Ice Fishing Strawberry - Mud Creek 12-22-16

Thursday morning met up with Shifty and picked up Wade Cutchings and then made our way to Heber.  Stopped got a bite to eat and other supplies for the day.  We piled back in and went to Strawberry Marina to begin with seeing nobody on the ice and questioning the thickness we back tracked to Mud Creek where we could see a couple of camps setup.  We unloaded and readied our gear for the day.  It was the maiden voyage for my new smitty sled.

Loaded and ready to we made our way on the ice cautiously to begin with but once we figured it was solid we made quick time to our first spot.  Cut a hole to check depth and thickness we set the tent and cut the rest of our holes.  We fished here for a couple hours and got nothing.

Looking around we could see across the bay other camps were having success. We pulled stakes and made our way across the bay.  We cut our holes and placed the stakes in the tent.  We stayed here the rest of the day.  We changed colors, types, and presentation often.

Wade finally got one to actually bite and landed it.  He was rigged with a triple hook set up and it took the tube jig.  We had other nosing and nibbling our baits all day but this is the one and only nice Cutthroat trout we could manage for the day.

After sitting in the tent for about 3 hours we began to notice the amount of water we were sitting in and that the ice wasn't as thick as when we began. With heaters running and 3 people in the tent we had lost thickness. We decided it was time to call it a day a storm was moving in and the weather had changed to a white out.  We got back to the truck loaded up and made our way home.  It was good day on the ice and a good test trip for my sled to see what improvements it needed.

The bath tub ring after we pulled stakes! 2 inches of ice!!