Fishing Valentines at Scofield

Wednesday night Parker texts me asking if I wanted to go to Scofield for the morning. I readily said yes. He had to be home by noon so it was perfect for the morning bite. I asked if our friend Jim could join us and he was excited to have him join us. We met up at Parker's at 6 and he followed us to Scofield with his Snow Dog in the back of his truck and I had the ice trailer in tow. We arrived around 7:30 unloaded and were on the ice by 8.

Parker used his new toy, a drill bit auger, it worked great! I cut 3 holes as well. The ice was a good 20 inches thick with a layer of hard crust on top. We didn't have any problems with slush thank goodness. I took out a pole and put a line down with a paddle on and gave it to Jim. Parker and I continued to set up camp and with 30 seconds Jim reeled the first Cutthroat trout to the surface. A quick pic and release and Jim put the line back down. We were still setting up and Jim reels in the second cutthroat trout! Yes, it hadn't been 5 minutes and Jim already had two the surface. Jim's hands were frozen due to the temps at zero. We finally pulled the tent over and the heater running and got feeling back in Jim's hands.

Jim's hole and paddle continued to be the hot ticket and he kept reeling in fish quickly. Parker got on the board with a nice Cutthroat as well and he continued to get fish as well. Parker and Jim were watching the camera and having a ball watching the fish hit the lures. I had my trusty flasher going and finally got one to hit a gutter pop. Another cutthroat trout.

We caught fish consistently all morning. Parker had to pack up and go around 10:30 and took the heater. Did I mention it was cold, it still was at 10:30. We fished on and caught a handful more cutthroat all slot sized. We did manage a few nice 18-20 inchers but nothing to take home. Jim and I lasted until we ran out of bait and our feet were chilled. So we packed up around 11:30 with over 3 dozen fish caught and headed for home. It was a great morning hanging out with Parker and Jim. Parker's snowdog is the bomb! That thing didn't leave a mark in the snow traveling across the hard-packed crust.