Fishing Forum

For me, the ice season is likely over. I know many lakes still have safe ice, but slush conditions and late winter bite (or lack thereof) are a deterrent for future trips for me. It's been a good season, and thought I would recap my goals, highlights, etc. here. This year, I wanted to focus on three main goals

1) catch at least 15 species through the ice (my previous high was 12) - I ended up catching 20 different species through the ice in Utah (or reciprocal waters). This included rainbow trout, tiger trout, brown trout, brook trout, bluegill, black crappie, white bass, yellow perch, cutthroat trout, burbot, crayfish, largemouth bass, lake trout, walleye, channel catfish, northern pike, splake, Utah sucker, bonnevile whitefish, and bear lake whitefish. 

2) catch at least 5 different species with individual fish over 20" - I ended up with 7 species over 20", including rainbow trout (21"), cutthroat trout (21"), lake trout (21"), channel catfish (20.5"), burbot (21.5"), northern pike (29"), and Utah sucker (22"). 

3) introduce others to ice fishing - I took some neighbors fishing at Strawberry Ladders in early February and took a niece, her fiance', my wife, and my daughter to Strawberry and Rockport in late February. It was fun helping others catch fish and many s were shared and memories made.

Other ice season highlights:

• Took 29 ice fishing trips, visited 15 different lakes, and got skunked "only" 3 times.
  

• Caught 288 fish through the ice, for average of just under 10 fish per trip - I'll take it!
  

• Caught and posted over 300" of fish in the Ice Challenge (previous high was 174").
  

• Fished several new to me lakes in the pursuit of new to me species.
  

• Fished with or ran into several BFTers and other friends on the ice. Always good to learn from others and share tips.
  

Okay, after recapping all that, maybe I'm not done yet...

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Pic of me with my first ever northern pike and a pic from Flaming Gorge as we set up for overnight fishing.

I enjoyed your various posts over the ice season specially the Pike report. Great year. But I might need photo validation on that crawdad

Great recap of your season. It was good to meet you and fish Starvy together. We'll have to hit it again next year.

29 ice fishing trips is an outstanding achievement and so many at 20”s or greater. Wow!

For an interesting ice season (remember the January thaw) it turned out to be a really good one. Congrats on putting up some great numbers, contest wouldn't have been near as fun without having your numbers to shoot at.. Great job this year... Jeff