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Wiperslayer and I hit the pig today and it was one of those great days that aren't soon forgotten. The ground was frozen and we had no problems launching my boat. The water level had dropped several feet since our last trip there in early August. We were hoping for a repeat of our last trip when we did good for the kokanee. There wasn't a cloud in the sky until noon and the water was glass calm but it was cold when we arrived and I couldn't get my kicker motor to start. We moved around for a while with the big motor trying to locate the big numbers of fish we were marking on our last trip there. We started using the electric trolling motor and finally found some active fish, we tried jigging over them without any luck but slow trolling was the ticket. We couldn't buy a bite from the kokanee but the brown catching was hot. Between the browns and the occasional cutbow we watched elk and deer feeding on the hillside, even saw a bald eagle swoop down to pick up a fish off the surface. We finally got the kicker running and ran it for the rest of the day without a problem picking up 13 browns up to 19 inches and three cutbows up to 20 inches. Great day on the water until we tried to retrieve the boat and found all the frozen mud had melted. My truck started sliding into the lake and I had to cut the strap to the winch and push the boat back into the lake because there was a bind on the winch. We finally got the boat on at a different location and were able to pull the boat out with mud flying every where. I was still a great day on the lake, can wait until the pig freezes. WH2
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Great report. I grew up fishing that lake and had some great times. I will say that I never had great luck fishing fishing it from a boat. However, the ice fishing used to be great (I am sure it still will be).
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[cool]Nice report, wiperhunter2! That sounds like a terrific day out on the 'ol pig. Glad she was good to you guys today. How deep did you have your lures down to? I think I might want to try out the pig through the ice this year. Never fished it's hard deck...
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Nice report Curt. Glad you guys could get the boat out OK. I'll bet you had some pucker going on when the truck decided it was jealous of the boat! Nice fish as well.
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When we fished it in Aug. we were very happy with what we saw. When I later read a report from the DWR site about a guy that caught a 7 lb bown while trolling we thought it might be worth a second try. We were trolling with riggers between 40 and 50 ft deep. We could see the fish come up to check out the ball so most of the fish were right on the bottom, that is why we tried jigging for them.
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Yea, we were worried about it for a minute. When the water level dropped it made it too shallow to launch in the normal spot. We moved off to the side where it was steeper and dropped off quickly but was at a side angle. It was no problem launching because the boat was coming off and it was frozen. As soon as I started pulling the boat out, the thawed mud and extra weight caused the truck to slid side ways toward the water. That twisted the trailer and put the winch in a bind making it impossible to release it. We moved over to the shallow launch but that required us to winch the boat all the way onto the trailer, boy that was a work out.
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Good report Curt,never fished Porcupine.May have to try it after your report!
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Thanks Mike, I've never done that good for browns before. I think it has something to do with their spawn being over and fish are hungry. They all seemed to be fat except for one and it went airbore when it felt the hook.
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Thanks for the report. I live in logan I often fish porcupine on the ice but never in the summer. Do you think I could do any good in a float tube. I know the fish are very deep there. Got any pointers on that lake for a guy that likes to use the fly rod?
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I'm sure you could catch them there from a float tube with a fly rod. When we arrived, there were a lot of fish feeding on the surface and we saw fish feeding on the surface until noon. When we were there in August we saw some nice fish chasing minnows right up by the shore. It might be too cold now for your float tube but I'm sure you could catch them on the surface the first thing in the morning. There are a lot of nice browns in that lake.[cool] Good luck WH2
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Do they plow the snow off the road so you can get to Porcupine in the winter? If they don't how far do people hike in to ice fish it? Acey
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The road is plowed....sometimes. It is low priority for the county, so if you head up after a big snow storm, you will be hiking up the road next to the dam. My guess is it would be about 300 yards. Of course this isn't straight up the dam, but it would still be a decent hike.
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Also that is just to get to the dam end of the lake. I personally like to ice fish the other side. That would be the east side of the lake. I would say you should take your snowmoblie or something if you want canvas most of the lake.
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I recall hiking into Porcupine from Avon in the winter with some roommates eons ago when I was still in college. It must have been four or more miles one way (I didn't think we were ever going to get there).That about gave me a coronary then and I am in lots worse shape now. So, since I don't own a snowmobile or a snow cat I would either have to borrow one or continue ice fishing the more accessible lakes like Hyrum, Mantua, Weston, Devil's Creek, and Deep Creek. I trudged through the snow at Weston early this year to ice fish with BrianID. I was a huffing and puffing by the time I got back to the truck along the road. Exercise will do a guy good unless it kills him first. Acey
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