and CanAm travel nicely behind the Tundra and we make quick time of Daniels Canyon and across the Strawberry Basin to Soldier Creek.  We arrive at the parking lot and it was already 3/4 full, we thought to ourselves oh great a city on the ice.  We dressed, unloaded and hooked up the gear and were on our way to the ice hole by 7 am the sun just barely coming over the ridge and it was 30* in the parking lot.

On the trail to our destination we loaded all 3 of us on the CanAm it must have been a site to see, with our tent in tow and 3 grown men sitting on the wheeler.  Parker on the front rack and Jimmy packed in behind me on the seat, well over 700 lbs of humanity on this poor thing and the tent over 300 lbs fully loaded with gear.  We hit the trail running though and the CanAm never missed a beat.  We cruised across the open ice to our destination at 30 mph going by all those that stopped well before our spot.  We got away from humanity and had the lake to ourselves until late morning.  We found Shifty's holes from the day before and I was lucky enough to step in one and go up to my knee to start the morning off.  But after some consoling grumblings I was okay and we got things set up.

soon I will have me a cabin on the lake

After checking water depth and remembering what I was told about the shallower hole having all the fish we cut our holes inside toward the bank a few feet.  We cut five holes going shallow to deeper water so that the deepest hole was in about 15 feet of water and the shallow hole was in 12 feet.  After getting the tent set and chairs set we got poles in the water.  Inside the tent it is nice because you can see to the bottom of the holes and watch the fish hit your lures and study the way they work around your bait.  Very interesting to watch them work the baits.  We were in the water about 15 minutes when the first of many big Cutthroat trout came and visited us.  

The cutthroat hit Jim's bait first then down to mine and then hitting Parker's and getting hooked up.  Biggest fish of the year for any of us.  measuring in at 20 inches and around four lbs, big girth around the shoulders.  Parker was ecstatic at the catch.  We fished there until 11:30 am.  We caught over 20 fish for the day and number of them fish of the year status.  I got one that was 21 inches Jim pulled one in at 19.5 inches and a couple more around that size came out of the ice.  We caught several little Rainbow trout.  Before the morning ended though I hooked another nice sized fish.  When we pulled it the ice hole it was a nice 20 inch 3 lb Rainbow trout.  Soldier Creek has the same slot limits that Strawberry has on it, any fish with cut marks on it should be immediately released, unless it is under 15 inches or over 22 inches, so we had to return all the cutthroat trout, we do anyways to help keep the chub population down.  Rainbow trout on the other hand have no slot limit and you can keep all of them if you choose to.  We let all but the one go and it was Superbowl Sunday dinner.

We had a blast on the ice!  We remembered things and shared stories of the week.  Jim treated us to the "Muffin Dance" hahaha!  We hooped and hollered when each of us brought a big one through the ice hole.  We learned things and enjoyed the morning ice fishing.  Ice fishing is an activity young and old can enjoy, this day we were all quite young.