Winter 2002/2003 Logs
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Februray 23, Mat-Su Lake and Big Lake
Headed out to a small
stocked lake in the valley with Vance, Martin and Erick. Got on the ice about
8:30am. We started getting hits almost immediately. Everything from roe &
shrimp to spoons and rubber minnow jigs. But within an hour the action died down.
Between the four of us, we managed maybe 10 fish in that first hour. Then
almost like a switch the bite was off. The day was cloudy and snowing leading me to
believe that we would have a good day. Not to be today though.
Erick and Martin have to head back early so Vance and I decided to try Big Lake. We got to Big Lake but we weren't sure about ice strength after all of the warm weather. Since I thought the ice wouldn't be too thick, we only brought an hand auger. Well that was a mistake. The ice was at least 2 feet thick. My hand auger didn't cut at all so after drilling only one hole, we decide to search for holes. We found a good set on burnt point and began to fish. Vance got all of the hits in 25 feet of water and I didn't see a thing in my 10 foot deep hole. Vance eventually hooks one of the fish and manages to land a nice 20 plus inch dollie. It showed some battle scars that had healed. Though scarred up, the dollie fought well. That was the only fish we hooked on Big Lake that day but I guess we only fished for an hour or so. Vance was using a rubber minnow under a 000 dodger.
February 16th, Mat-Su Valley Lake
Head out to fish a small lake in the Valley with Vance. Get off to a late start but we are on the ice fishing by 10:30am. As we set up, Vance gets a hit right away and manages a 18inch Char. He gets his jigging a rubber minnow under a small dodger. Vance catches another small rainbow and the day is off to a pretty good start. We had a few rods down with bait and about an hour later you hear the sound of something slapping the water and its my ultralight rod tip doubled over and in the hole. I came close to losing it but Vance pounces on the rod and up comes a nice 17 inch rainbow on shrimp. I manage a nice 16 inch rainbow on single eggs right afterwards. I decide to "chum" a bit by jigging a large glob of roe under a dodger. About one minute into it, my rod just about gets yanked from my hands. After a good battle, I land a very nice 26 inch Dolly. Sweet-oh! About 1pm things die down so picked up and left. Not fast action but it was steady and you got to love pulling up a char that looks like it came from Big Lake out of this tiny stocked lake. The water was ultra clear and it was sunny. Not usually a formula for a good day but catching the big one was sure sweet. Got to get out more!
January 18th Delong Lake
Went fishing with Vance again to kill some time in town. It had rained the night before so I wasn't too excited about driving. So I convinced Vance to just hit a lake in town for some catching instead of the usual fishing. We weren't disappointed. It was slow at first, but as the sun started to set, the action was pretty consistent. Shrimp was the best bait by far though single eggs worked well. We caught dozens of landlocked salmon, a bunch of small Dollies, and a few blackfish. Vance caught a monster Dolly for Delong...maybe 12 inches! The rest of the fish had a hard time going 8 inches. Still it was fun. I wouldn't do it every weekend but when the bobber takes a dive, its still pretty exciting for me. It was a good lesson in setting the hook since the fish were pretty small. What a great place to take your kids. If you have a few free hours, give Delong or Jewel lake a try, your kids will love it.
January 11 Big Lake
Headed out to Big Lake with a friend and met Vance on the lake. It was pretty slow for us. My friend didn't manage a fish all day. I caught only two fish, one rainbow about 18inches and a Dolly about the same size. Vance's group did much better catching a few burbot as well as a couple of nice char. I caught my dolly on a large Mepps Scyclops spoon in rainbow trout pattern and the rainbow I caught on a clear cabela's living eye minnow with a curly tail fished under a 000 dodger.
The ice roads are in but be careful. Off the ice roads, the ice was probably only 8 to 10 inches thick. In fact later in the week, I saw in the paper a truck had gone through the ice on a lake connected to Big Lake. BE CAREFUL! If you aren't sure, don't do it. Fishing is fun, but the last time I checked, you had to be alive to enjoy it. Be safe, always go with a partner, and always err on the safe side.
January 4th Mat-su Valley Lake
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Well here's to another great year of fishing!
Headed out to the valley with Martin and Erick to see how the lakes were. We had high expectations since the forecast called for snow and we always seem to have good days when it snows. We get on the lake before its light out and we settle in to fish. No snow though! Bummer. The fishing WAS SLOW!!!!!!! Between the three of us, we only caught 3 keeper fish and a few other smaller fish all day long. Brutal. Still it was nice to be out fishing.
