I had never participated in an ice fishing derby and was feeling the call of the frozen water. I had missed the Scofield tournament in December but ran across a web page advertising the Wasatch Back Quad-fishalon. I thought that this would be a good opportunity to stretch my ice fishing skills and see how I stack up against other winter anglers. At first I planned to pick only a couple of events but found myself registered for all four ice fishing events instead. I was excited yet intimidated by the fact that I had never ice fished any of the waters on the tournament list. For that matter, I had never fished Rockport or East Canyon at any time of the year. I am a firm believer in researching an area before fishing it. I had some time to review my trusted East Canyon Fish n Map and choose a few promising locations for the tournament day. I tried to find feeding flats adjacent to break lines or drop offs. I was beginning to feel ready for my first ice derby.
East Canyon Reservoir
My brother Keith agreed to accompany me on the first event. We arrived at East Canyon State Park at 6:30 am, and before registering I experienced a bad omen. In the darkness I reached into my sled to free my pull rope, which was snagged on something, and felt a funny sensation. Then it hit me, I had just cut myself on my auger blade. I used the best first aid I could come up with at the time and warped an extra sock around my hand and started out into the darkness with our sleds at our backs and the ice under foot. We found a good spot and started punching holes with my trusty hand auger. Before I knew what was happening a fellow fisherman began drilling holes all around me with his power auger. He asked how many I wanted and continued on. We fished within 20 yards of our new friend for the rest of the day. This was the first time I met Jim. The day continued and the bite was slow. I fished small jigs tipped with a piece of crawler or meal worm. I had a rod in the hand and a bonus rod rigged on a Jaw Jacker. The total catch for the day consisted of 5 rainbow trout, the largest measuring in at 379 Millimeters. Keith fared about the same, his biggest measuring just shy of mine. Even though I only finished 11the place for the day, I had a very enjoyable day chatting with Jim when the bite slowed down. At the conclusion of the event I exchanged numbers with Jim and wished him luck before heading home.
Deer Creek Reservoir
I kept in touch with Jim and traded ideas on how to approach Deer Creek. He had pre-fished the reservoir earlier in the week and shared some of his successful strategies as he found a spot fairly close to the boat ramp. In contrast I chose to fish a location 1 mile across the ice from the weigh in station. The plan was to find a spot far from others where we could stealthily fish the shallow flats. This time I was accompanied by a friend, Adam, and might I add a good friend at that. He voluntarily followed me out over a mile across the dark ice in the rain and shin deep snow. We started catching fish as soon as we set up. Only 45 minutes into the competition I landed a 20 inch hook-jawed beauty of a rainbow in full spawning colors.
Despite doing my best to scare the fish away by letting out some celebratory cries and inventing some form of a dance, we continued catching fish for the next 3 hours. 22 fish later we decided to make the trek back across the lake to weigh in what I was sure to be a money fish.
After hitting the weigh station and recording a 499 millimeterfish we headed over to check on Jim. On the way over we ran across many fisherman that were in the process of giving in and going home. It seemed that no one we had talked to had caught anything. To our delight Jim and his fishing buddy had landed more than 40 fish, one of which topped 19 inches. I thought for sure we were both in the money.
As we huddled close to hear the announcement of who placed in what position I learned that I had missed third place by a mere 16th of an inch. The person who edged me out also caught the largest fish at East Canyon. This would mean that he had at more than 2.5 inches on me for the tournament. I will admit that I felt just a little disappointed as we drove home.
A few days later I learned that I had moved up the ranks to 2nd place overall and Jim had secured 3rd place. I had not realized how well we had done and felt a sense of exhilaration for being in such a good position heading into the second half of the tournament.
Jordanelle Reservoir
I kept in contact with Jim leading up to the Jordanelle portion of the competition. As before, we shared ideas about how and where to fish in order to optimize our chances of landing a lunker. Jordanelle presented a new problem. I know I had to take a somewhat conservative approach but I also knew that the largest fish would be browns. This time I brought Keith and my boy. We made the 1/2 mile hike accross the lake in the dark and set up the rods. Not long after groups of anglers started closing fast, it was a constant hum of atvs and gas augers for about an hour and a half. Through the morning I could not buy a bite and Keith missed 2 jaw jackers. The fisherman adjacent from me caught a sizable fish or at least that's what I deduced from his joyful cries. After that afternoon aproached I visited the others in the area and the story was all the same, no fish. I called Jim and he let me know he had a good sized trout in the bag. I moved spots a few time before 12:30 pm. I couldn't believe this was hapening. I was just a short time away from getting skunked. As I made my way back over to our original spot Keith was wrestling a good sized brown. It measured 20 inches and somehow gave me renewed hope.
