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Fritzfishin, his friend, and I fished Settlement yesterday morning. The ice was about 4" thick; maybe an inch on top was cloudy. We caught a number of rainbows and a few tiger trout. White was the prefered lure color and waxworms the bait. Fritz had a lot of success with a Gizzilla that was clear with black specks and I caught several on a white one with red flecks. I caught the first and largest one (13") with a tungsten jig and waxworm. I also caught three on a chartreuse and orange Atomic Teaser. My last fish swallowed the Teaser and then took the Gizzilla. What a mess. I finally cut it all off. Oops, that reminds me that I didn't retrieve the Teaser from his gullet when I cleaned him last night.
We were hoping to catch a wiper but were denied. Oh well, days like this are good for practice. I've not used spring bobbers much before but I'm learning. I even caught a couple when I detected a negative bite; the spring moved up to a position where there was no weight on it. Maybe Fritz will chime in with more details from his perspective.
The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.
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How deep is the water now did it drop.
Is the access to the ice difficult, I don't walk very well.
My grand kids would like it get out.
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Glad you got on to some fish Craig. The negative bite or up bite, crappies are notorious for that too.
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(12-31-2021, 05:13 PM)doitall5000 Wrote: How deep is the water now did it drop.
Is the access to the ice difficult, I don't walk very well.
My grand kids would like it get out.
The lake is a lot lower than where you park and the slope down is pretty steep. Where I went down the "trail" was pretty ugly. On the way out I found a better trail that was closer to the dam if you park in the big lot which is about halfway up the lake. Fritz said the access is easier if you go down by the corner of the dam. But there's not a lot of parking space there. We mostly fished in about 16' of water. Right near the shore it was 12-14' and Fritz found a spot farther out that was 22'.
If you are looking for easy access, Verdean, you might want to try Tibble Fork up AF Canyon. It's a few miles farther than to Settlement but should only take you about 45 minutes to get there (from WVC). I'm pretty sure the ice would be thick enough. You could catch plenty of rainbows and maybe a brown or two. I've even heard of people catching grayling in there. Have fun no matter where you go.
The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.
Another good day on the ice Craig! I ended up with 2 tiger trout 14 rainbows. All on either a gizilla in the flash minnow color, or a 2" maniac minnow in predator white color. Fished from 12' to 22' fish from 5 feet under the ice down to the bottom. Nothing big, Largest was about 12 or 13". Access to the ice is not great due to the water being so low. The "island" is now just a big point and there's a 2nd island in front of it. Id guess its about 20' low or so.
