The Good Kind of Hard Water

ICE FISHING TIME! A lot of the lakes iced up the past few weeks, and have hit safe-ice conditions. I made a solo trip to Mantua Reservoir this morning to try and get some Perch and Blue Gill for dinner tonight. A friend of mine fished it on Saturday with his boy and killed it, catching over 40 fish between them!

 

I arrived around 8 a.m. to about 10 trucks already parked along the south road. So much for no body fishing on Mondays. I was so surprised to see that many people out on the ice today. Most people were fishing out in the middle. Luckily, no one was where I wanted to fish. I made my way over to my spot, and drilled my first two holes. The second my jig hit the bottom there was action. I set the hook and had my first fish on which turned out to be a nice sized perch. I got him off the hook and immediately sent the jig to the bottom again. Same thing as before, and I soon had my second perch on the ice! It was a blazing fast start to the day, and it stayed that way for the first hour. I landed several nice perch and bluegill during this time. I even had a Rainbow Trout take my jig off the bottom.

 

 

I basic map of Mantua Reservoir.

There were a lot of people that had the same idea I had...

My first stop produced for about an hour.

Once the first stop slowed, I moved about 30 yards away and drilled two more holes. This spot is where I caught the biggest perch and gills of the day. I was really impressed with the size of the fish. They are way bigger on average than last year. I kept 25 of the 52 fish I landed today; 12 Bluegill, 12 Perch and one Rainbow. White was the color that worked today, and I fished in 10-12 feet of water the whole time. I left around 1 p.m.

I filleted the fish, and fried them up for my wife and I. I went the easy route, and just used a Cajun fish fry mix I bought at Cabelas. It was better than I expected, so I think I'll be using it from now on. it saves have to pull everything out to make a batter yourself. I love fishing the first few weeks that the ice sets up. It seems that the fish are always more willing to eat than later in the ice fishing season.

This is one chunky perch!

The Perch needed to go on a diet, so I put him on mine...

The keepers, minus one gill.

 

Dinner tasted great!

Frozen At The Berry

We had our winter camp for Scouts at Strawberry Reservoir this year. The plan was to camp on the ice and fish, but we arrived late. We decided to set up by the vehicles since it was dark. We made dinner and stayed close to the fire. Sitting around the fire is one of my favorite things about camping. Stories always seem to be better around a fire. After a few hours, we all hit the hay in hopes of staying warm through the night.

As it turned out, the majority froze. It was a balmy -9 degrees as we woke up and got ready for the day. He quickly had heaters running and started getting breakfast ready. It was interesting cracking frozen eggs in preparation of making french toast. While we were doing this, a couple of air boats cruised by on the ice. The snow the fans kicked up instantly turned to fog which lingered for about an hour.

As we wrapped up breakfast, it was voted that we pack up and hit a pond closer to home with warmer weather. We headed back to civilization, and allowed our bodies to thaw along the way. We reached the small pond and once we found the fish, we caught several. Some of the boys fished while others went sledding and had snowball fights. We spent a few hours doing this and wrapping up the trip with a hot dog lunch. We returned home tired, and with sunburned faces. It was a fun trip, but I'm all-the-more thankful for a nice warm bed.

 



Swamp People... Utah style!

All the kids thawing. The car heaters were popular on this trip.

Getting breakfast ready.

This is what frozen eggs look like.

One of about a dozen fish caught. The warmer weather was a plus!

First Time On Frozen Strawberry

So I finally made it to Strawberry this year! We had a group of five venture out in the wee hours of the morning to see how the bite was through the ice. There's a good 8 inches of ice but when it's see through like it was today, it always gets me to walk differently. You could see through the ice about 10 feet which made for a good show as you reeled up fish. The ice was really making noise today and it shifted and expanded. One such time started with a loud boom and all of us moving about 5 inches to the right which almost made me have to change my shorts! While it about scared the you know what out of me, all the noise and expansion is a good thing as it is a sign of a healthy ice sheet.
The fishing was fast at times and non existent at others. One thing about ice fishing Strawberry that makes it so enjoyable is the constant big cutthroat trout that you get to fight. There is a slot limit in place on the lake were you can't keep any cutts between 15-22". The average catch on this trip was 18-20 inches with 2 going over the 22 inch mark. We fished all morning and into the afternoon before we called it quits. Between the 5 of us we ended up landing 70 fish with Jim at the top with 20 and I brought up the rear with 11. It was a fantastic day to get out and wet a line!

Average catch on this trip.
Nathan with his first catch of the day.

Rob with his double. The only one of the day.

There was quite a crowd in the morning.

Something has to give...

Schooled By An 8 Year Old

I met back up with rob to see if we could replicate the fast fishing of a week ago. This trip Rob brought his son Matt and I brought a friend that had never been ice fishing before. We arrived at the lake at dark o'clock got set up and as always, Matt had fish on the ice before I could even sit down in my chair! We got a quick picture and then he had a rainbow on the ice before I had my camera put away. Not to long after that my friend Ryan landed his first rainbow through the ice and I later found out that was also his first catch ever which was fun to see. The fishing slowed to a creep after that with fish here and there. It was nothing like the fast action we had last week.
A high note for me on the trip was catching a new personal best for green sunfish that went 8". As I was feeling good about my sunfish, Matt walks over to me with a 15" rainbow he had just landed and says "8 inches huh?" as he looks down at his fish with a smirk. He then walks away with me realizing I just got put in my place by a trash talking 8 year old! I laughed because there wasn't much I could say. He caught more fish than any of us! We also caught some bluegill and a few small perch for a 4 species day on the ice. Although the fishing wasn't as fast as we had hoped, it was a fun getting out on the ice again.

Matt's first fish of many.
Ryan's first ever catch.

Matt and Rob with some keeper bows.

Ryan's first bluegill.

Great shot Ryan took.

My new personal best; 8 inch sunfish

Decent sized bluegill going 9 inches.

Who Says Hard Water Is Bad?

I got up bright and early this morning to meet up with my friend Rob to hit the hard water for the first time this season! we made it to the lake and we out fishing at around 7 am. I always forget how much I like to ice fish until that first fish hits my bait and the fight is on. We both slayed them today! the first hour and a half I we couldn't get our second poles going because the fish wouldn't stay off long enough to get them set up. We caught lots of rainbow trout and blue gill with a few yellow perch mixed in. The trout went 14-16", Bluegills were 6-8" and the perch we kept went 9". We were using Jammin Jigs tipped with maggots. Pink and white jigs were the ticket. I couldn't think of a better way to start off the ice season. We kept a few to eat but released the majority of them. Guess what I'll be doing next week? until then...

Rob getting set up

We were not alone on this cold but beautiful day.

A few for the frying pan.