Manila Pond Madness

Over the past several years I have been afflicted by, "The Muzzle Loader Deer Hunt Course". It's a real thing, look it up. For what ever reason, each year as the deer hunt gets closer some unplanned, unanticipated event comes up preventing me from participating in the hunt. This year my work schedule prevented me from taking time off. For some unexplained reason I opted to get up and take the family to Manila Creek Pond instead of hitting the hills this Saturday morning.

Bluegill action was non stop and everyone was able to catch more little fish than they had fingers to count them. I decided to take the opportunity to teach the boy the basics of fly fishing. Within a few short minutes he picked up the back cast and started showing early signs of a new addiction. He fished non stop for almost three hours catching bluegill about every other cast.

Scattered between the Bluegill we caught several Rainbow Trout and somehow one of them ended up swallowing the hook. We tried everything shy of mouth to mouth trying to revive the poor little rainbow but despite our efforts he bellied up.

Not long after our failed release we caught the attention of a near by seagull who gave us an interesting show.

Eventually we had to pry the kids away from the pond in order to take them home for lunch. Nobody kept count of the number of fish we caught this morning but my best estimates are somewhere north of fifty.

Final Tally:

A whole lot of Bluegill

& a Beautiful Morning

Strawberry in September

I received a text from a friend insisting that we should go fishing this weekend. The peer pressure was overwhelming and I gave in. We brought our two oldest boys and arrived at Strawberry Bay Marina just after 7am with hopes of catching a tagged Rainbow Trout.

The boys were excited and quickly started making dollar bets on who was going to catch the first fish. The worms proved to be the ticket as we all took turns reeling in Cutthrout.

It was nowhere near our best day at The Berry, only landing about a dozen fish. However those we did catch were heavy, most were pushing the 22" mark with a couple just over.

We never did bring in a Rainbow but had a great time regardless. The afternoon winds started up early but we stuck it out until about noon before heading back for pizza.

We noticed a big gathering at the visitors center on the way out and realized the salmon were running. Red, hook jawed salmon splashing through the shallow winding Strawberry River, AWESOME!

On the way out of the visitors center my boy was wearing a new shirt. I asked where he got it and he responded that he got it because he made a donation. I ask what money he donated and he replied, "The dollar I won catching the first fish, duh!".

Final Tally:

12 Hefty Cutts

0 Rainbows

0 Tags

1 T-Shirt

Silver Lake on the 4th of July

To celebrate Independence Day we decided to hike to Silver Lake located up American Fork Canyon above Silver Lake Flats Reservoir. We started early to avoid the crows but still found a parking shortage. The day was slightly overcast and a bit cooler than it had previously been this summer, a perfect day for a hike.

We had great little hikers that made the entire trip to the lake unassisted. The hike in was 2.2 miles with a 1400 ft elevation gain. The first half of the hike is through green quaky forest riddled with wildflowers. The second half of the hike includes a couple of stream crossings and ascends rapidly toward a granite basin.

The lake is normally pretty cold but is much more bearable after the steep hike. I would only recommend swimming during the warmest parts of the summer. The beginning of July was a little early for a dip but don't tell that to the kids.

As the little ones slowly made their way into the cold water I rigged up a rod and selected a nice looking prince nymph. Every cast produced a bite but it took about two dozen attempts to successfully land a beautiful little Grayling.  After landing a few more grayling I started around the lake in search of another promising spot. The north end was shallow and weedy but produced several colorful Brook Trout.

The kids entertained themselves finding rocks and and a variety of little critters. We only spent a few hours at the lake before prodding the kids back down the trail. The views, dark green forests and beautiful fish species make this hike a splendid and hidden fishing hole. I am sure we will be back soon.

Final Tally:

3 Grayling

4 Brook Trout

1 Frozen Little Girl

5 Skinned Knees

Early Spring on Utah Lake

I had this crazy idea that I should learn the fishing secrets of Utah Lake since it is only 5 minutes away and easily accessible. In the morning we drove 20 minutes down to Lincoln Beach to try for spring Walleye.

I had recently purchased a couple of planer boards and wanted to give them a try. We trolled for several hours with more than a dozen snags but no recognizable bites. Other fisherman reported having fish on but not able to land any. But thats what they all say!

 It was a beautiful spring morning and the view of the mountains from the lake was spectacular. The planer boards worked exactly as I had hoped, except for the lack of a 10 lb trophy Walleye, we had nothing to complain about.

I ran worm harnesses 6' behind inline sinkers 10' behind the planer board. On the next trip out I plan to swap out the trailing treble hook on the worm harness for a single hook and maybe use a float on the harness to avoid the snags.

