01-25-2016, 09:36 PM
So I hit Cascade for the first time on Friday, went out of Poison creek, lots of slush on the ice, wet feet but what beautiful perch, landed 15, nothing monster but being from Idaho falls and landing 12 inchers was a real joy, and seeing those big slobs others caught makes me want to do it again.
Day two had me walking onto Payette Lake with the idea of landing my first lake trout through the ice. My friend who lives there said the ice had to be at least a foot thick by now but was he wrong...Five inches at best with five inches of slop on top, here comes wet feet again. I settled in at about 117 feet of water and started jigging. A half hour later up comes a mark on my Vex and the action was on. Fortunately he was eager, not large but eager and after whiffing twice a got a hook set landing a 18 inch lake trout. Happily I turned him loose accomplishing my second goal on the trip to land a laker. In the next four hours I had another five fish come up and look but no takers. For you fisherman that fish with finders I did have something amazing happen though. A good mark can come across a quarter inch thick right? This mark was three quarters inch thick and my gain was not turned up high, he just nudged it. I reared back so hard on my rod that I almost flipped off backwards off my bucket into the slop.
Day 3 found myself and my son in law at Magic. As we hit the west side at first light my son asked do you think we should drive all the way down that steep hill or park at the top. Oh no, you have a HD Chev. Diesel 4WD. it will be no problem and the six to eight inches of new snow is plenty sticky. Well easy trip to the bottom, no slush around edges when we got on and fishes was great and steady all day. My biggest was at 20.5. The fun began when everything got soft in the afternoon. Could barely move out of in front of the bar. Made it a third of the way up hill before sliding to the edge. My son hops on wheeler and heads down to bar for help. Owner says he has something outside that can do the job but it will cost 75 just to start, he handed him his credit card. He pulls out a I think it was a 1944 army 10 wheel transport with back eight tires all chained up.BAD ASS TO THE BONE. We would have paid the 75 just to see that in action. He jerked the chevy out of the drift and pulled up the hill without a slip. Bad day for chevy's boys. All in all a great trip, need to get back to work and get some rest. Here are a few pictures.
[signature]
Day two had me walking onto Payette Lake with the idea of landing my first lake trout through the ice. My friend who lives there said the ice had to be at least a foot thick by now but was he wrong...Five inches at best with five inches of slop on top, here comes wet feet again. I settled in at about 117 feet of water and started jigging. A half hour later up comes a mark on my Vex and the action was on. Fortunately he was eager, not large but eager and after whiffing twice a got a hook set landing a 18 inch lake trout. Happily I turned him loose accomplishing my second goal on the trip to land a laker. In the next four hours I had another five fish come up and look but no takers. For you fisherman that fish with finders I did have something amazing happen though. A good mark can come across a quarter inch thick right? This mark was three quarters inch thick and my gain was not turned up high, he just nudged it. I reared back so hard on my rod that I almost flipped off backwards off my bucket into the slop.
Day 3 found myself and my son in law at Magic. As we hit the west side at first light my son asked do you think we should drive all the way down that steep hill or park at the top. Oh no, you have a HD Chev. Diesel 4WD. it will be no problem and the six to eight inches of new snow is plenty sticky. Well easy trip to the bottom, no slush around edges when we got on and fishes was great and steady all day. My biggest was at 20.5. The fun began when everything got soft in the afternoon. Could barely move out of in front of the bar. Made it a third of the way up hill before sliding to the edge. My son hops on wheeler and heads down to bar for help. Owner says he has something outside that can do the job but it will cost 75 just to start, he handed him his credit card. He pulls out a I think it was a 1944 army 10 wheel transport with back eight tires all chained up.BAD ASS TO THE BONE. We would have paid the 75 just to see that in action. He jerked the chevy out of the drift and pulled up the hill without a slip. Bad day for chevy's boys. All in all a great trip, need to get back to work and get some rest. Here are a few pictures.
[signature]
]