We headed to the mountains looking for hard water. I met up at Parker's place around 7am and we loaded up the rest of the equipment. He already his truck loaded with his Snowdog and all the fishing gear. We headed south after a short discussion about how much snow we wanted to hike through. We went through Spanish Fork Canyon to the turnoff to Fairview, turned south, and made it to Fairview Canyon. Drove up the canyon and turned east at the top to go to our favorite little early ice pond.
Arriving at the pond Parker pulled the Snowdog out and got it running and took the auger to the edge of the ice to check for thickness. It looked plenty thick but you never know with early ice. He cut the first hole right the edge and found it to be about 3 inches thick, he moved out farther onto the ice and cut another one to find it thicker and then a 3rd and it was 4-5 inches thick plenty thick for us to venture out on to.
Parker went back to the truck and loaded the rest of the equipment for the morning fishing session. I cut a couple more holes farther out and closer to the dam to get deeper water. I found some 8-foot deep water and set up camp. Parker made it back to the ice with the poles, chairs, and finder. I dropped the first line and missed the first couple of hits and Parker put his line down and hooked up with the first of the season. He caught the next two fish nothing of size but we had fish on the deck. I downsized my lure and finally decked a rainbow trout. We caught 20 rainbows and then as the sun rose higher in the sky the bigger fish came out and we got a couple decent Cutthroat trout. We fished until early afternoon and called it good.
We drove around the corner to Huntington and Cleveland to find them capped off with clear ice. We thought it was still open until we could see the cracks going across the ice. It was quite a sight. We stopped in Fairview for a late lunch and headed home.
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