Cleveland on Ice

Parker and I hit Cleveland Lake on Huntington Highway Wednesday. We drove down to the lake's edge and unloaded our gear and walk out onto 5 - 6 inches of clear ice. Both of us forgot our cleats so we shuffled our way to a spot Parker had saved on his GPS. We cut holes and dropped lines. The first stop was only 8 feet deep and nothing showing on the flashers. Parker moved out and found some 10 foot depth. He dropped his line in and got a hit within seconds.

I picked up and moved out deeper with him. He caught the next fish that hit. A nice sized rainbow trout. Cleveland is known for producing big fish for it's elevation. I stayed and fished this spot the rest of the day. We had the entire lake to ourselves until about 10 and another angler dropped into the dam and fished for a while.

Parker in the meantime went on a walkabout to find faster action. He walked the entire lake and found the deepest water to be 16 feet. Yes the lake is extremely low. The ice talked to us all day as it cracked and moaned as the sun rose higher in the sky.

I stayed and caught 2 fish while he was walking around and cutting holes. I started off with a nice rainbow trout as well, next thru the hole was a cutthroat trout. While Parker was searching he also had the auger and the worms, so the science teacher came out in me and I dissected my catches to see what they were eating. First was Parker's rainbow it had a small fry in its mouth and I reeled up and put that on the hook. 30 seconds later I had my third fish on the line only to have the fish drive the hook into the edge of the hole and swim away. So I proceeded to gut each of the fish. I found small green crayfish in the cutthroat's belly. Yep I put that on the hook and fished it for a good amount of time and got nothing. But I did have some plastic that looked just like it. I rigged it up and sure enough I started getting hits.

Parker in the meantime had made his way back to where we started and put on some green tungsten and meal worm and he caught 3 fish quite quickly. I caught a couple more fish on the green plastic as well. We ended up with 8 nice fish on the deck. The best action was late morning and early afternoon. It was a good day on the ice.