12-19-2023, 12:02 AM
Brett and I fished in the tournament at Scofield on Saturday. We arrived at the check-in site at the turnoff to Madsen Bay just a couple of minutes after 6:00 and checked in and got our bumpboards approved. They all have to be commercially made; most were hi-viz yellow; there were many Ketch Carbonates present and they are highly recommended. I got a doughnut and some blistering hot hot chocolate which hit the spot as it was only 6 degrees. We hustled on over to the Madsen Bay boat ramp and headed out on the ice. We had scouted the area and had our plan to set up where we hoped to catch some tiger trout. We just got a couple of holes drilled when it was 7:00, beginning time. Brett had a fish on the ice almost instantly but I was having trouble with my flasher. I wiggled wires but couldn't get it to power up. I asked Brett to help me and he took out each plug and reinserted them. That did the trick and I started catching too. We had good luck with both tigers and cutthroats. We each had a number of rods rigged up with different lures and hooks so we were able to switch whenever something wasn't working. Brett caught some really nice fish on his jigging Jaw Jacker. Then my ff pooped out again; nothing worked anymore so I fished the old-fashioned way. Didn't do very well at all. Then Brett told me he had his old unit and I could go get it out of his vehicle. Using it I proceeded to catch several more fish, including a 17.75" cutt to add to the 15.25" tiger I had gotten earlier. Now all we needed was a couple of rainbows to fufill our plan of catching all three species of trout. We were sure that we would start catching some right where we were but it didn't happen. Our plan was to go over to the dam arm about mid morning if we got into that situation. We had caught rainbows over there the week before and felt confident that we could again. Unfortunately we stayed where we were longer than we should have. With a couple of hours to go we headed out. When we got near the ramp the park ranger told us where people were catching nothing but rainbows so we tried there. No good. Then Brett was told by a man who was leaving exactly where he had been catching rainbows. Brett went directly there but again the fish gods did not 
on us. There was too little time left for us to boogie on over to the dam arm so we ended up with just the two species.
We now had two hours to get our fish logged onto the Fish Donkey app and get to the awards. We had to drive over near the dam to find four stars on our phones. The entries we had made could not be completed with out strong internet service. It took a while and it was a little nerve wracking waiting to see if we had posted the photos correctly and gotten credit for our fish. They came in slowly but we finally saw that we were good. We also watched as other fish were credited and the leaderboard changed. When all was said and done Brett ended up in 10th place with 37.25" and I finished with 33" for 21st place. I figured that was not too bad for our first tournament. Since there were 122 people signed up I outdid 100 participants. But I keep going over how close we were to being in the money, "if only."
I hope Brett will add what he wants to. I'll leave it to him if he wants to reveal any other details of where we went and the lures and bait used. There is another Frozen Frenzy Tournament at Strawberry in early January. I encourage everyone to check the details on the FishDonkey app. There is also a Utah Ice Grand Slam that is for 24 species from January 1 to March 30. It's somewhat like the Ice Challenge we have on here. You could do them both at the same time.
on us. There was too little time left for us to boogie on over to the dam arm so we ended up with just the two species. We now had two hours to get our fish logged onto the Fish Donkey app and get to the awards. We had to drive over near the dam to find four stars on our phones. The entries we had made could not be completed with out strong internet service. It took a while and it was a little nerve wracking waiting to see if we had posted the photos correctly and gotten credit for our fish. They came in slowly but we finally saw that we were good. We also watched as other fish were credited and the leaderboard changed. When all was said and done Brett ended up in 10th place with 37.25" and I finished with 33" for 21st place. I figured that was not too bad for our first tournament. Since there were 122 people signed up I outdid 100 participants. But I keep going over how close we were to being in the money, "if only."
I hope Brett will add what he wants to. I'll leave it to him if he wants to reveal any other details of where we went and the lures and bait used. There is another Frozen Frenzy Tournament at Strawberry in early January. I encourage everyone to check the details on the FishDonkey app. There is also a Utah Ice Grand Slam that is for 24 species from January 1 to March 30. It's somewhat like the Ice Challenge we have on here. You could do them both at the same time.
The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.
