12-02-2004, 02:00 AM
This morning I drove up to Huntington Reservoir with the Champ (my wife). We got there shortly after 7:00 a.m., and the temperature was zero degrees. Unfortunately, the fishing was also pretty cold. I got a couple of strikes on a homemade perch kastmaster tipped with sucker meat, and the Champ got a few nibbles on a light yellow tube jig tipped with a meal worm, but we couldn't hook any tiger trout. The finder didn't show any fish at all. At Huntington, the only other person in the whole valley was a BFT brother, FlashyFish2. He fished near us (by the dam) at first and then moved over to the west and then to the south. He didn't seem to have any more luck than we did. About all he found was more slush. There seems to be a layer of slush between the snow and the ice. That made walking a bit difficult. FlashyFish2 did tell us about someone's report of good ice and fishing success at Scofield, so we headed on down there.
We arrived at Scofield about 11:00, and the weather had warmed up to a balmy 20 degrees. The whole lake looked to be covered with ice, although a few spots out by the island seemed wet. Maybe it was just new ice. Most of the rest of the ice had a light covering of snow. We fished in the neck of water leading to the dam. The ice there was solid, about five or six inches. Too bad the fish weren't much bigger than that. We drilled holes about five yards apart running from near the shore out to the middle of the channel. Near the shore, the finder didn't show any fish, and we didn't get any bites. Out near the middle of the channel, however, the finder started beeping wildly. I was afraid something had gone wrong with it until I put my line down and started catching fish left and right. We never had to wait more than a few minutes for a nibble, and it sure was fun to finally experience some action. We caught fish on rat finkys (glow green) and tube jigs (yellow, glow, and white) tipped with either a meal worm or a piece of nightcrawler. The only bad thing was that all the fish were only eight or ten inches long. They were fat, but they weren't much bigger than overgrown anchovies. I've never seen so many small fish at Scofield. We couldn't keep them off our hooks, and we kept thinking that we would catch a big one once in a while, but that never happened. We finally left about 1:00. They were still biting at that time.
Anyway, the good news is that the ice on Scofield is solid and thick enough for most purposes. (I don't think I'd take a snowmobile or ATV out on it yet.) The bad news is that we didn't find any big fish there. If you have a different experience at Scofield, I'd like to hear about where you went, what time you went, or what you used. If you are taking little kids ice fishing and want lots of action and don't care about the size of the fish, try the neck of water near the dam. You'll probably see our tracks and holes there.
P.S. There were a couple of guys fishing about 50 yards off the shore on the southeast side of Scofield. The place where you can drive down from the highway. It's almost directly east of the island. I don't know what success they were having, but at least they didn't fall through the ice. It must have been solid there also.
[signature]
We arrived at Scofield about 11:00, and the weather had warmed up to a balmy 20 degrees. The whole lake looked to be covered with ice, although a few spots out by the island seemed wet. Maybe it was just new ice. Most of the rest of the ice had a light covering of snow. We fished in the neck of water leading to the dam. The ice there was solid, about five or six inches. Too bad the fish weren't much bigger than that. We drilled holes about five yards apart running from near the shore out to the middle of the channel. Near the shore, the finder didn't show any fish, and we didn't get any bites. Out near the middle of the channel, however, the finder started beeping wildly. I was afraid something had gone wrong with it until I put my line down and started catching fish left and right. We never had to wait more than a few minutes for a nibble, and it sure was fun to finally experience some action. We caught fish on rat finkys (glow green) and tube jigs (yellow, glow, and white) tipped with either a meal worm or a piece of nightcrawler. The only bad thing was that all the fish were only eight or ten inches long. They were fat, but they weren't much bigger than overgrown anchovies. I've never seen so many small fish at Scofield. We couldn't keep them off our hooks, and we kept thinking that we would catch a big one once in a while, but that never happened. We finally left about 1:00. They were still biting at that time.
Anyway, the good news is that the ice on Scofield is solid and thick enough for most purposes. (I don't think I'd take a snowmobile or ATV out on it yet.) The bad news is that we didn't find any big fish there. If you have a different experience at Scofield, I'd like to hear about where you went, what time you went, or what you used. If you are taking little kids ice fishing and want lots of action and don't care about the size of the fish, try the neck of water near the dam. You'll probably see our tracks and holes there.
P.S. There were a couple of guys fishing about 50 yards off the shore on the southeast side of Scofield. The place where you can drive down from the highway. It's almost directly east of the island. I don't know what success they were having, but at least they didn't fall through the ice. It must have been solid there also.
[signature]