Lost Creek 1/30

[Jig-fisher]

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They divide the lakes into 3 zones and then randomly draw and place you in a zone.  You have to stay in your assigned zone,  but that is a very large area and you can fish anywhere you want in that zone.  You can request to stay in the same zone as friends or family, but cannot fish side by side.  No they don't pre-drill, you drill your own, but you cannot start drilling until the contest officially starts, which was 7 am each day.  You also cannot use a shelter to prevent cheating.  It was put on in conjunction with the State Parks dept and the DWR.  They had biologists measuring the fish and parks and DWR law enforcement patrolling the areas. Being its first year, there were some changes to the original posted rules, and there could have been a lot better communication from the organizers, but I ended up liking the format. The rule change to allow a fish bag for use at Lost Creek was a good move so that you could measure fish caught in the slot..  Originally they were only going to allow fish over the slot to be measured, which would have resulted in 0 fish being measured.  

I'm sure it will be better organized next year and have clearer rules before hand.  The money payouts were really good for the top places.  There were also raffle drawings for some nice items as well.

I signed up for it because it fishes 2 of our local waters that I really like, and it is close to home.  Just gives me an excuse to go ice fishing and hopefully get lucky and win something.  I did pre-fish both lakes and I think that helped a lot.

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Thanks a for all the great info and details. How many people were fishing in your zone? How did you first hear about this tournament? Did you have to do a lot of moving around to catch the fish you caught, were you about to use two poles? Did you know in advance the zone you would be fishing, so you could prefish that exact area? How far did you have to take the fish for it it be measured? Sorry for all the questions but this sounds like a fun event and it's great that it's at local lakes.

I first heard about it through an email I received from the DWR.  I am signed up to receive email notifications for upcoming events and other issues such as the weekly fishing reports from the DWR.  There was an email advertising 9 ice fishing contests this winter.  It was one of them.  I followed the link to the contest page, read about it, then emailed the organizer for some clarifications.  He responded and it sounded fun.
There were probably around 50 or so in my zone, but it was hard to tell because I drew the Dixie Hollow arm as my zone.  So you could fish from the east end all the way to the main lake.  There were also a lot of recreational fishermen there as well.  The fish measuring station was located right about the midway point in the arm.  I had to walk about 100 yards or so to get there.  At Lost Creek I drew the north arm and had to walk about 3-400 yards to get to the measuring station there.  (I fished further north than any other angler.) The zones were assigned the night before the contest so you couldn't prefish your zone.  I got lucky and drew the same zones that I had pre-fished. You could use 2 poles, which I did.  I only drilled 3 holes the first day, one for each of my poles and one for my vex transducer.  I don't like my transducer down the same hole as my line.  So I never moved from my original spot the 1st day.  No one around me was doing any better so why move.  The second day was almost a repeat.  I only drilled 2 sets of holes, one set out deeper than my original holes but only about 20 yards away.  Ended up moving back to my original holes after about 45 min.

I have fished all over both reservoirs and have some areas I have done well in at all 3 zones in both lakes, so I wasn't too worried about which zones I would draw.  Although I do have a preference and got lucky with my draws to the areas I like the most.

Fishing was tough though.  If you weren't familiar with the lake, you would struggle.  I spoke to and overheard a lot of contestants talking and there were a lot of people that didn't even catch a fish that 1st day.