We hit Bear Lake this morning. Temperature was nice (+8 degrees) compared to earlier this past week when it was below zero just about every night and reaching a high of about 20 degrees! I had friends that ice fished on Tuesday and Thursday and caught limits of smaller whitefish each day plus a few cutthroat trout. We were drilling holes by 7:45am right on the inside edge of the rockpile in 35 feet of water. We were the closest people to shore. Anyway, the ice gained about 3" in thickness this past week! It is up to about 15" and there were two cars out on the rockpile on Tuesday! I keep getting asked if the ice is getting soft and the answer is NO! After drilling the holes for three of us, I picked up one small whitefish within the first few minutes. I then proceeded to lose a really nice cutthroat right in the hole. I got his head coming up the hole and he spit out my jigging spoon. It had to be in the 4-5lb range. Between the three of us (all were using jigging spoons tipped with salmon eggs or nothing at all) we caught about 20 whitefish and another nice cutthroat. I also saw several other cutts taken that morning, quite a few whitefish, several suckers, and even one huge Bear Lake sculpin (6" or so) by T-wolfer who stopped by to introduce himself! We fished until about 11:30 and called it a morning. The larger whitefish have been harder to catch. There are just a lot of smaller ones down there (both the spawning BL whitefish and juvenile Bonneville whitefish). I kept enough whitefish for dinner and my friend kept his cutthroat for the same reason. Anyway, don’t put your ice fishign gear away yet cause there is still plenty of winter left at Bear Lake. By the way…yesterday afternoon was a blizzard with high winds and we got a couple of inches of snow. The temp this morning (Sunday) was +5 at 7:00am. Enjoy the balmy valleys (and the air that you can see before you breathe…LOL) but come on up to hit the ice a few more times!
Should the whitefish still be running by next weekend?
Fished all day Friday and half a day Saturday with fishdude and our dad. Friday was a typical Bear Lake day for us. We fished South of the pressure ridge off Gus Rich point and had no luck at all. We uses the four wheeler to cover a bunch of water, anywhere from 20-85 ft, and had one bite all day long. The taste of skunk was strong that day. Saturday we switched over to the East side of the lake off second point and iced 3 small cuts and a small mack as well. Bite was decent for a couple of hours. Missed a few more bites too. All things considered, it was worth the sunburn and the mini vacation.[:)]
I made the trip up there on Sunday targeting the lake trout. Between my budy, and my son and I we iced nothing!!! We fished over by the marina first off then decided to move over by the rock pile. Didn’t very many fish at all, just a few here and there. I think we had 3 or 4 bumps between us but heck the fish might have just ran into the line. I could get them to follow a jig up and down but they did not waht to taste it. Weather was awesome until about noon when the winds came rolling in. We left about 1:30.
Oh well, I’ll probably be back again before the ice melts away.
SouthForkSly - you are only supposed to report the trips when we actually catch fish! I stuck around too long on Saturday. The drive through Logan Canyon was horrendous. I had to stop a couple of times to clean off my windshield wipers because they froze up. I nearly didn’t make it up to the summit in my poor little Civic.
I need to make it up to Palisades for a trip this year. I am pretty sure that my wife thinks I am done ice fishing though.
Sounds like the Bear will be socked in for a while longer.
I wonder if cars make good artificial reefs???
I take it you did not catch anything after we left on Saturday Fishdude. And if you remember right, we did catch something. Maybe not a lunker, but I will take what I can get on that stupid lake! Big bro. fished Palisades both days this weekend and said he did well. He watched a guy ice a 26-28" brown Saturday morning. Said it was a sweet fish. Tell your wife you need one more trip up North at least. Tell her to call me if she has a problem. I think I might take the kiddo out to Carey Lake this weekend and catch some perch and bluegill, that is if work does not interfere.