# Fish Lake Saturday



## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Well, the UWN get together for the folks down south ended up with only one group that actually came from the south and one group from the north.

Holdsworth and I took off while it was still dark and arrived to daylight and many packed parking areas. Saturnguy had his Quickfish 6 out on the ice, as he had mentioned he would and was easy to spot. We walked (ice skated) over and said our hello's, then started fishing nearby.

The ice was plenty thick, but very clear in many areas, with really cool patterns that almost resembled some form of alien calligraphy. Pretty neat.



























(saturnguy's tent)

For Holdsworth and I, it was tough fishing all day. Drilling through the thick ice (around 14") was difficult with a hand auger, especially with the super slick ice. While drilling, I ended up twisting myself around the auger quite often, instead of gaining ground on the hole. That was enough to limit our movement to only a few different spots. Saturnguy's group reported better success where they were. Hopefully he'll chime in or post a report.

Holdsworth was the first of us to score, pulling up a 16 inch splake, which also marked his first for the species.










Quite awhile later, I finally connected and reeled up a 16 inch rainbow.










Unfortunately, those were our only fish for the day. Just like my only other fishing experience at Fish Lake (ice '08), I only got 1 rainbow. Oh well. We definitely could've used a power auger. Fishing a different area, we believe, would've been much more productive.

We packed up our gear and left, giving us about an hour and a half of sunlight left. We spent that time getting a heaping serving of SKUNK at the Koosh. Rough day!

It was still good to take a long drive, meet up with saturnguy and his buddies, and see that part of Utah that I love so much.










Happy Fishing, Humans.


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## Grandpa D (Sep 7, 2007)

Too bad that the bite wasn't better for you.

I had a day like that at Fish Lake about 4 years ago.
We were there for 3 days and on the second day, the power auger broke.
The third day was hand auger only and that really slowed down our success.
I drilled 2 holes, only to find either mud or water that was only 3' deep.

I love the Fish Lake area and the fishing there can be great.
I guess that you have to have a few slow days to appreciate the good days.


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## STEVO (Sep 13, 2007)

Geeze LOAH, 2 fish on the day at Fish Lake?? thats rough. How deep were you guys fishing? Nearly any time we have been there its been non-stop for the splake and bows near the weed line and the fish are always suspended at about 25 feet in the deeper water fishing for Lakers. Glad you guys were able to get out, a bad day of fishing beats a good day at home any day in my book!!!


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

We were fishing about 25 ft down over some deeper water near the weedline, but apparently not close enough.

Actually, if we had a power auger, we would've been in a completely different area altogether. 

Perhaps this summer, instead of driving by like usual (I like the other waters in the area), I'll dedicate a day to floating it and see what happens.

Maybe I'll even get out again this ice season, but I'm not hand-cranking it, that's for sure.


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## wyoming2utah (Sep 12, 2007)

Usually, all I have is a hand auger...and, I would be damned (even if the ice were 3 feet thick) to stay in one place all day long at Fish Lake if I weren't catching fish. I can't believe you didn't drill some more holes and try some different spots. Granted, it takes some work, but isn't it worth it?

On Saturday we iced over 50 fish among 5 of us....and we felt like the fishing was pretty slow.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Trust me, I was game for moving and drilling more holes. My buddy was pretty set on staying put. We ended up using other peoples' holes once they'd left, but didn't cover a whole lot of ground.


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## .45 (Sep 21, 2007)

LOAH....I have a gas auger you're more than welcome to use. I haven't been out yet this year because of work and I expect I'll only get out once or twice anyhow. It runs good, here at my house anyway, I fire it up every weekend just in case something changes. Believe it or not, I've been getting my toons sea worthy...


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## neverdrawn (Jan 3, 2009)

Just curious wyo2 but what species of fish were you catching? We were there also and did well early (as in from 7:00 to about 8:30) for splake and rainbows and one pup mac but then it basically shut down. Talking to a local in Koosharem they claim that has been the pattern for the year. Early bite then they shut down with the exception of the perch, which seem to always be willing. While they are delicious they are a pain in the *** to fillet if you want enough to eat and not nearly as fun to catch as the other fish in the lake, IMHO. 


They have saved a trip or two for the young ones however.


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## wyoming2utah (Sep 12, 2007)

We caught just about everything...but mostly splake. The fishing did slow down at around 9:00 AM, but we kept getting fish by moving and varying our depths. We did best fishing right off the weed line in about 20-25 feet of water. The bite in the late morning and afternoon was really soft...many times we thought we were getting perch bites, but the fish would end up being a splake. We are not too interested in perch either...although my brother's daughter did end up targeting them when things slowed. 4 of the 5 in our group took a limit of trout home with my dad being the only one who didn't and that was by choice. We have always found at Fish Lake that if you are not getting bites, you need to move. Generally, by drilling new holes up or down the shoreline a bit will result in more action...when it slows move again.


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

neverdrawn said:


> While they are delicious they are a pain in the *** to fillet if you want enough to eat and not nearly as fun to catch as the other fish in the lake, IMHO.


Perch are a scourge. They are slowly ruining Fish Lake. They are a fish that simply does not belong in Utah -- they are a much worse problem than chubs have ever been.

Look at Fish Lake: Lake trout forage is nearly non-existent. Large lake trout are disappearing, and small lake trout are never converting to a piscivorous diet, because there just aren't any open water fish at Fish Lake for them to prey on. Red-sides are non-existant, chubs are pretty much gone, suckers are disappearing, and the rainbows are struggling as well. Why all the problems? Perch.

What a crying shame. I long to see what Fish Lake could have been without those accursed perch.

(W2U spelled it out pretty nicely. We did catch 1 small lake trout, about 17", that was in rough shape. It had some broken off mono hanging from it's mouth, and a rig with three swivels attached. Three swivels? What the heck kind of rig are people using that need three swivels? I thought you could only have 2 hooks max in Utah?)


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Since Fish Lake used to be a cutthroat lake, do you think there's any chance of a remnant population existing there?

(And I agree about perch. More trouble than they're worth.)


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## wyoming2utah (Sep 12, 2007)

I doubt any cutthroat are left...the last ones I saw were caught in the early 80s. I don't think they have even shown up in the nets since then either...


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

no. The native cutthroat that existed in Fish Lake prior to white-man have long since been replaced with other fish. White men quickly fished-out the cutts, and then started planting every other type of fish you could imagine (including king, pink, silver, and kokanee salmon).

Native American's used Fish Lake and it's fish extensively. They were smart about it. They had a person assigned to be the "we've got enough, time to stop" person. They made sure that there were enough fish left to spawn and reproduce, so that the population could continue to sustain itself. This was a concept that white men struggled with, and didn't figure out typically until it was too late.

Now we have perch.


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