I strung a crawler on the jaw jacker and went with a 3 inch tube jig tipped with chub meat on my primary line. We were fishing in 14 feet of water and had to be super quiet. It was not long before we started getting bites. Then I hooked and landed a 21.5 inch brown almost without a fight. The relief was overwhelming. It was not a money fish but it would keep me in the top three in the overall standings.
I went for a walk with my son hole hopping old holes deserted by others in the area. I dropped my line down one hole and thought I had snagged on the bottom. The snag started moving and I reached over and gave the rod to my boy thinking it was a perch or small rainbow. Turns out it was a heavy Smallmouth. I could not believe it.
We ran our catches over to weight station. The DWR officers were pretty impressed with both fish but mostly with the smallie. They explaned that they don't see many that size in the reservoir let alone caught through the ice.
We ran back over to see if Keith had caught another brown. He had not. After we got all lines back in the water something wonderful and amazing happened. I felt a hit and immediately gave it a hookset. It felt heavy and I knew right away it was another brown. Just then the Jaw Jacker went off and keith went running and sliding across the ice. About the time Keith started retrieving his fish mine came off. Feeling a bit discouraged I noticed out of the corner of my eye that my bonus rod I had sitting over a bucket started to do the macarena. Without thinking, I picked up the rod into a hookset with one fluid motion. It did not feel very big until I caught a glimpse of it through the hole. It was a monster brown. Then it shot off like a rocket, stripping line under the ice. Finally when I got another glimpse of it again I reached through the hole and pulled the fish out of the water. What an amazing fish.
This 24" Brown Trout placed 2nd in the day event earning a $150 gift card and pushed me into the #1 spot overall with one event to go. The three of us only caught 5 fish for the day but they were 5 fantastic fish.
Rockport Reservoir
The Rockport event was postponed until open water due to unsafe ice. I had a small boat and planned to prefish the reservoir the day before the event. I was feeling pretty confident being 2 inches ahead of Jim and about 7 inches ahead of most of the pack. As long as I caught a reasonable sized fish I knew I would have a strong chance of placing. The day before the tournament Keith and I caught more than 30 fish long lining rapalas behind planer boards. The largest two measured in at 18 inches and made a delicious meal before camping the night.
In the morning we hit the reservoir with confidence. In the first 15 minutes I landed a 16 inch rainbow that basically secured me one of the top tree positions for the overall. The only thing that could knock me out of first place now was if Jim got lucky and hooked into a big brown. At 11am I landed a 17 inch rainbow adding to my excitment. Jim would have to catch better than a 19 inch trout to keep me from winning the tournament.
With only an hour left to fish we started trolling over toward the flats where the river enters the reservoir. I thought if we were going to find a brown that is where we should go. In the distance we saw Jim's boat out near the inlet. Apparently I was not the only one with that idea. We kept trolling keeping the competition in sight. Half hour to go and life was getting good. Then with 15 minutes left as we were considering heading back to the ramp I saw Jim and his fishing buddy move faster than I knew they were capable of. Bringing their lines in and creating a wake that would have knocked me out of the lake if I were any closer, I took one look at Keith and we both know that it meant trouble. I held the throttle open on my little 9.9 heading back to the weigh station to check out the damage. We pulled into the dock and I ran over to the leader board and saw the most discouraging sight of the tournament. At the top of the board it read Jim. Unlike the disappointment I felt at Deer Creek and despite the emotional roller coaster of the previous 7 hours I felt a huge sense of relief that I had finished as well as I had. I ended the tournament better than I had deserved. This was my first ice fishing derby and I had placed second overall and placed second in the Jordanelle event with a spectacular brown trout.
Final tally
-Over 60 trout caught including a 24 inch brown a 17 inch small mouth a 20inch rainbow
-Quality time spent with my son
-$450 in total winnings
-Lots of fun prizes including a camp table, a cabin stay at East Canyon and a buck knife for the boy
-Experience of a lifetime
Winning Fish
East Canyon 379mm
Deer Creek 499mm
Jordanelle 599mm
Rockport 416mm
Total 1893mm
Disclaimer - Being a fisherman I am obliged to rounding up on all fish sizes mentioned in this post.
