12-15-2011, 06:27 PM
Greetings BFTers. Time to get back on the board for ice fishing season.
I went to Scofield yesterday with an out-of-state friend who came out to hunt cow elk with me. We couldn't find any cow elk, just mature bulls, so we decided to hit Scofield. My friend is from Missouri and he doesn't have a chance to do any ice fishing out there.
We arrived around 0900 and found a few others out on the ice. I had been told there was about six inches of safe ice on most of the lake. We tried the southeast side where the short lane goes down to the water's edge. There isn't much room to park there so we parked back up the lane near the highway. We headed northwest from the shoreline and started about 100 yards off shore. The ice was 7-8 inches thick where we started and we moved a little deeper later in the morning. The water was about 13-14 feet deep where we started. We used an attractor about 8 inches above a small ice fly and then tipped it with a piece of chub meat.
I would say the fishing was good with fairly steady action on mostly 12 to 14 inch cutts. My friend lost a 23-25 incher at the hole when the jig pulled out and I couldn't get a grip on the fish. It was a cutthroat I estimated at about 4 to 5 pounds.
We ended up keeping four of the cutts that were around 13 inches and one rainbow. I did catch one 8 inch chub on a piece of chub meat. We fished until 3:30 PM and caught about 20 fish total. It was a good outing for the first ice trip of the 2011/2012 season.
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I went to Scofield yesterday with an out-of-state friend who came out to hunt cow elk with me. We couldn't find any cow elk, just mature bulls, so we decided to hit Scofield. My friend is from Missouri and he doesn't have a chance to do any ice fishing out there.
We arrived around 0900 and found a few others out on the ice. I had been told there was about six inches of safe ice on most of the lake. We tried the southeast side where the short lane goes down to the water's edge. There isn't much room to park there so we parked back up the lane near the highway. We headed northwest from the shoreline and started about 100 yards off shore. The ice was 7-8 inches thick where we started and we moved a little deeper later in the morning. The water was about 13-14 feet deep where we started. We used an attractor about 8 inches above a small ice fly and then tipped it with a piece of chub meat.
I would say the fishing was good with fairly steady action on mostly 12 to 14 inch cutts. My friend lost a 23-25 incher at the hole when the jig pulled out and I couldn't get a grip on the fish. It was a cutthroat I estimated at about 4 to 5 pounds.
We ended up keeping four of the cutts that were around 13 inches and one rainbow. I did catch one 8 inch chub on a piece of chub meat. We fished until 3:30 PM and caught about 20 fish total. It was a good outing for the first ice trip of the 2011/2012 season.
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