On The Ice at Scofield

Thursday Jim picked me up and we headed to Scofield. We arrived at the lake before sunrise and it was cold. We prepared and loaded all the gear into Jim's new setup. He set himself up with everything, a tent, sled, and an electric auger. Just need to get him a flasher now. We cut holes as the sun was rising over the eastern mountains.

We set up in 13 feet of water just off the Madison Bay boat ramp. I had on a pink ratfink and Jim was using red/white cutter bug type jig. I got the first Rainbow to the deck after about a half-hour. It was at the very top of the water column I saw it flash through and raised my lure up to the depth and hit. Not very hard, it actually felt like it was holding it. I raised my pole and felt it get heavy and set the hook.

Another half-hour or so passed and I pulled a small cutthroat through the hole. We were seeing some come through and some on the bottom but they weren't on fire. Another half-hour or longer this time and caught a Tiger trout. That was fun!

I went in search of new water and cut holes only to find the same depth and no movement after a few minutes. While on my search Jim landed his first fish of the day a rainbow on a nightcrawler. He quickly released it and I made my way back to the original holes. Jim went on a search after a few minutes this time towards the shore and found shallower water but still no movement after a few minutes.

Jim returned and started jigging with the action he coaxed in a cutthroat. The big fish of the morning. We got a pic or two and returned it to the water. We fished another hour or so and got nothing and called it for the day. 

Ice Fishing Scofield - Family Times = Fun Times.

This week we fished Scofield. The first trip was with Jim, he and I had enough office time and needed to escape. We went to Scofield in search of freedom. We found it but didn't find too many fish. We fished the morning and caught a few rainbow trout and cutthroat trout. I was in hopes of finding a tiger or two but no such luck. Next time however we are taking Old Yeller and getting away from the main sites. Jim caught the first fish of the morning in the first few minutes of cutting holes. We thought we were going to have a banner day, an hour and a half later with nothing we decided to move. We moved closer to shore with a little bit of structure. I immediately saw fish on my flasher. I dropped down and they disappeared. Then a flash came thru mid-column and moved my bait up to it. The strike was so subtle the indicator didn't even bend. I raised my rod tip and it got heavy so I set the hook and the fight was on for a second and I landed a cutthroat trout. We fished here the rest of the morning I caught a couple more but it wasn't fast and furious. Then there was nothing, so we decided to call it a day. We made our way back up the boat ramp. This is where I decided it was time to get Old Yeller out of storage. We made it after a few rest breaks.

The second trip was all about the grandkids. Parker set up a fishing day for the kids and the brothers. We loaded up the Fish Steeler trailer with Old Yeller and Spot and the other gear necessary to make 10 people comfortable on the ice. Three of them have never been ice fishing. We headed for Scofield at 6:00am and made it there around 7:20am we had a few stops along the way. The idea was to get there before everyone and get camp set and the tents warm for the newbies on the ice. It worked Parker and Jim had Camp set and the tents were nice and warm by the time Rogan and his family arrived. I was with Rogan, Jen, Millie, and Valerie in the palace. Parker, Jim, and the boys were in his new walk-thru Eskimo. I do like the new door system, easy access, and no tripping over the flap. Parker's new ice auger made easy work of cutting the holes.

Rogan and his family arrived just after 8 and we started fishing. Millie was the first to catch and land the first fish of the day. We watched it swim around the bait on the camera and then it hit and Millie reeled it in. It was all squeals and screams of excitement from the girls. After a couple pics, the fish was returned. Millie looked sad, I asked did you want to keep it and she said yes. She loves to have fish for dinner. I told her she could keep the next ones and take them home.

It took a little while before the next fish was hooked. In the meantime, the other tent was hooting and hollering only to lose the fish at the hole. We had the only fish on the deck. I broke out a kastmaster and started jigging it hard through the water column after a few minutes of jigging we had more fish coming through. We saw it on the camera and then on the flasher and then it went to the other holes in Parker's tent and they started seeing them. No fish hooked up though.

