In the high mountains of Arizona, where I live, if you want to fish during the winter months it is ice fishing. Here in Alpine we have our lake, Luna Lake which usually freezes over enough to fish. This year the weather has been cold enough to give us some time on Luna. To reach some of the other lakes at higher elevation requires the use of a snowmobile.
One of my friends, Jean here in Alpine introduced me to ice-fishing 2 years ago. Her first question was, did I have anything smaller than my fly rod. Jean taught me about spinning rods and how we rig them for ice fishing. Next I learned about the bait, which was entirely different from the flies I use fly-fishing. I am not sure how to describe, power bait, except that it stinks. Rolling those little balls of different color power bait in your fingers gave a new meaning to fishing for me. We would drill a hole in the ice with a 6” auger, load up our line with bait and weight then drop the line into the hole to the bottom. The next part was the best. I would sit on my bucket with a seat, which carried all my supplies, and wait and watch for the pole to move. When it moved I would try to set the hook. There is one good thing about fishing this way and that is the time you get to spend with a friend.
Some friends and I decided to take our snow machines and ride to one of the high mountain lakes called Big Lake. The ride from where we left our trucks was about 17 miles. The day was sunny but very windy. The ice on Big Lake was 17” thick. We rode our machines right on to the lake. We drilled our holes again with a 6” auger and used our machines for a seat. Our plan was to catch some rainbows and brook trout and cook them their for lunch. The wind was bitterly cold and trying to keep your eyelets from freezing up was not easy. We had 5 poles and again we were using stinky power bait and worms. We caught 5 fish, 4 rainbows and 1 brook trout. We had a disposable grill so the trout were cooked along with some vegetable packs and lunch was served. Nothing stayed warm very long with the wind whipping. After about 2 hours or so we all were ready to head back. Our snow machines have hand warmers which I had on high. That was the first time I had been to Big Lake ice fishing. It was a great day.
I always catch and release during spring, summer and fall, but during the winter I keep the trout. The trout that time of the year have a wonderful non-fishy taste which I like.
