01-15-2023, 07:18 PM
I fished Lost Creek Reservoir, yesterday, with a fellow BFT member. The first challenge was getting there. The main road is blocked, right after getting off of the freeway. We had to go two exits east to follow the detour. That worked but took extra time.
The road was dry almost everywhere all the way to the dam. The parking lot was plowed and the road was not plowed beyond where one first reaches the dam. We parked there and had a choice of two different paths to reach the ice. We chose the more gradual trail (rather than the one that goes down the hill next to the dam). This worked well until reaching the last steep section, which is the exposed high-water portion of the reservoir. My sled wanted to slide off of the trail and with my fishing partner's help we were able to reach the ice.
Getting on the ice was not a challenge, but once reaching the ice one was walking through crusty slush. We walked across to the east side and my partner was smarter than I was. He found a chunk of ice that did not have slush and I chose a place that I had to build a snow island to keep out of the 4 to 6" deep slush. I was marking many fish, so I moved to another location. Again, I didn't realize that fishing where there wasn't slush was an option, so I had to build a second snow island. After again marking few fish I moved again, closer to shore, and where there was no slush.
By then my partner was way ahead, of me, in fish count. He had to leave just before noon and I stayed for another 1 and 1/2 hours. During that time I marked enough fish, but no takers. I finally tried using chunks of raw shrimp to tip my jigs and the bite was on.
We only caught trout, (I was hoping to catch one chub for fresh bait.) and the largest ran ~17" long. I caught rainbows and cutthroat, and my partner caught them plus a few splake (until he caught those I didn't realize they had planted splake in Lost Creek). I was hoping for a tiger trout, a kokanee and a brown trout, but it wasn't to be. I noticed all of the fish, that I caught, were on the thin side, not unhealthy skinny, but definitely not thick. I assume the abundance of chubs has something to do with that.
The hike out was much worse than the hike in had been. By the early afternoon, the crust had softened and the slush was a bigger issue. I tried pulling my heavy sled up the steep slope, by the dam. I was making extremely slow progress so I took several heavy items out of my sled and the plan was to make a trip with the sled and then a couple more trips to carry the other items to the parking lot. Thankfully, some young folks noticed I was struggling and came to my rescue. I was grateful for their assistance in helping me get my sled and all of my other gear to the parking lot in one trip.
One thing I forgot to mention is that, while we were fishing, several large herds of deer walked across the ice. There must have been some type of migration going on.
The road was dry almost everywhere all the way to the dam. The parking lot was plowed and the road was not plowed beyond where one first reaches the dam. We parked there and had a choice of two different paths to reach the ice. We chose the more gradual trail (rather than the one that goes down the hill next to the dam). This worked well until reaching the last steep section, which is the exposed high-water portion of the reservoir. My sled wanted to slide off of the trail and with my fishing partner's help we were able to reach the ice.
Getting on the ice was not a challenge, but once reaching the ice one was walking through crusty slush. We walked across to the east side and my partner was smarter than I was. He found a chunk of ice that did not have slush and I chose a place that I had to build a snow island to keep out of the 4 to 6" deep slush. I was marking many fish, so I moved to another location. Again, I didn't realize that fishing where there wasn't slush was an option, so I had to build a second snow island. After again marking few fish I moved again, closer to shore, and where there was no slush.
By then my partner was way ahead, of me, in fish count. He had to leave just before noon and I stayed for another 1 and 1/2 hours. During that time I marked enough fish, but no takers. I finally tried using chunks of raw shrimp to tip my jigs and the bite was on.
We only caught trout, (I was hoping to catch one chub for fresh bait.) and the largest ran ~17" long. I caught rainbows and cutthroat, and my partner caught them plus a few splake (until he caught those I didn't realize they had planted splake in Lost Creek). I was hoping for a tiger trout, a kokanee and a brown trout, but it wasn't to be. I noticed all of the fish, that I caught, were on the thin side, not unhealthy skinny, but definitely not thick. I assume the abundance of chubs has something to do with that.
The hike out was much worse than the hike in had been. By the early afternoon, the crust had softened and the slush was a bigger issue. I tried pulling my heavy sled up the steep slope, by the dam. I was making extremely slow progress so I took several heavy items out of my sled and the plan was to make a trip with the sled and then a couple more trips to carry the other items to the parking lot. Thankfully, some young folks noticed I was struggling and came to my rescue. I was grateful for their assistance in helping me get my sled and all of my other gear to the parking lot in one trip.
One thing I forgot to mention is that, while we were fishing, several large herds of deer walked across the ice. There must have been some type of migration going on.
