Rockport fri 2/24

Me James joe and joes friend McKay from work hit rockport from about 1030 am til 2 or 3 and every last one if us skunked! Not a bite except joe and McKay but no fish! Not even one marked on the finder! No more rockport this season I'm officially writing this place off the rest of this winter!

Echo echo cho cho

On Thursday 2/23 me and Johnny decided to hit echo. As rockport had been kinda a bust lately and echo was only 15 min further. This was Johnny's decision and I will admit I went with a little bit of schepticism. We arrived around 230 or so in the afternoon and left at dusk. The air temperature was 50 degrees at the lake and a decent south wind offered some annoying random gusts. The edges were a little rotten but the main ice pack was a solid foot. I found a piece of 2x6 left on the bank which offered enough confidence to take the leap of faith. There was about a quarter inch of water on top of the ice. Now to the good part we drilled in about 25 to 30 feet of water dropped 15 feet down and 15 min later it was fish on for me and it felt nice it took my ratfinky with a meal worm. It was running my drag was spinning and Johnny was fired up. And then it got off. I realized my drag was a little loose which interfered with a good hook set. Rookie mistake! Then It was the Johnny show with a fat 16 inch then another then a 17 inch then a fat bowe just shy of 18 inches. This was both Johnny's biggest trout through the nice or ever. I missed a bite during this time. Johnny was seeing his success with power bait on a ratfinky. I was feeling the fear of the skunk when the fish finder beeped and the pole went off and this time I set the hook but again had forgotten to retighten the drag after loosening it to pull line. On the set I heard it spin but this time I wasn't satisfied with the mediocre hook set I kept tension on the fish tightened my drag and set the hook again an ended up pulling out this nice big big fish at 18 inches and a hook jaw and sharp teeth to boot it was my meal worm pole. I ended up missing one huge bite my powerbait pole was bent probably 60 degrees down wham wham wham by the time I ran over the fish felt the tension and let go. :( then the bite died we tried moving to no avail we packed up and went home. I'm totally glad Johnny talked me into echo maybe it is a well kept secret that has gone under the radar from ice fisherman. I was glad to see Johnny's best ice fusing day ever. I will be back there was something awesome that we were literally the only people on the lake! It was true solitude not but 10 min from the crowded banks of rockport.

Iceport

Thursday February 16th and Friday February 17th I fished Rockport. The firs trip occured from 3pm til 6pm me and Joe fished the west shore in about 45 feet of water we fished between 10 and 20 feet down. We threw alot of stuff at the mealies powerbait ice flies tube jigs etc. I had several big bites but I was messing around drilling another hole a little to far away to get to my poles in time but joe said they were big bites. After this I decided I was good where I was at. I ended up catching a beautiul fat healthy bowe on a ratfinky under a perch kastmaster tipped with a mealie. This was the only one I kept I fileted it out and plan on beer battering it for lunch today! This setup would go on to catch me another small planter fishing. Joe had lots of bites but couldnt seal the deal he was having "hookset-itis" and consequently was getting really frustrated. This was the maiden voyage of my ice tent, ice sled, and fish finder. The tent was awesome! It was a beautiful sunny day and therefore we sat outside until the sun started to go below the horizon but I was most impressed with the distance that I could see down my ice hole! The fish finder was awesome it has a flasher mode that I could see my lure etc. I didnt quite get to see it work but was really close! Right after we set the tent up after it got cold! I was outside the tent to get something else to bring in when I heard the fish id alarm beep on my finder. I hurried over to the hole was about to look at the screen when I saw my pole bouncing so I just went for the pole instead. I missed the hookset i was at a pretty awkward angle :( I didnt know enough about the fish finder to go back and see if it had been a big one! I think that once i figure this thing out it will be a huge bonus to my fishing! While we were on the lake I recieved a phone call from westminster college saying that they were cancelling my morning flight because they needed the simulator that I was scheduled with my students in. When Joe caught word he said would you like to go tomorrow morning? Of course with the new gap in my schedule how could I refuse! We texted Johnny with the idea and he was in! It was on! Joe was going to go on no sleep after working a graveyard that night I found out that I had a friday morning staff meeting :( consequently we had to wait for me to go to meeting from 8-940. We met in a parking lot below parlys at 10 and piled into my car and we were on our way. The target was east canyon. We drove up parleys exited on the 65 drove past little dell to find that the highway was closed! Oops! Well im not going to Ogden Canyon to hit East Canyon so it was to rockport we headed! We arrived to find a pretty crowded lake but decided combat fishing would beat not fishing! I got on the board first with a baitfish of a planter again on the ratfinky pole this time tipped with crawler. I threw lots more at them and just ended up with one more on the ratfinky pole tipped with a mealie. Johnny wins the day with 3 fish one beautiful colored bowe but nothing of any substantial size either! All the big ones have dissapeared! I believe johnny caught a couple of his fish on a paddle bug and one on powerbait. Joe had several bites but couldn't get the skunk affliction of of him. He even had on dishartening hookset that the fish ran with it and his line cut on the edge of his ice hole! I watched it happen and the look of frustration in his eyes was dishartening! All in all a good day out of the house though the catching could have been hotter! Memories were made and I was proud to see Johnny catch his first fish threw the ice what a milestone! All fish caught on the second trip were released to grow and catch again. Im typing this now from my cubicle at work and joe and johnny are both fishing rockport sounds as though johnnys got the lead but joe got a full nights rest and got his skunk off! Wish I was there! Tell next time!

