[cool] It sounds like Scofield might actually have safe ice at about the same time this year as Huntington instead of the usual two-three weeks later. I don't think anybody has ice fished it by Turkey Day in about 4 or 5 years, but in talking with a guy at Fish Tech Outfitters yesterday (went in to check out the ice gear-some of it is on the shelves already) he told me that he was at Scofield last week (like Tues. or so) and the water temp was already down to 40. With how shallow that lake is this year, it will probably have safe ice in a couple weeks with this storm coming in Sunday to put a nice snow covering down up there and reducing the temps at night...
Just thought you icefreaks might like this info...
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That's what I like to hear. Snow, ice, and fishing. Oh yeaha. Good work Out4Trout.
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Sorry not a chance....
If so it will be a first...
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[cool]You mean a first if it freezes before Thanksgiving or if it freezes as soon as Huntington? I may have been stretching it a bit about the freezing the same time as Huntington this year, but prior to the past three or four years, Scofield often had safe ice on Thanksgiving and looks to be that way this year. We should have two or three choices for ice fishing this year on Turkey Day: Huntington, Fairview Lake, and Scofield.
Unfortunitely I'll be in Nevada for Turkey Day, but plan to hit the hard deck the following weekend. Good luck to all those going out on the ice Thanksgiving weekend!
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4 years ago (and for several years before that) Scofield was fishable on the ice on turkey day. Good fishing too!
But with as warm as it has been the last few weeks, I am not holding my breath that either Scofield or Huntington will be ready for turkey day drilling. The weather (at least here in the valley) is going to be back up into the 60's by next weekend again. Todays weak storm and possibly one midweek is going to do little to change that. Its going to take a lot more than that to start freezing some ponds. But we can all continue to wish and hope and do the snow and cold dance.
I have the kitchen pass again for turkey day morning so hopefully something with firm up somewhere.
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I was there today and the storm blew right over and the sun started to come back out in the late afternoon. Fishing was slow and windy. I would guess about 3to 4 weeks at least.[
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[cool]Hey Bigcat, weren't you one of the doubters last year also about Hungtington having safe ice by Turkey Day? Meanwhile a select few of us were drilling holes and landing about 25 tiger each that day. Perhaps I'm mixing you up with some of the other bft'rs, but there were a lot of doubters last year that missed out on the excellent action.
I'm sure fuzzyfisher and/or kentofnsl will have walked on the water before turkey day or bassrods, and they'll keep us in the loop, but maybe only via p.m.'s so as to avoid 500 people on the ice at one time. Fuzzy usually will post up on here though after his success. Fairview Lake usually freezes about a week before Huntington. It gets really cold up there at night, and the water temps were already down to 40 last week there...Guess we'll see, but If I had to bet, I'd say Huntington we'll be safe ice, but Scofield, maybe not on Turkey Day this year...
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I don't recall being a doubter last year. Did you really fish Huntington last year on T-day???? I was praying that huntington would be ready for T-day last year since I had fished it the two previous years on T-day (Scofield wasn't ready yet either year). I drove past Huntington last year on T-day and there was only one person headed out on the ice and at the time was only about 10 feet off shore. (see post link below) At that time there was still several area's of open water and some sketchy looking ice around it. It did not look good enough for me to risk my life. So bottom line for me it was not ready yet... But I'm not exactly light footed so I need 4 good clear inches.
[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/forum/Utah_Fishing_Forum_C55/General_Discusion_F58/Huntington_visual_today_P290759/"]http://www.bigfishtackle.com/...isual_today_P290759/[/url]
We did ice fish that day but not at Huntington.
I hope that Huntington is gonna be ready cause I have the kitchen pass! But I think Scofield is a few too many weeks off still.
