A bit late as I got 2 hours of sleep before spending 23 hours awake for this adventure. Typed it up and at 2 am the back button was clicked.
Fish Lake - This place has been a dream of mine since I 1st started fishing many years ago. Thanks to Repeater it finally came true!
Arrived at Repeater’s house at 5am. We battled the snowy roads in record time. We parked at the heated bathrooms pullout and made our way to the lake. That was by far the worst access to a lake ever! The crust would break un-expectedly up to your waist and the crust layer would scrape at your thighs as you moved. I being the heaveiest of the group crawled millatry style on my stomach to the lake for 40 yards. I would take the lake mary hike over that any day. It was such a relief to hit the ice. My twin and I took our 1st ever falls on the ice, had to happen someday I guess. It was “selectively” slick in spots.
We drilled holes at 90 feet and back tracked to 22 feet. That is where the Splake action was best! After a while Repeater and I, satisfied with the splake action, wanted perchy action that this fishy lake was famous for. Dam we tried 4 feet, 15 feet, to the sides of the said holes, and still just a few to show for our efforts. I then got a real kick outta the “sight fishing” under the ice at 15 feet. Lots of splake and an ocassional rainbow or perch would travel afar to inspect my jig for the slighest sign of imperfection. Many bit, many got hooked, and a few lived to swim another day. My twin stayed a "sucker for splake, and he caught a Utah sucker too!
For the last hour I gave the lake trouting a try. Drilled holes at 90 feet and 100 feet, with only one intersted customer on the sonar. We failed to hook up this time but I will be knocking the “sea floor” again someday for his attention and affection. It was great to cross yet another fish (splake) off our bucket list, and my twin got the bonus of getting the sucker off his list too.
I caught 21 Splake, 3 rainbows, 3 perch.
My twin caught 25 splake, 3 rainbows, 3 perch, and 1 utah sucker.
Repeater got 15 fish, 6 were perch
So total was 50 splake, 9 rainbows,12 perch, and 1 sucker.
Tactics in order from what worked the best to least…
Splake - Pumkin pepper jig (even baitless), powerbait speckled green glow jigs, Pink tiger glow ice fly. Tippes were sucker meat, nightcrawlers, perch eyes, baitless.
Rainbow - Pink tiger glow ice fly, powerbait speckled green glow jigs. Baits were sucker meat, nightcrawlers, perch eyes.
Perch - Powerbait speckled green glow jigs and pink tiger glow ice fly. Baits were perch eyes, nightcrawlers.
Utah sucker - Pink tiger glow ice fly. Nightcrawlers.
My twin and the 1st fish of the day, sign of great things to come?
Well maybe if they weren’t wearing a skirt the crust wouldn’a scraped the legs so bad! Or was is skorts or shorts…[:p] yus-ribbin
Maybe Purple and Gold - and we call 'em the Splakers!
Sounds like you earned the title today boyz! Too bad the perch weren’t being more plentiful to find. Nice looking fish.
Nice hitting some new ‘water’. What’s next on the bucket list?
Wow what a trip…more like an adventure. I had never been to Fish Lake before and it truely lived up to its name! I went down there trying to my 1st splake and ended up catching tons of them. That kind of action is hard to come by. Those guys fight like hell with their head shaking…which is more like head thrashing! Honestly I thought that all I would catch is perch…boy was I wrong. 32 fish + good company = an epic day of fishing in my book.
Spend a few more days there and you may find this was a bit of an average to slow day for you.
Knew that comment would surface. God I hope that is true!!! I am headed back sunday. I have heard of way better days and I was just excited to catch so many of a new fish species. Well worth the trip in the car!
Hope to get my 1st 100 fish day there. A man can dream, a man can dream.
cool report- Im surprised the perch catching was so slow, anytime Ive ever gone, if you find the weedline and drop even a bare hook you cant keep them off. Usually they’re dinks but I have always caught them at will. I usually take a trip with some buddies to fishlake in the winter and we have a blast, I love that lake. thanks for sharing the pics.
If your looking for perch try parking at the marina parking lot.Walk out find the weed line as mentioned above. Last saturday Afternoon 3:15 to 4:4 5we had a blast. we had planned on looking for 20’ feet but didn’t have to move from our first exploration holes in 18’. they hit everything we tried but a pearl curly tail with wax worms seemed to produce slightly larger perch. Gizzy bugs were also hot. Good luck and tight lines.
Ya gotta love fish lake, it is such an amazing place, well im not trying to advertise a new amazing slutter bug or anything else from the maniac perch catching line. just getting out and enjoying the beauty of fishlake is a trophy in itself, the number of fish you catch per day there is not the trophy, it’s the possible catch that keeps people going back. Hope to hear how Sunday is for you. Also if you can, take a grill out on the ice with you, the splake taste the best it of there when there still flopping!