Utah ice fishing - whole nother world

[markkstanley]

Was out west for Christmas. My son who lives in Utah has been bugging me for awhile to go ice fishing with him. Decided to give it a whirl. Asked him if he had a lake map etc and just got a blank look. Turns out all the structure and depths etc that we spend hours thinking about just don't apply. All we did was go out from the access to about 20ft depth and started to jig with spoons. Trout would come by in schools. Pop two to four fish then wait for the next batch. And man did they fight. Caught 18 fish in a half day of fishing. Already planning to head out there in Feb when my son said the bite is really good.

Pic is my son holding one of the better fish of the day.

[splakeshaker]

Sounds like a blast! I'll have to put Utah on the bucket list.

[Sandmannd]

Wow, you can't beet that. I have a brother down there, perhaps I should hit him up for some fishing.

[markkstanley]

I forgot to mention that we really didn't need to use any sort of depthfinder either. Just jigged from 5ft down to about 10ft. The trout would come flying in - no dangling a lure trying to get a sniffer to commit like MN. Never marked a single fish I caught on my finder until it had grabbed the spoon.

[tcb]

I'm from Minnesota and now live in Utah. The fishing can be very good, but I must say that I miss having to know something about structure and fish habits like we are used to in Minnesota. In summer, you pretty much troll just about anywhere and catch trout. I know absolutely nothing about fishing for the "slimers" as we call them, but still catch lots. I've resorted to fishing for smallies and muskies out here to keep myself happy, and if I don't catch any, we troll for trout to smoke on the way back to the boat ramp.