The next set that came through hit on Valerie's pole and Jenn was assisting. Jen had never been ice fishing or caught a fish. Valerie was into a video and Jenn hooked and landed her first-ever fish!! Valerie was excited to because it was on her pole. After a few more minutes another fish came through and this time Valerie reeled in her first fish! Screams of excitement filled the tent for the third time. We had three rainbow and cutthroat trout decked. After a bit of thinking all fish were released after a quick pic with each of them. The bite ended after that fish. Oh, we tried to coax more into our holes but to no avail. Jim and Harrison had to leave for basketball. Leaving the boy tent just three.

We fished for a bit longer and then started having fun on the lake. Rogan and Jen took old yeller for a ride and Parker loaded Spot up with the kids and took them to the boat ramp and they went sledding down the ramp. Rogan and Jen returned and had smiles a mile wide. That was their first time on a snowmobile. I told them to go for another ride and Jen was all about so they went for another spin. Meanwhile, Parker kept the youngsters busy running up and down the ramp and sliding down. I just hung out and enjoyed the beautiful bluebird day.

After all the fun was had though the camps had to be broken down and put away. Everyone pitched in! made quick work of packing up and we loaded everything up. We had a blast, caught a few fish and made some great memories. Max and I went to lunch after we unloaded everything and had a great conversation. Yep nothing better than hanging out with the family.

2021! New Year, New Dedication!

Hello to my few followers! I have been slacking this year with keeping updated here. This post is going to get the blog caught up to this point and time and I will dedicate myself to making at least one post per week this year. I know excuses are not acceptable but I have been putting more focus on my YouTube channel this year and trying to post at least once a week. My subscription numbers are slowly growing. Most of the posts I have been posting have a video posted as well. Anyhow I will do better at updating the blog this year. I hope enjoy our adventures. I use the hashtags #utah_outback, #fishsteeler, and #fishsteelerchronicles if you want a quick way to find me on my other social media outlets.

This post as I said is to cover things that we have been doing for the month of December and ringing out 2020 and looking forward to a much better 2021. I have set some personal goals in many areas and this is one of them. This my diary of our adventures.

Starting December off with a trip to Mud Creek with my good friend and big brother Jim Young we fished the bay after trying Chicken Creek and finding too much ice from the shore. as we fished Mud Creek we watched the ice grow and slowly creep in around us and close off our casting lanes. Jim did manage one nice cutthroat for the morning. Nope, I didn't have the right stuff and got skunked. The morning was very cold and we didn't last long, standing in the breeze.

Our next adventure started out as a trip to Mill Hollow but while at our breakfast stop in Heber we decided to try Current Creek. Parker was driving and I was happy to take shotgun. We headed to Current Creek and found it to be wide open and access not good. We took a couple pics and got back in the Ram and headed back down the washboards of Current Creek road. On the way back we trying to decide which way to go and what lake to hit. We decided on a lake in the Basin that I had been eyeing for a couple years. This lake is very small but we were looking for something different. We arrived at our destination around 9am and found the lake to be somewhat frozen. Parker pulled up to the bank and we started throwing rocks out onto the ice. They bounced so Parker very cautiously ventured out onto the ice. He cut the first hole right off the shore and found 4 inches of depth. He took a few more steps and cut another and a few more and cut another. This one was only 3 inches thick and that is where he stopped. He cut a hole for me a few feet away and we started fishing. We were in 2-6 feet of water with lots of vegetation on the bottom. The fish were hitting right off and we landed a few of them. All Cutthroat trout. As we fished the day warmed and the ice weakened. We were sitting in about 3 inches of water when we decided to call it a day. This small lake is intriguing to me and I will most likely return if not this ice season definitely in the spring. The canyon going to the lake was awesome.

2020-12-10 I picked up Jim Young for our next adventure to Scofield for some ice-fishing. We arrived at 7am and ventured out not too far off the bank. We fished in 13 feet of water and did okay for early ice on Scofield. If you follow us you know that we were fishing open water just two weeks earlier. We both caught a few. Mostly cutthroats and some rainbows. No Tigers on this outing. We fished the morning bite until it shutdown. It was a great morning for early ice fishing.

