Mackay Reservoir

[idahopanfish]

How's the ice & how's fishin?
[signature]

[OvidCreek]

Michael and anyone else interested,

My son and I did the drive across the desert on Saturday; this has become an annual tradition near Winter Solstice. We arrived at 8:00 am and set up. Fishing was very slow for the first two hours with only one bow landed by my son. At 10:00 am the bites started happening every 20 minutes are so. Around 11:00 Fish and Game gave us a visit as we were the only ones out except for one gentleman at the far northern end. We were only at two fish and then my son landed a third; a pretty native bow at 14'. I was proud of the kid and he looked like quite the experienced fisherman by the officer.

I started to learn a lot about the koke fishery the officer told me they run in cycles this being the third year they spawned and there are only a few kokes present although they are large if caught 17-18'. This report also came from local fisherman who just stopped and walked out to talk with us. I really appreciated this information, and it was dang kind of them to walk out and share fishing information.

We stayed until 2:30 and ended up with nine pretty bows (12-15') with another lost at the hole. All fish were released. We fished in 27-32 feet of water and was a little far off from the boat ramp. All fish were caught on pink jigs; I had a pink paddle bug honey hole that landed four bows. Everything that was tipped with crawler had a hit; no action on mealys and powerbait. As you can tell I was fishing for kokes. I did have them come through once for 20 seconds at 17 feet; one nibble then gone. Oh' well the day was beautiful, although -14 at dawn, and the wind blew like crazy after 1:00 pm, drifting our holes. We probably would of landed more, but there were wild hot springs calling our name.

Hope this helps!

OvidCreek

A
[signature]

[OvidCreek]

Ice was a solid 6 inches.
[signature]

[windriver]

Good Report. I was hoping to find a place to catch kokes before Ririe freezes. O'well you have to get out and make the attempt to have any success.

I am thinking about going out to track down the perch or lack thereof at Mudlake in the morning.

Windriver
[signature]