Fishing South Utah Valley

Friday I went solo to a number of waters that I have wanted to try and they are ice free. I loaded up and drove to the south end of the valley to my first destination. Spring Lake, a town and a lake.  Pulling in a Sheriff was parked at the lake, I took advantage of asked if he knew anything about the lake. He told me that last summer they caught a nine pound large mouth bass, but beyond that he didn't know that much. The lake is a community pond and fed by a fish hatchery. It has large mouth bass, crappie, bluegill, catfish and trout. I'm sure there are other fish species in the pond but I couldn't verify it. I set up to fish the boat dock at the north end of the lake and then a city crew pulled up to work on the dock. They felt bad but they had to work on the dock and fix some of the boards that had pulled up. The lead crew member, Dale Andreason started to tell me where he thought the fish would be. I continued to fish and actually helped them with chores at hand, real hard work I used my fat butt to help counter weight the dock to raise the one end. I thought I was getting a few hits but then determined that a weed line was the actual culprit. The crew fixed one of the boards then decided they needed some more equipment and two of them went to retrieve it, Dale stayed behind and we talked.

Dale said I really should try the south end where the gate was located. He then mentioned a hole at the other end of the spill gate. This is located on private property but just talk to the owner and mention his name. I said well okay, then he took charge and went and talked to the owner himself for me. He returned and said he was okay letting me on his property to try the hole. Dale knew there would be trout in the hole because they opened the gate and a number of the fish had made there way down stream. So I took advantage of the offer and went to owners house and met him.

Mr. Moore is how I was told to address him so I did just that. As I parked the truck in front of his home I noticed an elderly gentleman putting together some stuff and I waved. Mr Moore was waiting for me and motioned me to come on in to his yard. I met him and and introduced myself, he was quite cordial and had his gear ready to go with me. We walked to the north end of his property where the stream came onto his property. This hole is not large and I thought to myself well this isn't going to last long. The stream had a number of old sand bags in it and a lot of debris from the trees. We set up, he with his old fly pole set up with a worm hook and bobber, me with a green jig. The first pitching cast I made went right into the over growth and hung up. I thought he was going to kick me out immediately but I managed to get untangled and I moved back to my spot. Second cast I hit the hole and a fish followed me back the eddy of the pool. Standing there with the jig just above the water and a trout jump out of the water and hit the jig!! First time ever for me, it was crazy! We continued to fish this little hole and trading casts. The green jig worked okay until I lost it to one of the bags in the hole. I changed out to a pink paddle bug and it was hot for about an hour. I caught multiple trout on it. 

There was one fish that was a decent sized trout, but each time I hooked up and got it to the bank it would get off the hook. Mr. Moore told me of the crappie and bluegill he would catch in this hole all summer. He also told me what was in the lake and how they planted the fish. He also told me that they have wipers in the lake but most of them went down stream to another private lake below him. I fished with Mr. Moore for a couple hours and had a wonderful time conversing with him. The fish shut down at 11:30 and I excused myself to move on to the other lakes and waters I wanted to hit. After a quick lunch I headed to Goshen Warm Springs.

The Springs are about a quarter mile down the trail. They are crystal clear and shallow. I tossed a couple different lures and patterns and seen a few fish follow and sniff the jigs but nothing would strike. They looked huge through the water. I fished the large main pool for about an hour and got nothing.

From here I went to Lincoln beach on Utah Lake and found out where the hot spot was as it was covered with fishers. I mean it looked like those pictures you see of Alaska stacked in shoulder to shoulder. I fished the marina until I lost my jig and called it a day. 

The morning half spoiled me anyhow. I really enjoyed fishing that small hole with Mr. Moore, and the conversation we had. This is a day I will remember!

P.S. we removed most of the debris and old bags from the pool on Mr. Moore's property, I plan to go back in the summer and learn how he catches crappie and bluegill in that pool.

Fish Lake Ice Fishing 2-25-17

Saturday morning I met up with Parker at his place and he invited a few friends to join us today. Cameron and Cody Hunt, and Jordan Hymas. They met us there and we were on the road by 5:30 am. Cameron drove and the trip was nice since I just got to ride along. We arrived at Fish Lake and went to east end of the lake, readied our gear and got on the lake by 7:30.

Trolling Deer Creek 2-17-17

Friday I met up with Gary Daniels to fish Deer Creek. We met at 6:30 and was on the water as the sun rose over the horizon. We were trolling on the 17th of Feb. the earliest I have been on the water in a boat. We thought it would be good fishing, not realizing how epic of a day we were in for. The ice season for Deer Creek lasted a total of 3 weeks.

We launched and I dang near fell in the lake getting on the boat, well I partially did but only got my shoes wet. The state hadn't had time to put the docks in yet. We took off and looked for ice sheets finding a couple, one we bumped up against and it was still two to three inches thick so we decided we would stay away from them. The lake was wide open from outside the buoys toward Heber. We started trolling and went through Rainbow bay without anything and made it to the cliffs where Gary hooked up the first of the day at 14 feet. Not much later I got a hit on the JoD and landed a rainbow. We reset the poles and Gary hooked up two on his side, both nice Rainbows.

The day was starting to warm up as we trolled roadside down through the Island bay. We both got another fish then Gary's second pole got a hit and then my second got a hit so a quad set for the first time. We had a few times where all four poles were active and we had our hands filled with poles and setting hooks. Today we were using downriggers and dodgers with a worm trailing. Luckily we each bought a dozen worms!

