Ice Fishing tomorrow morning

I shouldn't be up right now because we are going ice fishing in the morning. Isaac and I are giving Green Mountain Reservoir a try tomorrow along with Eric and Ashton.

The lake is a man made reservoir located northeast of us. Eric and Ashton will be here at 6:00 a.m. We will take I-70 east to Silverthorn then drive north on HWY 9. It will take about an hour to get there. The valley that HWY 9 runs along has some incredible views so the drive is actually a great drive.
The plan is to be fishing by a little after 7:30 to try and catch Kokanee Salmon. I've never caught them or the Lakers we may try for also. Eric has caught them both, but not through the ice. The Kokes run in schools chasing bait fish suspended over the lakes channel in 180 to 200' of water. Water that deep under my feet is a little unnerving, but the ice is running at least 13" thick.
The plan is to drill 4 or 5 holes in a location over the channel and fish about 30' down with kastmasters, sweedish pimples, and Krocodiles, which are along the lines of a spoon. The lures are shaped to fall in an eratic motion like an injured fish. We will tip the treble hook with meal or wax worms and jig the lures. The lures have a lot of flash and attract the schools in. Since they run in schools, once a school comes by it sounds like the action can be pretty fast and the faster you get a lure back down to them the longer they hang around. Four of us fishing ought to keep something flashing at all times. I'll use the depth finder to watch for them coming in and check their depth.

The reports I have been reading on Coloradofisherman shows that they have been wearing them out lately. The limit is 10 each and I think they average from 12 to 14" with some running 16" or so. Reports show two guys averaging around 40 fish with each keeping their limit of 10. They aren't averaging real big, but the rumor is they are biting really good in the morning and they are supposed to be really good tasting fish. If we can find them and catch a limit or the bite stops, we will probably move in to about 50' of water to try for Lake Trout. The lake also has some good rainbows and browns in it that would be just fine.

I'm looking forward to catching something other than the tiny rainbows that we caught a couple weeks ago. Hopefully we will have a good day and catch a lot of fish in a variety of species. We'll see. If "The Wood" was here the fish wouldn't have a chance. I think he could catch fish out of a bathtub. The only person I know who might give him a run would be DL Stokes, the river otter, but that would be stream fishing in Arkansas.

I'll be sure to get some pictures up if all goes well, and if not, I'll just post more pictures of the mountains and a frozen lake.