# Fish Lake 1-12-13



## tye dye twins (Mar 8, 2011)

Thanks to my car breaking down in the snowstorm at Sportsmans Wearhouse on Friday night I thought my trip with DuckDog1us to Fish lake on Saturday would be canceled. 
Not so! Desperate times call for desperate measures. 








By 6am I was off to provo in this slick ride............
45 minutes and $5.10 I was in Orem getting into DuckDog's car. The continueous snowfall haunted us all the way to Nephi were we missed the turn off to Gunnison. So we took a detour through I-15 and Avon to Fish Lake. Roads were nice so that might have been a blessing in digiuse acutally.

Arriving at Fish Lake by 10am there was sunshine abound and ice fisherman all around. We settled down just past the Mackinaw Campground and witnessed a perch fest going on. We drilled some test holes for depth measurements and set up in a 6 man tent. The perch were suckers for sucker meat....first drop in the hole revealed the pattern for the next few hours. Then came the splake and rainbows for everyone in the tent.








By 2pm the fishing was slumping off and we decided to pack up and head back to Twin Creeks......my favorite spot on that lake! 









Sure enough there was a bit of open water that begged to be casted in. 1st cast provided me with a fat rainbow............ 









After 3 more fish I suddenly got some company (which was fine with me) and I wanted to get back on the ice since DuckDog was slaughtering them in the tent.









We couldn't keep the splake away!!!!!!!!!!! 









The action was lights out till dark....................









In a group of 3 we caught around 75 splake, 47 yellow perch, 25 rainbows, and 1 sucker. The drive back was a bit slow from Gunnison to Nephi but I still caught the 9:05pm train in Orem back to SLC.


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## Kingfisher (Jul 25, 2008)

congrats and theres a hat that likely only you and i wear in this state... go vikes.


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

you mean to tell me that I missed my opportunity to make fun of you guys face to face? Well gall-darn-it-all-to-heck.

Me and my brother fished out there near Mackinaw as well on Saturday. Just the two of us, no tent. Tents are for wussies. We fished specifically for lake trout -- action was slow, but we had our share of fun. Nothing big to speak of.

Sunday was the fun day. Fun; as in: cold. Fishing two rods was a joke, because you couldn't keep your ice hole clear of ice. Riding the quads across the lake first thing in the morning was enjoyable as well. Enjoyable; as in "She'll [Audrey] see it later Honey. Her eyes are frozen."

Oh well. Even if it was the coldest place on earth, I'd still take the bone-chilling day on the ice vs. being at work any day of the week.

(I'm still made we didn't bump into you guys -- we had to have been very close....)


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## tye dye twins (Mar 8, 2011)

8) Oh man we could have settled things once and for all.  

I am pretty sure I saw you PBH. There was 2 guys with summer rods jigging for the whole world to see. Looked like Mac fishing to us and we watched to see if there was any action going on. We were going to come out deeper and leave DuckDog's kids in the tent but DuckDog wanted a splake for the ice fishing competition. Besides you can sit out there all day without a bite..............hell of a drive for a skunking!

Was the DNR truck with the trailer you?


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## Catherder (Aug 2, 2008)

Nice reports, all of you. Sorry the macs weren't cooperative but it sounds like the others were biting reasonably well.

TD. You did miss an opportunity though. If you moved a little closer to shore, you could have easily had your hundo fish day by pounding the perch for 4-5 hours. If there is any spot where a hundred fish is easily doable, it is there for the perch. In fact, I know someone who probably did just that catching 40% perch(fast)-60% trout just a couple of weeks ago.


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

tye dye twins said:


> Besides you can sit out there all day without a bite..............hell of a drive for a skunking!


Skunking? No skunking here. Not for us. We each caught 1 lake trout. Both were about 20", so nothing to brag about. I'm really not concerned about the numbers game. Even if I got skunked at Fish Lake, it wouldn't bother me. Especially if I'm sitting out in 90' of water trying for lake trout -- that's just part of the game. I graduated past the "need" to catch fish a long time ago. The way I see it is you have two choices: 1) fish the weedline and play games with 7" perch all day long or 2) fish deeper and watch lake trout on the graph all day. Either way is a pretty enjoyable day for me.



