Work has been a little slow this week so I thought mabye if it was slow today I could cut out and take my first ride up the Mirror Lake Highway. After checking in at work and not having much to do I checked road conditions (thanks kent) left work and grabbed my gear and headed for the higher ground.
The road was clear up to the Falls and I stopped to take a couple of pictures. After the falls turnout there was a bit of ice/snow on the road.
Got to the Trial Lake turnoff to find it covered with snow. Put it into 4 low and I was able to break thru the small drifts and park right at the gate on the dam. I climbed out of my truck about 11 am to 28* and 15 mph winds and decided to go check the ice and make sure it was safe.
The ice was about 3 inches thick and I wasn’t the first person to use an auger on the ice, there were multiple holes that have been drilled. So I walked back to the truck and grabbed my gear and set out on the ice. I brought my shappell ice tent with me. It was a bit of a struggle putting it up by myself in the wind. I got it up and took a step away to grab my stool and tackle box just as a gust of wind came up and started blowing it back to shore where luckily it stopped. After chasing it down and cursing the wind it was time to fish.
About 2 my interest waned, my toes got cold, and it was time to go home.
The catching was poor, I got skunked, but they acted hungry and I did get a lot of bites,and I did get to see quite a few thru the hole, I even got a few pics of a couple that ventured up near the hole. Overall a fun day and worth the trip!
One question–I saw a couple that looked liked Tiger Trout and a couple that looked like litte Splake, are both of those in there or was it just my imagination?
Congrats on your first ice fishing trip of the season. If you missed several bites you may have been using too large of hook and/or too large of bait. One definitely needs to downsize up there. I believe they planted some tiger trout , but I don’t have time to research it right now.
Yeah I think if I had downsized it would have gone better, I did see some fish swim thru with some size to them–a couple up around 14-16 inches. Today was as much getting out and seeing a place I had never been before as much as it was about fishing.
I started out walking around the edge just off shore and checking the stability of the ice, but then I started noticing groups of ice fishing holes further out and just re-cut one of those and fished there. If they hadn’t been there I would have a lot more checking before heading out on the ice.
That was the first ice fishing report I read this year, congrats. I’m still in denial that winter is here…and I wouldn’t call that a skunk. Atleast you saw some fish and for your first time there I’d say you done allright.
After looking at some other pictures online they were brook trout i was seeing. I had just seen the white around the edges of the fins and saw that a lot on the splake I was catching last winter at fish lake.
They stocked 2,000 tiger trout in Trial Lake last year, so don’t be surprised if that’s what you think you saw, however there are far more brook trout stocked than tiger trout. No splake.
You can always check here to see. It lists pretty much all the stocking across the state from 2004 and on: http://wildlife.utah.gov/stocking/
Looking at your pictures, your bait was not only too big, but the wrong kind. Fish’s diet in the Uintas consists almost entirely of small aquatic insects. Try using #14 Chernobyl Ants, #20 Scuds, #18 bead head of your choice, salmon egg on a #14 gold hook, or a #16 Shrimp-Bo (pink and white tipped with fresh/frozen raw shrimp).
You can sink them by running them a dropper rig from your main line. Put a small split shot at the bottom and don’t get in hurry to sink them or your line will end up in a huge ball. You can tip them with wax worms if you like, but it may or maynot help.
If you hurry, you might be able to get into Washington this weekend, a far better bet then Trial. Fish about 200 yards off the NE campground just off the main road in 9 feet of water. It has lots more Grayling but you’ll have to downsize to a 22-24 since they have very small mouths. Follow the same footprints you did at Trail.
Thanks for the tips, I’ll have to try them. I wasn’t too totally prepared for a small lake and small fish, I didn’t really have small tackle or light line or leader. I’m still rigged up for fish lake from last year and tried the same things that worked there.
By the way what were you using? I may be wrong but in one of those pictures it looks like you were using a plain bare ice jig. To get those to work you pretty much need to put some kind of natural bait on them (i.e. waxworms, mealworms, earthworms, salmon eggs, piece of a minnow, etc.) And remember to think small for the majority of your ice fishing. Also I agree that the other guy’s advice about matching the natural forage by mimicking an aquatic insect of some kind is a good idea too, even though I’ve never done it that way I’ve heard of good results.
Honestly the things that have helped me the most over the years are these:
It’s always a good idea to look at fishing reports to see at what depth people are catching fish, and what they have been using for success before you go.
Move around on the ice if you don’t get any bites. Don’t sit in one area too long. You don’t do it during open water, so why do it on the ice?
Use sharp hooks. Enough said there.
Have a quick reaction time from when you detect a strike to when you set the hook! Often they bite at it and spit it right back out, so act fast! You don’t have to wait for a “good bite”, because that “good bite” doesn’t always come. I took a guy from my EMT class out last year to Deer Creek, and no matter how many times I told him he could not get that into his head. It took me a while to learn this too.
I tried several different things–glow tube jigs, that white jig head has a little silver flasher hanging down, i also tipped it with a salmon egg, a fake worm thing, and a couple of different little jigging spoons. I did have bites and on all of them. I wasn’t fishing too deep–I could watch most of the fish as the came up to my lure and could watch them sit and nibble and avoid the hook. I think my biggest problem was oversized hooks.
I made a trip to sportsmen’s and cabela’s today and picked up some lighter line, smaller jigs, ice flies, and some mealworms to go give washington lake a try tomorrow.
Hey sounds like you are prepared. Stay small and when you see them nibbling try to hook em! Try using half or a third of a mealworm together with a salmon egg on the same hook. You shouldn’t fail.
There are times to use bigger things. For example, for tiger trout I use glow tube jigs with a whole minnow. But uinta fish should respond very well to traditional trout ice fishing tactics.
Get a two pole permit if you can. Also when you rig up, I like to use a small kastmaster or swedish pimple about a foot above the ice jig for trout. On the other rod I might just have two ice jigs. The fish come in to see the flash and movement of the kastmaster, and the ice jig finesses them and convinces them to bite! You can also put a little salmon egg on one of the kastmaster hooks, and sometimes you’ll catch the more aggressive fish on that.
Jig the rod about a foot vertically one or two times and then let it sit for while. Then shake and twitch it very slightly. This is especially helpful if a fish is looking at it. It is also a good idea to use some kind of a strike indicator like a slip bobber that will detect even the tinniest of nibbles.
Here’s a quick sketch I did of what I like to use, click on it to see it better:
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