12-22-2019, 05:47 PM
My son and I went to Hyrum to get our first ice fix of the season. I had hoped to purchase an annual parks pass, but the office at the park was not open on a Saturday [
]. I wasn't willing to pay the $10 for one day instead of 75 for the year, so we fished by the dam. The ice was about 3.5 inches. We generally didn't stand together (I'm a big guy, and he passed me up in height this year), but when he was cutting holes and heard ice cracking he got nervous. There were no problems other than traction on the ice today. There surface had a lot of frost, and maybe some scattered snow, but it hasn't really snowed since capping. It was slick.
It was a slow morning, getting on the ice about 11. This was the first time using a Garmin striker 4 I just bought, and my first new sonar unit in 25 years, so I was as excited to get it in the water as I was about my line. First impression, the hole left by someone else was in 11 feet of water. No other signal.
I cut a couple more holes at 24 feet and 31 feet. I dropped my tungsten jig down and watched it go on the sonar all the way to the bottom. I jigged a little, and could see that on the graph as well. Still no fish though. After 10-15 minutes I looked at the sonar and it looked like there was some signal appearing, though I didn't know what it was. I jigged the line a couple of times and got a bit. As I was reeling that one in, I noticed the bottom suddenly looked 3 feet closer as what I can only assume was a school moved through. I caught 4 perch in rapid succession, and then the bottom dropped again. That was as exciting an introduction to a graph as I could have hoped. Sadly, I didn't see that happen again over the next 2 hours. The only other one I caught came from a hole without sonar signal at the time, as did both of Josh's.
I have wondered why tungsten is so popular for ice jigs. It seemed today that the jig had a much better signal in a hole 3 feet away below 15 feet than a kastmaster dropped down the same hole as the transducer.
All in all, it was a little slow, but between us we caught 7 perch, all between 8-10 inches on jigs tipped with night crawler.
We'll be back this coming week. I also bought a Fatfish shelter this week, and will try it when I have a little more confidence in the ice.
When I got home I bought a state parks pass online, and the confirmation says it can be used as proof of purchase until the pass is delivered.
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]. I wasn't willing to pay the $10 for one day instead of 75 for the year, so we fished by the dam. The ice was about 3.5 inches. We generally didn't stand together (I'm a big guy, and he passed me up in height this year), but when he was cutting holes and heard ice cracking he got nervous. There were no problems other than traction on the ice today. There surface had a lot of frost, and maybe some scattered snow, but it hasn't really snowed since capping. It was slick.It was a slow morning, getting on the ice about 11. This was the first time using a Garmin striker 4 I just bought, and my first new sonar unit in 25 years, so I was as excited to get it in the water as I was about my line. First impression, the hole left by someone else was in 11 feet of water. No other signal.
I cut a couple more holes at 24 feet and 31 feet. I dropped my tungsten jig down and watched it go on the sonar all the way to the bottom. I jigged a little, and could see that on the graph as well. Still no fish though. After 10-15 minutes I looked at the sonar and it looked like there was some signal appearing, though I didn't know what it was. I jigged the line a couple of times and got a bit. As I was reeling that one in, I noticed the bottom suddenly looked 3 feet closer as what I can only assume was a school moved through. I caught 4 perch in rapid succession, and then the bottom dropped again. That was as exciting an introduction to a graph as I could have hoped. Sadly, I didn't see that happen again over the next 2 hours. The only other one I caught came from a hole without sonar signal at the time, as did both of Josh's.
I have wondered why tungsten is so popular for ice jigs. It seemed today that the jig had a much better signal in a hole 3 feet away below 15 feet than a kastmaster dropped down the same hole as the transducer.
All in all, it was a little slow, but between us we caught 7 perch, all between 8-10 inches on jigs tipped with night crawler.
We'll be back this coming week. I also bought a Fatfish shelter this week, and will try it when I have a little more confidence in the ice.
When I got home I bought a state parks pass online, and the confirmation says it can be used as proof of purchase until the pass is delivered.
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