Palisade Reservoir

It's the last day of the year and I had to get one more day of fishing in! I got up early and headed down to Palisade Reservoir In hopes of catching some tigers through the ice. When I arrived, I saw that only about a 1/3 of the reservoir was frozen and that my favorite spots were still open water. The ice looked questionable but I didn't drive 2 hours to not fish. I drilled test holes all the way out to where I wanted to fish and the ice averaged 2 1/2 inches thick which is way lower than I'd like. It's the first time I've ever ice fished with such thin ice beneath me. I ended up staying closer to shore because of it. I fished in 5-7 feet of water and stopped counting after 20 fish. Most were rainbows and I did land 1 tiger. I got 3 other tigers to the hole only to lose them. I fought one of them for quite some time and really got excited when I saw how big he was. This tiger was well over 20 inches and I missed him at the hole 3 times before we finally shook the hook. I'm still upset as I write this article that I didn't land it. It would have been my biggest fish through the ice. I'll get another chance on Monday and hopefully with a few cold days, the good spots will have ice.

The only tiger I landed.

My first double of the season!

Rainbow

Rainbow