11-27-2007, 01:23 AM
Greetings,
I hope all of you had a fantastic Thanksgiving Holiday. I just completed some of the most relaxing nine days I have had in a long time. My son and I got to fish a lot and we hit over 16 primitive hot springs from Salmon to Banks, Idaho. I feel two years younger, and I am completely in fishing mode now. Here are four reports from across the state of waters I fished over the past nine days.
Williams Lake: I am suprised to see how many cabins our on this lake; it was outright confusing where public access is. When we did find an area to fish it was slow. In two hours, I had four hits and landed two nice bows, both at about 14 inches and fat. The only thing that seemed to work were bright orange rooster tails.
Lowman Ponds: Fast fishing! Ice had formed at about 70%, and was fresh from the night before. The highlight was actually ten trumpeter swans that were in the small ponds they stayed with us for almost the entire hour, their fly off was impressive. We caught seven small rainbows using simple bait methods, and missed several others. Was quite cold in the morning, and knowing there was a wild hot spring near by made us speed up our fishing.
Bloomington Lake: I completed a life time goal of finally making it up to ice fish this beautiful lake last Saturday. Bloomington is an ice box that is almost entirely in shade do to its aspect with the cliffs, to top it off it is near 8000 feet and it gets a hard wind due to its location to a major back bone ridge. We only had an hour to fish, but we did ice seven fish in this short time with only five poles out. They ranged an impressive 5-7 inches in length.[sly] Most fish were caught on pink paddle bugs tipped with crawler. Ice depth was six-seven inches, and best action was in thirty feet of water; jigging helped big time.
Montpelier Res.: After a late Saturday combined family second Thanksgiving I hurried to Montpelier for the last hour of day light The ice was now at 3.5 inches and solid (I would bet the entire res. might be safe now for ice fishing.) During my short trip I iced five rainbows three small 8 inch fish one 16 inch fish, and my all time largest firsh out of this water at 18 inches two pounds. The last two fish were plesent surprises and both put up a huge fight in only ten feet of water. I tried everything, but the only thing they seemed to bite on was Powerbait.
I am totally into ice fishing! Let the games begin[
]
Ovid Creek
[signature]
I hope all of you had a fantastic Thanksgiving Holiday. I just completed some of the most relaxing nine days I have had in a long time. My son and I got to fish a lot and we hit over 16 primitive hot springs from Salmon to Banks, Idaho. I feel two years younger, and I am completely in fishing mode now. Here are four reports from across the state of waters I fished over the past nine days.
Williams Lake: I am suprised to see how many cabins our on this lake; it was outright confusing where public access is. When we did find an area to fish it was slow. In two hours, I had four hits and landed two nice bows, both at about 14 inches and fat. The only thing that seemed to work were bright orange rooster tails.
Lowman Ponds: Fast fishing! Ice had formed at about 70%, and was fresh from the night before. The highlight was actually ten trumpeter swans that were in the small ponds they stayed with us for almost the entire hour, their fly off was impressive. We caught seven small rainbows using simple bait methods, and missed several others. Was quite cold in the morning, and knowing there was a wild hot spring near by made us speed up our fishing.
Bloomington Lake: I completed a life time goal of finally making it up to ice fish this beautiful lake last Saturday. Bloomington is an ice box that is almost entirely in shade do to its aspect with the cliffs, to top it off it is near 8000 feet and it gets a hard wind due to its location to a major back bone ridge. We only had an hour to fish, but we did ice seven fish in this short time with only five poles out. They ranged an impressive 5-7 inches in length.[sly] Most fish were caught on pink paddle bugs tipped with crawler. Ice depth was six-seven inches, and best action was in thirty feet of water; jigging helped big time.
Montpelier Res.: After a late Saturday combined family second Thanksgiving I hurried to Montpelier for the last hour of day light The ice was now at 3.5 inches and solid (I would bet the entire res. might be safe now for ice fishing.) During my short trip I iced five rainbows three small 8 inch fish one 16 inch fish, and my all time largest firsh out of this water at 18 inches two pounds. The last two fish were plesent surprises and both put up a huge fight in only ten feet of water. I tried everything, but the only thing they seemed to bite on was Powerbait.
I am totally into ice fishing! Let the games begin[
] Ovid Creek
[signature]