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[cool]Bigcat,
I just went to Craig's site to get you the proof (with pictures even), but unfortunitely, I had forgotten about the meltdown his site had in like May or so of this year. Somebody hacked into the site and he lost a ton of reports and photos from times past, so he has no more archive, but suffice it to say that CBR, Bassrods, Fishing Waters (his son too) and I all fished it on Friday Nov. ? whatever day after thanksgiving that was. We knocked the crap outta them and then came back the next day (Saturday) with BassAckward and friend joining us this time and did it again, only the fishing was even better. Send me a p.m. if you want the exact location on the lake. I had to leave early that Saturday to get to Rice Eccles Stadium for the best football game I've ever seen in person, but I still had caught like 15 or so by the time I left at 10:00 a.m. and the rest of the guys knocked the crap out of 'em the rest of the day.
I'm going to look for proof of this in the bft archives and see if we posted here. Not sure if we did, but I will look. I know that Fishingwaters has photos of that day, as does CBR so maybe they'll chime in here and post them. As bassrods said sometime this year, "Huntington has had safe ice on Thanksgiving for 9 out of the last 10 years."
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Yes it had 4" of ice with a little open water in the middle by the dam ...
I was up there on the day before T day and fished it, the ice was so clear you could see the fish take your lure and from the road at times it looked like no ice or little ice at all....
I took some pictures and posted them the day before T day of the lakes up on top....
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[cool]Here's one thread where I as talking on Nov. 30th about the success we had and great weather conditions. It appears that spyder had waist deep snow just a couple of days later up there, so you have to hit it when it's hot (a very small window of opportunity, really) before the blizzards come up there:
[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=291793;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread"]http://www.bigfishtackle.com/...;;page=unread#unread[/url]
Here's the latest weather in the past 24 hrs. for Scofield. Looks like the lowest temp was 25, but Huntington is a couple thousand feet higher and about 20 miles away so you've gotta figure it got a little colder than that up there last night.
[url "http://www.met.utah.edu/cgi-bin/droman/meso_base.cgi?stn=SFDU1&time=GMT"]http://www.met.utah.edu/...i?stn=SFDU1&time=GMT[/url]
I think we'll have the usual safe 3-4 inches of ice on Turkey Day there. Wish I wasn't going to be outta town. I've gotta fish it the following weekend, and I hope that there isn't any waist deep snow on it like a week later last year that some guys had to fish in on that ice.
Good luck to those going out on Turkey Day weekend and BE SAFE, and TAKE A BUDDY and some rope and a ring or life jacket, just in case.
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I thought that I remembered you guys fishing it the day or two after T-day. The only one I saw venture out on T-day was Bassrods when we checked out the lake about noon. We already had our fun fishing all morning and it was time to head back to the city for some food by that time. I wasn't ballzy enough to go out on there with what I saw about noon on turkey day. I had all my kids plus my neices and nephews with me and needed a little more than 3-4 inches of "safe" ice with open water in a few places. The kids like to roam a little to much to have open water around if ya know what I mean!
Lets keep hoping that the nights get colder over the next week!
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I hear ya about taking the little ones with you out on the hard deck.
It was either last winter or the winter before, I don't remember which...but me and my boys were out on Mantua fishing in December with a cold wind a blowin'. Well that wind blew one of our chair covers across the ice, and without thinking, I told my oldest boy to go run and grab it before it got too far. He takes off like a cheetah and finally catches up to it and only then does it hit me that he could have easily hit a weak spot on that ice and fell through. Next time, especially on early ice, we'll let the wind have it! Ya just never know.
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I wouldn't have had my boy out on that ice with me on the 30th last year. I went through the ice by the shore and my brother went exploring and almost went through not too far from where we were fishing. You were smart to keep on going with kids in my book Bigcat.
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[cool]I hear ya on that. Often times when there's that much snow on top of the ice, and the ice isn't that thick anyway yet like when you went last year, the snow will insulate the ice and make it softer because it's now warmer than the air above the snow which made it weak causing youguys to fall in. Wow, what a run-on sentence. Sorry to any English teachers on here...
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