Flaming Gorge Ice and Roads

[roynut]

I don't know about Firehole, but a friend and I did fish at Lost Dog yesterday (12/12). The ice was 4" to 6", clear and hard, and covered by about .5" of icy snow. Fishing was good for both macs and rainbows. We fished just north of the cliffs above the confluence in about 56ft of water. Macs were mostly 20-40ft down, and were mostly in the 21-23" size range (the smallest one was 18", and I only caught one that small). Rainbows were cruising in the upper 20ft of the water and the two I caught were about 20" and fat. I caught 5 macs and 2 rainbows, and my friend caught 6 macs and one rainbow. We both lost at least two fish for each one that we managed to get out of the hole, including one mac that was half again larger than the others. I think I need to invest in a hook sharpener. We caught all of our fish on either 1/8oz white grub-tail jigs tipped with sucker meat, or on the small sized white "spoiler shad" jigs (from Walmart) with a small piece of sucker skin on the hook.

The road to Lost Dog was snowier than usual, and the shoreline was snowy, so I don't recommend going in a 2wd vehicle.