Took a ride up to Scofield today. Got a late start hit the west side ice about 10:00. There was a group of boy scouts just getting set up, so I spent a half hour helping them. There were three 5-6 year olds with them. I got the flasher out and helped each of them catch a fish. It was great fun! They were using lake poles with the top section pulled off. It didn’t matter a bit to them, they were having a ball! I showed them how to watch their line for bites and wished them well. They had pretty good action the entire morning. Great fun watching kids light up when they get into fish. Most of the scouts were in tennis shoes, so they only lasted a couple of hours, but I think they all caught a fish before they left.
I wandered off far enough off to get away from the noise and drilled a hole. First drop I caught a chunky rainbow. Great way to start the day! I had some viscous hits right under the ice from some cutts cruising up high. One of them puked up some one inch minnows. They must have been chasing the minnows right under the ice. Fishing was steady until about noon then it died down. I packed up to leave, but as I was walking through the holes the other group had drilled I couldn’t resist the urge to drop a line in and see what was going on closer to shore. Bite was better there than where I had spent the morning. I moved around to all their old holes and caught fish in all of them.
I was visited by the CO and a biologist. Had a nice chat with them about the lake and what was going on. We discussed how it seemed there was an age class or two almost completely missing this year. They saw I had kept a chub and told me not to throw them back in. Just leave them for the birds.
I found one hole the scouts had drilled in 7 feet of water. I only caught a couple of cutts in it, but there were alot of fish showing on the bottom. They would hit, but I couldn’t get a hook in them. I tied on a smaller jig, tipped it with a piece of crawler, sent it back down, and pulled out a chub. Every summer I envy TubeDude and everyone who has a supply of chubs, so I decided to catch as many as I could. Ended the day with 59 chubs out of that hole. I caught lots of trout out of that hole too. My biggest 4 fish of the day came out of the chub hole.
Ended the day with 73 trout(clicker counted), 9 of which were tigers, and cutts out numbering bows about two-to-one. Fished with jigheads tipped with crawlers. I invited two bows home for dinner, and all the chubs except one got an invite to go cat fishing with me this summer! I left one for the crows, or coyote who ever got there first.
Fun day, and the weather was nice too!
IceAndFly