03-04-2013, 05:38 PM
Location, location, location. That and really small jigs was the secret to catching fish on Friday with my first visit to Jordanelle in many a year.
My brother and his son brought me out of fishing retirement and given what I was able to discern, this location seemed the best option for different species and some size. The first came true, the latter did not.
It would be an understatement to say the water is low. Spots I'd fished before in the Rock Cliffs area were as much as 20-30 feet above us, exposing lots of hills and valleys of earth. (Made a mental note for high water years.)
We arrived about 9 AM and there was a "road" that went well beyond the boat ramp. We had a big beefy 4WD truck and could easily travel several hundred yards on the frozen mud, but it became very bumpy the last several hundred yards, other vehicles parked well before there, perhaps learning what we had yet to.
The water was much more shallow on the North side and didn't see a thing, so we headed to the South side and walked a ways until we found water about 30' and got our first fish. Well, sort of... I didn't want to go to Pineview cuz I didn't want to catch just dink perch... My brother and his son caught several that were a whopping 4".
I wasn't catching, so I went more shallow (18'), then I caught my first perch of the same size. My nephew finally got the first rainbow about 10". At this point I was getting frustrated and still not doing well in drilling hole after hole and had to rethink. I was using my normal tandem rig with a heavy dropper type lure on the bottom and something smaller 18" above. The perch were right on the bottom, and I surmised that my bottom lure was just too big, but my smaller lure above wasn't getting love either. And it was even larger than the tiny ice flies my brother was using successfully - suspended down below a sweedish pimple attractor.
They'd consistently catch a fish here and there, not fast, but fairly regularly, so I switched to that rig and wondered if it there was something about the action that was key, but I still wasn't doing much better.
We'd fish a hole for a while and catch a couple, then not catch a thing so we'd move further West as the day went on. Finally after several hours I drilled yet another hole (the ice was still 18" or better and the edges were solid) I caught about a dozen perch almost in as many minutes. Then the bite shut off. I moved again, back to a previous hole that had produced action and I caught several trout, none of which were over 12". All trout were suspended from half the way down to right under the hole. A finder was critical to catch them. They were very aggressive and sure fun to catch for their size! [
]
I switched up lures again to learn what I could and the only thing that seemed to mattered was size. Nothing but the smallest hooks I had got touched. Waxies did the best early on, but my perch eyes did as well if I was at a hole that had fish. We ended up with about 20+ fish each for the day. 80% were dink perch. Only 3 were over 6".
It was cloudy in the morning but the sun shone brightly once mid day hit. We were walking in slushy snow back to the truck. Trying to drive out of there was a surprise. The frozen dirt was now deep mud. I've never seen such a robust truck spin all 4 wheels like that. Going straight was just a hope and we were grateful there was no danger if we slid too far. The vehicles that didn't go as far down were wiser. Something without the traction of our vehicle may have been there until the mud froze again!
With the sun coming out with higher temps, it's pretty clear that the condition of the ice could change very quickly. Hopefully I can get out again somewhere before I need a bathing suit! [laugh]
Anyway... better late than never with the report.
Question: Twice we had a couple larger trout on the line, but both got off once they trashed in getting them up the hole. And, I had a few issues with hook sets, which isn't usually a problem for me. But, I also don't usually fish with such small lures. Has anyone else found a correlation that smaller hooks are more of a challenge to get a good hook set?
Any other comments are welcome as I try to figure out what else I could learn from the day.
[signature]
My brother and his son brought me out of fishing retirement and given what I was able to discern, this location seemed the best option for different species and some size. The first came true, the latter did not.
It would be an understatement to say the water is low. Spots I'd fished before in the Rock Cliffs area were as much as 20-30 feet above us, exposing lots of hills and valleys of earth. (Made a mental note for high water years.)
We arrived about 9 AM and there was a "road" that went well beyond the boat ramp. We had a big beefy 4WD truck and could easily travel several hundred yards on the frozen mud, but it became very bumpy the last several hundred yards, other vehicles parked well before there, perhaps learning what we had yet to.
The water was much more shallow on the North side and didn't see a thing, so we headed to the South side and walked a ways until we found water about 30' and got our first fish. Well, sort of... I didn't want to go to Pineview cuz I didn't want to catch just dink perch... My brother and his son caught several that were a whopping 4".
I wasn't catching, so I went more shallow (18'), then I caught my first perch of the same size. My nephew finally got the first rainbow about 10". At this point I was getting frustrated and still not doing well in drilling hole after hole and had to rethink. I was using my normal tandem rig with a heavy dropper type lure on the bottom and something smaller 18" above. The perch were right on the bottom, and I surmised that my bottom lure was just too big, but my smaller lure above wasn't getting love either. And it was even larger than the tiny ice flies my brother was using successfully - suspended down below a sweedish pimple attractor.
They'd consistently catch a fish here and there, not fast, but fairly regularly, so I switched to that rig and wondered if it there was something about the action that was key, but I still wasn't doing much better.
We'd fish a hole for a while and catch a couple, then not catch a thing so we'd move further West as the day went on. Finally after several hours I drilled yet another hole (the ice was still 18" or better and the edges were solid) I caught about a dozen perch almost in as many minutes. Then the bite shut off. I moved again, back to a previous hole that had produced action and I caught several trout, none of which were over 12". All trout were suspended from half the way down to right under the hole. A finder was critical to catch them. They were very aggressive and sure fun to catch for their size! [
] I switched up lures again to learn what I could and the only thing that seemed to mattered was size. Nothing but the smallest hooks I had got touched. Waxies did the best early on, but my perch eyes did as well if I was at a hole that had fish. We ended up with about 20+ fish each for the day. 80% were dink perch. Only 3 were over 6".
It was cloudy in the morning but the sun shone brightly once mid day hit. We were walking in slushy snow back to the truck. Trying to drive out of there was a surprise. The frozen dirt was now deep mud. I've never seen such a robust truck spin all 4 wheels like that. Going straight was just a hope and we were grateful there was no danger if we slid too far. The vehicles that didn't go as far down were wiser. Something without the traction of our vehicle may have been there until the mud froze again!
With the sun coming out with higher temps, it's pretty clear that the condition of the ice could change very quickly. Hopefully I can get out again somewhere before I need a bathing suit! [laugh]
Anyway... better late than never with the report.
Question: Twice we had a couple larger trout on the line, but both got off once they trashed in getting them up the hole. And, I had a few issues with hook sets, which isn't usually a problem for me. But, I also don't usually fish with such small lures. Has anyone else found a correlation that smaller hooks are more of a challenge to get a good hook set?
Any other comments are welcome as I try to figure out what else I could learn from the day.
[signature]