> Was the DNR truck with the trailer you?


yep. That was us. UDWR had a patrol scheduled for Sunday. I was invited to tag along. We went up early on Saturday to get some fishing in, then did our part to help out the CO's (burned the pizza, damnit!). Good times. Even in the cold.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Sounds like an adventure.



tye dye twins said:


> The continueous snowfall haunted us all the way to Nephi were we missed the turn off to Gunnison. So we took a detour through I-15 and Avon to Fish Lake.


Avon? Do you mean Scipio?


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## tye dye twins (Mar 8, 2011)

LOAH said:


> Sounds like an adventure.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Whoops I meant aurora.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

That's my preferred way to get out there. It may take a little bit longer than cutting through all the towns via Gunnison, but I like driving past the Pavant. Cool area.


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## tye dye twins (Mar 8, 2011)

Catherder said:


> TD. You did miss an opportunity though. If you moved a little closer to shore, you could have easily had your hundo fish day by pounding the perch for 4-5 hours. If there is any spot where a hundred fish is easily doable, it is there for the perch. In fact, I know someone who probably did just that catching 40% perch(fast)-60% trout just a couple of weeks ago.


Out of the 3 times I have been there it really is great fishing for splake and rainbow trout. Luckily this time I got onto some perch. Before this trip I had only caught 3 perch total out of fish lake which was certainly not a feast of perch for later.

Personally I like to target the splake when I am down there. I wish we had more splake closer to SLC actually. Too bad Causey doesn't get stocked with them anymore. 

The only place I have beat 100 fish in a day is Utah Lake. I can see Fish Lake being able to produce that pretty easily as well.


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

tye dye twins said:


> Catherder said:
> 
> 
> > Personally I like to target the splake when I am down there. I wish we had more splake closer to SLC actually. Too bad Causey doesn't get stocked with them anymore.


You should make sure that you let your local DWR fisheries people know that you want more splake. Seriously.

right now, it appears to me that splake are in direct competition with tiger trout for waters in Utah. While I love tiger trout, I think that splake have a legitimate "need" in many Utah waters that might otherwise turn into tiger trout waters only.

more splake please.


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## Tylert (Aug 6, 2008)

I thought that was you in the yellow coat fishing the open water by twin creeks. We stayed in the cabins over by twin creeks for the weekend. It was a very enjoyable weekend fishing with friends and family. We fished mainly on the other side of twin creeks. I cannot wait to go back to the other cabins on Valentine's. It was a good weekend.


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## Catherder (Aug 2, 2008)

tye dye twins said:


> Personally I like to target the splake when I am down there.


Truthfully, me too. it's the one place in the State where I make it a point to harvest a full limit of trout (splake) for the grill. :EAT: |-O-| I would also say that the last 2 years up there we've been catching more chunky 14-17 inch bows with a little girth to them. (especially last trip) Those are worthwhile as well.



tye dye twins said:


> The only place I have beat 100 fish in a day is Utah Lake.


Sorry, I thought it was on your goal list. The kids and I like to eat the perch and so I will catch and bring home a bunch to fillet up and get a couple of meals before I head out specifically for the trout. This year, I did that part in record time. There are lot out there to catch and harvest.



PBH said:


> right now, it appears to me that splake are in direct competition with tiger trout for waters in Utah. While I love tiger trout, I think that splake have a legitimate "need" in many Utah waters that might otherwise turn into tiger trout waters only.


Are you implying that the splake program could disappear or be cut way back? I read something about them cutting the splake quota back some because they thought that fewer, bigger ones gave them a better yield, but nothing about curtailing them altogether. Do you have more solid info or is this an impression?


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

Catherder said:


> Are you implying that the splake program could disappear or be cut way back? I read something about them cutting the splake quota back some because they thought that fewer, bigger ones gave them a better yield, but nothing about curtailing them altogether. Do you have more solid info or is this an impression?


No -- I have no info at all to back my feeling that splake could be threatened.

my feeling is simply that the popularity of tiger trout combined with the ease of creating tiger trout and rainbow trout poses a threat to splake production. If it is cheaper to produce tiger trout, from a fiscal standpoint -- why raise splake? Keep in mind that our state has been in a "cost cutting" mode for a number of years. I know that auditors have looked at hatchery production and asked questions. So, naturally, I put 2+2 together. In many situations, tiger trout could be viewed (in the eyes of a non-biologists manager) as a cost cutting tool.