The day continued to get better and more fish were landed. Gary had the biggest catches of the day with three fish over 3.5 pounds and another three over 3 pounds. The morning warmed up and became a beautiful day. We fished until we ran out of bait. We caught well over 50 fish in 4 hours. With multiple double and triple catches. Epic day on the lake!!

Ice Fishing Solo for "Fatty"

Today was a special day for me. My best friend and I skied this weekend 33 years ago for the last time. He was skiing at my side when he hit a patch of ice and slid off the trail into a stand of trees. I have a blog post about this called Solo. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of David "Fatty" Whittaker, he was my best friend. You can read the story there if interested. Today I went on my own for the reason to remember and reflect. Fishing was the side product.

I woke up late and didn't mind, made myself breakfast and readied my gear. Getting on the road I headed south to Scofield, Parker told me the ice was deep and solid and I hadn't been there since early season. I drove up and all the way around the lake to the river, looking for an access point that was different than we had been using. I found some but the walkout was deep and farther than I cared to trudge today. I ended up at the scout camp and seen the only other fishers on the ice camped across from the ramp. I turned north and set camp for a bit there in 8 feet of water. Caught a number of chub, which have the lake choked and the game fish in not good health. I figure it is my civic duty to take out as many as possible. I did manage one skinny cutthroat in this first camp.

2 O'clock rolled around and I moved out to a buoy in the middle of the bay. The water wasn't much deeper, but the chub were as abundant there as the other hole. This time I didn't manage landing a trout at all. I fished until 3:30 and called it a day. Again reflection and future was the focus of today. Reflection of what might have been except for that fatal day of skiing, where Fatty and I might have ended up as we raised our families together. Our boys would have been great friends, I'm sure of it.

Tomorrow I go fishing with a new friend and colleague in his boat on DC and the future continues. Love you Fatty, I will always remember you and have you with me.

Ice Fishing - 3 lake day

Parker and I set out for the south central part of the state on Thursday for what we hoped would be an epic fishing day.  We made our way to Price stopping for breakfast and supplies and continued south on highway 10. 

Our first target and only planned target for the day Huntington North Reservoir. We pulled into the state park, went to the boat ramp, where Parker said "park down by the lake." I refused because I could see the ramp was a sheet of ice. After getting things in order we started down the ramp where I immediately started sliding on the ice. Getting to a snow pack and stopping my death slide, Parker from behind, "guess it was good we didn't try to park on the ramp." starting back down the ramp again the sled wasn't cooperating, so I let it go. It slid about 10 feet onto/into the lake! We looked at one another as we watched my sled floating in the water as it broke through. I pulled it out of the water and we started looking for an entry point that would hold us. I went east Parker went west, I took a step onto the ice and broke through immediately up to my knee. Parker started out and got a couple steps and was saying he found a spot, when he broke through up to his thighs! We turned around got back to the truck and started the drying process.

We thought for a moment and Parker said let's go to Joe's Valley. Parker fished it last season and did really well and it is higher up the canyon so we thought it would be safe. We made our way to Orangeville and up the canyon. Along the way mud and rock slides were present and happening, but we continued onward. Noticing the temperature was steady at 36 we thought we were in for disappointment. We arrived at the boat ramp and decided to try it. We found safe ice with about 3 inches of slush on top but the ice was solid at 8 inches thick. We set camp, using Parker's new lithium laser Strikemaster to cut holes. we fished the first set for 30 minutes and moved and moved and moved and moved again. A fisher went by told us he had fished the day before for 6 hours and got one fish, not a good omen. We fished until noon and decided to try another lake. Not a bite, not a blip on the flasher happened and those near us was having the same luck. We packed up and made our way back down the canyon, dodging rocks and debris the whole way down.

We made it back to Huntington where we decided to go to Huntington/Mammoth and go for some tigers. Passing a sign flashing "Road closed at MP 13" we stopped turned around and asked a local store if the road was really closed. They were nice enough to call the sheriff office to find out. Sure enough an avalanche had closed the canyon. Back on the road toward Price, we decided to try Scofield, but up the canyon, Parker seen the Duchesne sign and said "I have never been through that canyon let's go to Starvation!" We turned around and made our way through Indian Canyon.

We arrived at Rabbit Gulch at 2 pm, seen one car there and two guys out about 100 yards. Parker yelled out to them "caught anything!" the reply "NO!" We looked at one another and decided we were here and the access is easy we pulled over and got the stuff ready.  56 degrees is what the temp read in the truck. We didn't even put on our bibs or hoodies and decided when we got too cold we would stop fishing. We setup in 15 feet of water, the ice was 4-6 inches and scary looking with standing water of about 3 inches. Fished these hole for about 30 minutes, one of the guys came over and told us he had two solid hits all day but missed them both. He also pointed out they were the only two on the lake the entire day. They left the lake, I took over their holes and Parker move to 10 feet of water.

Parker gave out a yelp and he had hooked up a nice rainbow. By now it was 4 pm and the sun was dropping. I came over to his spot and cut one hole and set my line. We gave it till 4:30 pm and I said fish or no fish I am done. No fish came around. We made our way back to the truck walking up the ramp as river of water flowed into the lake. The truck temperature read 62 degrees now. I believe ice season may be coming to a rapid end, with the exception of Strawberry, if you can get to the lake. We actually tried 4 lakes today but only made it to 3. Great day on the lakes, in the sun and clean air. Still better than any day in the office!