2020-12-11 Parker picked me up in the Ram at 5:30am and we were on an adventure to new water for him and the first time on the ice for me. We were headed to Smith-Morehouse Reservoir in the Uintas. We stopped for breakfast in Heber and made it to the lake at sunrise. As we pulled in we watched a camp come off the lake and we thought well the fishing is HOT or not worth getting on the ice. We talked with them as they got back to their truck and found out they spent the night on the ice. They had good success and we made note of where they camped. We had Spot, Parkers SnowDog, with us and we loaded the sleds with our gear and ventured onto the ice. We didn't really know what to expect. The report from the campers were rainbows and kokanee. Kokanee got us excited. We cut our first holes and caught a couple not real fast fishing. We moved out a little bit and set up the tent for the morning. We caught a number of rainbow trout and a lot of Kokanee. That was a first for me I had never caught Kokanee through the ice. We fished into the early afternoon and the bite shut down. We cut other holes to see if new water would be better but no luck so we called it. We caught over 30 fish in a few hours and felt good. We returned them all not much size to any of them. We ended up catching a number of Greyling, Cutthroat, Kokanee, and Rainbows.

2020-12-19 Echo Reservoir Parker picked me up at 5:30 and we headed to the lake. The canyon was a little sketchy getting to Heber and we stopped for breakfast. We arrived at the lake at around 7am and met with the park ranger who gave us a great report on the fishing. We caught tons of Perch some decent sized some not so big. We tried to get the trout to bite couldn't get one to take the bait. We tried everything we had. We moved around trying to find the trout and smallmouth but didn't get anything but the Perch.

2020-12-24 Christmas Eve family fun on Tibble Fork. This year we decided to try to make a new tradition. We took the entire family up to Tibble Fork for sledding and ice fishing. It was a great morning of both the kids had a blast sledding and some came into the tent and fun catching a couple of the small rainbow planted in the lake. We missed one of our family's they weren't able to join us.

2020-12-27 Palisades Parker and Jack picked me up in the Ram for our next adventure. We hadn't fished Palisades for a couple years. Parker has made a goal of fishing new water each week and not doubling up on any lake for the ice season. That means we will be adventuring to new destinations each week which will be fun. We drove south to Palisades and found a few camps on the ice as we arrived. One camp coming off said they had caught a few in a short period but were heading south to another lake. We thought that isn't a good start. We loaded up Spot and took it to the shore of the lake. The ice was thick enough for Spot but we didn't know if it was legal to take it on the lake, they do not allow gas motors on the lake in the summer, so to be safe we left it at the edge and pulled the sleds the rest of the way. We set up in 7 feet of water, the lake is extremely low, so even though we were quite a ways out it wasn't deep. Parker was first on the board with a rainbow and then we all caught quite a few rainbow trout for the day. We did catch a few Tiger trout and a couple decent sized ones. Parker is such a good dad and was teaching Jack how to handle and release fish all day. Again the bite shut down so we called it a day. We stopped in Gunnison at Shelle's diner and got a bite to eat, we will return it was good food.

2021-01-01!! Rockport Reservoir Parker picked me up at 6 and we headed to Rockport for the day. First trip of 2021. We stopped at Mountainland One Stop for breakfast and bait. We arrived to find the boat ramp filled to the top as we expected for Jan 1st. We loaded Spot up and headed out. We went to the finger first and drilled holes seeing Perch on the bottom Parker put a line down. I started cutting holes toward the shoreline trying to find shallower water. The shelf was out of the water and the bottom was flat. I dropped a line and caught a perch and then Parker caught one out in the first hole. We fished here for a bit and then moved to try to find trout. We moved and moved and finally decided to set up camp and take what comes. We fished the morning away and got a small rainbow to take our bait. The day was not a great catching day but a great day for Jack to make Snow Angels.

Well, that catches up the blog. We had a good December and now a good start to 2021. I will keep the blog updated on a regular basis please join us on our adventures for the coming year. Remember to follow along at our other sites. Utah_Outback and UtahOutback47