From a management standpoint, even if costs of raising splake are higher, the benefits would be worth the additional cost.

I have nothing to back any of this up. Just my own observations. But, like mentioned by Tyedye -- Causey doesn't get splake anymore, but it does get tiger trout. Why is that? Make you wonder, doesn't it?


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## Grandpa D (Sep 7, 2007)

I don't know how big that the Tiger Trout will get in Causey but the Splake stayed very small.
Perhaps the thinking is to see if Tigers will do better in there.
I know that back in the days of Splake in Causey, I iced a bunch of them but all were small. Several years later they were still small.
Let's hope that the Tiger Trout do better.


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## tye dye twins (Mar 8, 2011)

PBH said:


> tye dye twins said:
> 
> 
> > Besides you can sit out there all day without a bite..............hell of a drive for a skunking!
> ...


Good on ya for getting into the macs. Each trip to Fish Lake is a gift to me. If I lived closer you can bet that I would spend a lot of time there and would go for macs, macs, and more macs.

I hope to get down there one more time this year!



PBH said:


> tye dye twins said:
> 
> 
> > Catherder said:
> ...


I will have to do that.


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## tye dye twins (Mar 8, 2011)

Tylert said:


> I thought that was you in the yellow coat fishing the open water by twin creeks. We stayed in the cabins over by twin creeks for the weekend. It was a very enjoyable weekend fishing with friends and family. We fished mainly on the other side of twin creeks. I cannot wait to go back to the other cabins on Valentine's. It was a good weekend.


I bet if it was warm enough for me to have my spikey hair you would have recognized me a bit better.

How did you do on the fish man? A cabin sure would make the 2 day trip nice. Plenty of fish to feed ya for the whole trip too! I have a feeling I will return to Fish Lake again this year.


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## tye dye twins (Mar 8, 2011)

Grandpa D said:


> I don't know how big that the Tiger Trout will get in Causey but the Splake stayed very small.
> Perhaps the thinking is to see if Tigers will do better in there.
> I know that back in the days of Splake in Causey, I iced a bunch of them but all were small. Several years later they were still small.
> Let's hope that the Tiger Trout do better.


I have seen some big tigers in Causey. Can't wait to trick them onto the hook someday! Luckily there are the salmon to catch in there too. Between the cutts, bows, browns, tigers, and salmon, it sure would be nice to see some more splake in there. I remember reading a report last year of some splake being pulled though the ice.


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## FishlakeElkHunter (Sep 11, 2007)

Man....all these famous people on the lake this weekend and I missed all of you! Dang it! 

When I woke up at the cabin on Saturday morning it was -14....COLD! Still fishing was good. My best splake was about 21" but a little skinny..

I will be back at my cabin on Friday and back on the lake Saturday again...I love winter!


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## Tylert (Aug 6, 2008)

The fishing was awesome all weekend like it usually is at fish lake. We fished the weed lines about 15-25 of water. My buddy really wanted to catch some bigger fish so he was out fishing in the deeper water. They didn't have much luck on the bigger ones though. We are going back down and staying at his cabin again mid February. He said next trip it's time to go after the big ones and quit wasting time in the shallow water. Don't know if I can handle that though....lol


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## harlin (Mar 18, 2012)

Some splake were stocked in East Canyon this year, but it would be nice to see more in Causey.


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## Grandpa D (Sep 7, 2007)

tye dye twins said:


> [quote="Grandpa D":6fmzi88z]I don't know how big that the Tiger Trout will get in Causey but the Splake stayed very small.
> Perhaps the thinking is to see if Tigers will do better in there.
> I know that back in the days of Splake in Causey, I iced a bunch of them but all were small. Several years later they were still small.
> Let's hope that the Tiger Trout do better.


I have seen some big tigers in Causey. Can't wait to trick them onto the hook someday! Luckily there are the salmon to catch in there too. Between the cutts, bows, browns, tigers, and salmon, it sure would be nice to see some more splake in there. I remember reading a report last year of some splake being pulled though the ice.[/quote:6fmzi88z]

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
I would think that adding any other species would not be a good thing for Causey.
It can only hold so many fish.


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