Green worm suck!

This will be a post on 2 different trips. The first occurring Monday the 13 th with James on the Jordan river 4800 spot. James caught a Utah sucker with a worm on the bottom. We ended up buying weird green worms that I had remembered trying once on rockport trolling and did significantly worse on and for having made 3 previous trips to this spot in a week the action was significantly slower. I blame green worms! James snagged his rig was too lazy to re tie as we weren't staying long so he claimed one of my 2 poles he had a couple of little bite and runs and one hard bite with a missed set on my pole. I got skunked. The following day I only had one morning flight and was done by 10 so me and Johnny decided we would try to get revenge on the one water that had continually skunked us non other than the Utah lake. We were trying to fish somewhere new but somehow we ended up at the American fork boat harbor. I tossed out one rod with a worm on the bottom I still had green ones from the previous adventure. With my other the target was white bass I tried curly tailed jigs and article fox spinners with no avail. We decided to move out of the windy cold harbor we relocated to the pump house Jordan river outlet and decided not to go look at the lake as the river looked good there. We tried the same tactics and both ended up skunked. Damn you Utah lake I swear we will figure it out one day! We fished 1 til 4 on Utah lake the trip with James was prob like 1 til 3.

Jordan river

Fished in the sleet today with joe at the same 4800 s location for a few hours before dark. Tried corn bait and garlic power bait with no interest. The weapon of choice again was the Carolina rigged worm on the bottom. I caught a mixed bag today 3 mud cats 2 Utah suckers and 1 white bass all with the worm on the bottom. One of the mudcats was all beat up with scars and open wounds possibly from fighting? The white bass was a dink joe caught a Utah sucker and then we think another sucker. But this one ran and got into a snag. He had a fish get off right by shore as well. We both had tons of missed bites and hook sets. If I capitalized on every opportunity id be double digits for sure! It was good to see the white bass and I may target them soon.

Revenge of the Jordan River

Today was my full day off and I received an email from Cabellas that my Ice fishing sled I ordered was in the store. I decided I would go pick this up. While I was down there I bought some night crawlers and thought I'll see how the Jordan is this far south while I'm down here. I ended up driving around and getting kinda turned around and lost before I found a promising spot. I thought I'd just be walking down to try it for a minute so I didn't change my shoes. Needless to say I ended up in a bog with wet muddy feet. I just went back to my car and drove toward home. I joined up with the "tye dye twins" from the fishing forum I am a member of at the same 4800 south fishing location as yesterday. The fishing was slow we only fished from 4:30 til about 5:30 the Tye dyes came up empty handed I had one bite and was successful in hooking a big carp with my ultra light rod! This was another first species for me! It was a good thing they brought a net or I don't think I could have gotten it up on shore. I fished for an extra half hour from 5:30 to 6 and only got one more bite I got a little nuts with my hook-set and ended up fowl hooking a small utah sucker. The Jordan river has served as a great escape from the winter time blues. I can't wait to hit the suspected channel cat section of the river late spring this year!

Jordan river challenge

So me and johnny hit the Jordan river for the "Jordan river challenge" which is basically just a fun way of saying lets see how many random species we can catch! We hit the river between 2 and 4 pm today. It rained for the second half of the time. Johnny tried some rooster tails with no avail. I opted to go with a Carolina rigged worm on the bottom. I ended up catching 3 mudcats or bullhead catfish which is a new species for me! And one Utah sucker which is also a new species off the bucket list! Johnny switched to the worm and received a quite a few confirmed bites but couldn't seal the deal! Guess he had hook set itis! We fished on the west side of the river at 4800 south I used about 36 inches leader and 3/8 ounce weight a number either 4 or 6 hook with a whole crawler. We will be back for some more Jordan river challenge!