01-07-2013, 04:37 AM
My son and I went up to Echo Saturday morning 1/5. We got there at sunrise and it was -12F (brrrr). We made our way to the LONG drop down to the lake by the dam and went out to about the 30' depth. Ice was a good 6" with about 4" of powder on top, no slush. edges were rock solid too. We got a really nice 18" Bow within five minutes. Then it seemed to be a waiting game while the schools of fish moved around. Nothing for awhile, then we would get two in quick succession. We used glow jig heads with white curly tail jigs tipped with crawlers. Tried other colors and meal worms, but could get no takers. Ended up icing 7 fatties between 16"-20" and kept some for the grill. Interesting note, prior to the lake being drained, the meat has always been bright orange. All the fish we cleaned had pale to slightly orange flesh. I wonder if the draw-down has affected the available supply of minnows and crawdads that make their flesh deeper in color? Bellies were basically empty, except for one poor trout that had eaten some shmoe's cigarette butt that had been thrown into the lake at some point. The world is not your ash tray... All in all, a very good trip. Warmed up to +5 by the time we left at 12:30. Nice to finally get on the ice.
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