2015 Wasach Back Quad Fishalon

I am not going to lie, I get pretty excited for ice fishing season every year and even more so about the Back Quad Fishalon. As the tournament approached I was very concerned for the thickness of ice on the reservoirs but I figured that if the ice was not safe they would postpone the event until open water and continue as an open water tournament.

Day one of the tournament came at East Canyon Reservoir. Getting onto the lake was a little sketchy but the ice seamed fine once we were away from the edge. Most of the action happened in the morning and the first Rainbow Trout was the largest of the day measuring just over 17". I felt excited about this fish as it would have put me in the top 3 the previous year. The day was beautiful and warm and very pleasant excluding the fact that fish were somewhat hard to come by.

Just before noon they called the event because of unsafe ice conditions. As I turned in my fish I realized that several others caught fish just as big as mine. I considered myself fortunate because most of the contestants had not caught a fish, which would put me in a favorable starting point for the the rest of the event. All in all it was a very good day on the ice.

A short time later I saw an email survey asking if contestants wanted to participate in an open water tournament and a follow up email canceling the event altogether. The news caused a sinking feeling in my stomach. To make matters worse I wasn't able to find safe ice anywhere else in order to pursue my own ice fishing endeavors. Ice fishing season was over!

Fish Lake Perch Tournament

The morning started early as we headed south towards Fish Lake. It was dark and expectations were uncertain. We arrived, geared up and registered before heading out on the already crowded ice. I knew that our success depended on locating the weed line where perch like to hide out. Though I had never been on a frozen version of Fish Lake before, I was armed with an internet education on perch and a few tricks gleaned through discussions with numerous friends.



Noticing the line of tents and fishermen that ran parallel to the shore line, we concluded that we needed to find a place in the same single file line in order to be on the weed line. I punched a series of holes between 12 and 17 feet deep and after a little sonar and camera work we found a nice weed bed with stacks of perch. Not long after putting lures in the water we had a nice pile of perch.

The fishing started fast and only got faster. After a half hour the action accelerated to an exciting rate. I believe it took that long to create a decent sized school of perch below. The technique was simply to let the small meal worm tipped jig hit the bottom, reel up one full turn, count to three and set the hook.

The amazing part was that very few others in the area were catching anything. Feeling I had to do something to motivate the other fisherman who weren't experiencing the same success I instructed the boys that when they hooked a fish to yell at the top of their lungs, "Fish On!"

In all, Adam and I did very little fishing for ourselves during the morning. It was more like a daddy line-rigging marathon. The repetition went:

Unhook fish

 attach meal worm

take rod with hooked fish from boy

hand newly baited rod to boy

FISH ON!

(Then Repeat)

Not too far into the morning the boy caught a 9.5 inch fish which meant a prize if he could get it to the check in station before anyone else. So I sent him running. 10 minutes later he showed up wearing his new fishing hat. Adams boy went running after catching his 50th fish, and brought back a new camp chair. Once the boys won their prizes we finally got a chance to fish for ourselves.

Perch wasn't the only species we were catching. Throughout the morning the boys landed several rainbow trout. Later in the day we caught a few Splake. The Splake were beautiful fish and a welcome change of pace.

After wearing out their little arms reeling in perch the boys turned their attention to exploring the ice and hunting for food. They found the jackpot at the weigh in station where they were giving away free hot dogs, fried fish and hot chocolate.

The DNR and Cabelas representatives came around handing out jigs and other free stuff. Brian from Cabelas taught us how to use a perch eye as bait. The perch eye worked just as well as the meal worms but it stayed on the hook better and we didn't have to keep replacing it in between fish.

The weather was perfect, the morning was mild and the day was sunny and reached 45 degrees. In fact, I never did wear my coat. Just a long sleeve shirt, a hoody and sun screen. On these warm days my favorite sound in the world is that of popping ice. One series of pops in particular started down the shore line popping louder as it got closer and then moving a couple miles up the shore line continued popping stirring fisherman to react with squeals and cheers. It reminded me of the spectators at a football game doing the wave, just on a much larger scale.

Talking to some of the DNR officials we had heard that there are more than 1,600 registered for the tournament. After calculating our odds of winning a prize in the raffle to be held at the end of the tournament we decided it would be a good idea to get a head start on the drive home.

I weighed in at 23 lbs of perch which I assumed was not enough to win the overall weight category since I spent most of the morning as a support function to the boys and not able to fish for myself. All together we caught about 180 fish. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

The ride home was exciting as we called our wives and had our kids report back on their fishing experience. It was one of our best ice fishing days ever. When we got home we cooked up some of the fish and tucked in for a much needed nap.