Palisade on Ice

Saturday we took the tent south to Palisade Reservoir. A small irrigating lake for the south central valley nestled in a juniper/pinyon pine canyon at the base of six mile canyon. This lake grows Tiger Trout like no other lake in the state. The state record Tiger Trout was caught here last summer. It is not very large and generally is drained to a puddle by summers end. This weekend it was only at 50% capacity, but it had a good 4-5 inches of ice. The edges were a little spooky but we found a place to enter without much problem. Jim got a little freaked out when Parker and I both broke through on our first attempts. We knew it was safe though with all the trails on and off the lake. When the water is rising like this lake does all winter the edges can be soft sometimes out to five feet away from the bank so you have to be careful entering and exiting the lake.

We arrived at the lake around 7:30 right as the sun was breaking the horizon. The day was cloudy and warmer due to the cloud cover. We set up camp off the pump house in 10 – 15 feet of water. The water is stained due to the mineral content so we couldn’t see the bottom and lost our lures only 3-4 feet under the surface. The fish were holding tight to the bottom and in schools. Making fishing hot and cold all morning. We dropped our lines with the normal color of jigs, but the hot color was pink to start off. I got 3 fish immediately on a pink Berkley Powerbait plastic tipped with meal worm.

I continued to get strikes and catch fish on the pink jig most of the day. Parker and Jim were using white tubes and paddles and started catching fish soon after. Jim ended up with the largest of the day at only 17 inches. Parker caught the only Tiger Trout of the day. All other fish were Rainbow trout planters. The UWDR planted the lake just before it froze with a number of 10 in Rainbow trout. Mid-morning the fish started hitting ice flies suspended just off the bottom tipped with wax worms. We had a number of double ups and one triple up. We had a great morning, the bite turned off at 10:30 completely we changed colors, size, tactics and got no hits after 10:30 at 11:00 we packed up and headed for home. We stopped in Levan for lunch at Jakk’s Burger Barn. It is in the gas station, good prices, good serving sizes and good food! We ate small portions trying to stay on our challenge to get in shape for a backpacking summer. The service was excellent. A recommended stop if in Levan. Next week we venture east.