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