Yesterday, 06:02 PM
My oldest daughter and I took advantage of the amazing weather this past weekend and hit some ice-off firsts for 2025. We started off at Panguitch, which we had never been able to fish ice-off on in the month of Feb before, it was crazy! Still some floating ice on it, but mostly open water. The day was not ideal with blue sunny skies and not a lick of wind. We struggled...fished all around the lake and finally found a shoreline with some cruising tigers to target. Only ended up getting one to commit, all the others were still very lethargic. Still too early I believe. So, we took off to Otter Creek and gave that a go for a couple hours...nothing. Looked prime too, so weird. Threw all our usual successful patterns there and not even a lick. So, we ventured to Piute because we had been wanting to venture it's tailwaters. Beautiful tailwater stretch there! Felt good to fish a decent sized river again, reminded me of my Northern UT roots! I managed one football bow, but that was it. So, long story short...we put in some serious miles, covered three different bodies of water and managed a couple fish...rough and not what we are used to at all. Our simple conclusion is that it was still just too early. We usually aren't ice-off fishing until later March into April. We'll give it a go again in a few weeks and see if it has picked up.
