Holiday fishing.

Twelve available fishing days during Christmas vacation and six days on the ice.  Mackay Reservoir treated us very well on both days there.  Took a son-in-law and a grandson there.  We caught trout and kokanee there.  We used my flasher-jig setup for kokanee.  Here Brandon lands one of the small kokanee we caught.

You can see our setup for the kokanee in the picture.  I tye the jig and tip it with a wax worm or piece of nightcrawler.  The kokanee are withing a foot of the bottom no matter what depth of water we were in.

Mud Lake was still dead and we took all the grandchildren to Roberts Pond to catch small perch.  They had a lot of fun, but nothing of any size.

Island Park Reservoir was good to me as I caught rainbows and a couple of nice kokanee there.  I used the same setup as I did for kokanee.  The area by the dam is my favorite area.

Henrys Lake for the one day season on New Year's Day was not good.  I predicted in my newspaper article that it would probably be slow and it was.  My son-in-law, Steve, and I each caught one brook trout.

Tomorrow is back to school, but what a way to spend a couple of weeks in the wilds of Idaho.

Ice fishing Mackey Res

After two weeks of no fishing at all, I just had to find some hard ice - thick enough to hold me and allow me some chance at success.  I found it by traveling to Mackey Reservoir about 110 miles from home.  Thick fog made the travel over difficult and very slow.  But the fishing was good.  It was my first trip ever fishing this small reservoir.  The sun was just touching the tops of the mountains surrounding the town of Mackey as I pulled in.

I was the third person on the ice and set up too close to the shore.  After an hour of fishing with no bites, I noticed two fishermen catching a few out further in the reservoir.

I moved further out and soon started getting a few hits.  Some were very light and I thought they were probably minnows or crayfish playing with my bait.  The solid hits produced rainbows like this one.

 

I visited with a local fisherman and he explained the light hits were the kokanee, the fish I wanted to catch.  He explained that they hit most bait light, but they hit rotten corn or wax worms harder.  I did not have either, but used smaller hooks and pieces of bait.  I then started catching some of them.

It was a very enjoyable day - cold as the devil, but fun.  Another wild day in Idaho.

Saturday at Henrys Lake

Went ice fishing at Henrys Lake again.  Twice in two days - But then it will have to satisfy me for two months before it opens again.  On January 1st, it will open for only one day and then will close until Memorial Day weekend.

I fished with my neighbors and we caught some nice fish.  Here is Jared with a big cutthroat.  His smile is bigger than the fish.

We were fishing off the mouth of Pittsburg Creek just east of the Hatchery.  The Hatchery area was loaded with people by 10 a.m.  The best fishing is usually about 7:30 to 8 in the mornings.  Jigs tipped with a piece of nightcrawler worked best for me.

A great way to spend a morning or day in the wilds of Idaho.

Ice fishing Henrys Lake

With only five more days of open fishing on Henrys Lake, we finally made it up there.  The recent cold weather had put five inches of ice near the Hatchery and two friends and I had a great time.

Moose caught three large brook trout like this one.  We were fishing east of the Hatchery with a variety of lures and bait and caught about 30 fish between us.

Here Gary is landing a nice cutthroat.  We missed a lot of bites and a nearby fisherman lost a huge fish that we could not get up through the 8-inch hole. 

With fish like these, I am headed back up there tomorrow morning.  A great way to spend a wild but cold day in Idaho.

Ice fishing Island Park Res.

Yesterday I fished Island Park Reservoir through the ice.  I caught two 12 inch planters, but that is all in three hours of fishing.  I visited with eight other fishermen and they didn't catch any fish at all.  I got my two right at daylight and everyone came later.

Several fishermen said they had good luck last week at the West End, but the snow has made the road impassable.  Fishermen with fish finders reported fish swimming by, but not biting.  I had trouble keeping bait on my jigs because the minnows would strip it off.

Not good at all.

Just a lot of standing around in freezing rain.  But the ice is over 2 feet thick.  Better luck next time.