The next day the snow comes. I sure wish I had a job like the weather forecasters. I fear everyday that I am going to make a mistake that might cost the company. These weather folks seem to shrug off a mistake like it was nothing. How do they sleep at night knowing they raise hopes of us fisherman and then dash them with their mistaken forecasts? Well you can get the same information the weather folks use, but much more upto date at: http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/ It's definitely the best weather site for Alaska. Well, I didn't get out fishing but Erick did, it snowed, and they hammered fish. They visited two smaller lakes in the Valley, and they managed to hammer some nice trout including a nice 23 inch Dolly out of a lake that looks more like a pothole. Erick said the action was consistent all day long. Doh! I always seem to miss the good days. Of course that's not true, but in fishing you have your good days and your bad days.
If you have kids, I would HIGHLY recommend that you head out to one of the local area lakes. I visited Delong Lake on New Year's day and there were 30 people on the ice all catching fish. Nothing huge but dollies in the 8 inch range and landlockers a tad smaller were hitting bait like no tomorrow. A great way to introduce the kids to ice fishing. Its right here in town, on a weekend you almost don't need an auger since there are so many holes already dug, and since its close to town, you don't have to commit to an all day trip that will likely bore your kids no matter how many fish you catch. Jewel lake is another great lake for kids. Use single eggs or shrimp under a very small bobber and you are ready to go! Nothing fancy required here! Your younger kids won't care if the fish is 8 inches or 8 pounds, they will love it!
December 28 Mat-su Valley Lake
Well I head out with Martin and Eric to set up some ice houses on a valley lake. Well it took us most of the day to get them on so I didn't fish much. The news of the day was that we drove onto the lake. The lake had been plowed so we went on slowly to see what would happen. After arriving at the spot, we punch a hole to find less than 10 inches of ice. Pretty marginal to be on the ice with cars. Still the ice was solid and we managed to fish a while. I didn't catch anything but the guys fished after I left so I'll get more of the story after I talk to them.
December 21 Big Lake
Well Big Lake is finally frozen enough to fish on. Martin Doug and I head out on one of the windiest days of the year. Martin was smart and brought a portable one man fish shack, Doug and I FROZE! Still it was better than being warm and bored sitting on our butts in front of the tv so it was a good day. We saw some snowmachines ripping across the lake but it didn't seem like a good idea. It was 4 inches where we were at right near shore and the ice couldn't have been more than 2 inches thick about 30 yards from shore.
Well the fishing continues to be slow. We all caught one fish during the whole day. I caught a nice 20 inch Dolly, Martin caught a 16 inch Dolly and Doug caught a nice burbot. Martin caught his on a spoon, Doug caught his on a gizit rubber minnow, and I caught mine on a weighted egg sucking leech under a 000 herring dodger.
I know every year I seem to have my favorite lure, and this year is no different. 2 years ago I couldn't go wrong with my trusty krockadile chrome spoon. Last year I started using rubber minnow with great results. But starting toward the end of last year, I have been doing well using a weighted egg sucking leech in black or green under a 000 herring dodger. What I have noticed about the leech patterns is that the fish seem to take them much more aggressively. With the spoons or the rubber minnows, often I see fish come cruising through the hole, take a look, even bump it with their nose but then swim off. I don't think I have ever seen a trout come to the fly and reject it. I'm sure it will happen some day but it hasn't happened yet. I really like using the small dodger. It imparts an interesting action to the rubber minnow or the fly. The flash attracts trout and I would swear that the fish hit the lure harder because they must think that if they don't hit it right away, the other fish (the dodger) will. There is a draw back to this rig. You catch a lot more fish if you can see your fly. When you lift up, the dodger bounces around and imparts good action, but as the dodger freefalls, the fly is on slack line free falling as well. This means you might not feel a hit as the fly is falling. The heavier rubber minnow on a jig head doesn't have this problem since the weight of the jig keeps the line relatively taught between the dodger and the hooks as the jig falls. So far I have caught burbot, Dollies, and rainbows on this rig in many lakes so its in my starting line up of tackle this winter.
November 16-30th Ice fishing at last!
Well the ice fishing season began for me on November 16th. We found 2 inches of ice on a lake in the valley. Over the next couple of weeks we managed to ice fish on several lakes. The fishing sure has been slow. You would think that at first ice things would be great but that wasn't the case.
Ryo, one of my fishing buddies from Malaysia came in and found hardly any ice to ice fish on. Still we did get out and managed to catch rainbows, suckers and a few small lake trout. Ryo did manage to catch a nice 22 inch rainbow and had one one that seemed MUCH larger. But since the hook fell out we'll never know. Ryo was using the new fishing techniques called "drop shotting" Its popular with the tournament bass crowd and Ryo seemed to get his fair share of hits even on a slow day dropshotting a small plastic grub. I'm definitely going to give it a try.
I would have posted this log entry earlier but A) My computer fritzed B) The ice was way to thin for me to encourage anyone to go ice fishing. Most of the lakes we saw were open. We had to hunt for a few lakes we know freeze earlier every year and still we found only three lakes with ice anywhere near thick enough to fish in a 2 hour radius of Anchorage.