Ice Fishing - Island Park Resovior

[Jeff C]

Ok you Mountain Lake Ice fisherman, I need some advice.

Before I ask for your advice, this is what we did last year:

Set up just off the shore of the Lakeside lodge (I.P Resovior):

Reasons:
1. It is only a 200' walk to get a cocktail and or a burger
2. The locals told us that this was a good place to mark fish


We drilled some holes inside the portable, and set tip-ups in a few locations outside the portable.

We got out there after riding at about 4-4:30pm, just before sunset.

We used several different types of lures
1. Old fashioned rappie jigs tipped with frozen minnows
2. Same as above tipped with meal worms
3. Mepps double hooked (On opposing ends) tipped with frozen minnows
4. Plain hook with frozen minnow

We were in 25' of water.

We were marking fish at both 3'-8', and 20'-25'

We were marking fish at a rate of (And I am not kidding) 100 an hour.

We tried everything we had with us.....

Over two evenings, we caught only two rainbows, and both were caught on a crappie jig.

How do we get these fish to bite? Pretty sure if we brought some live minnows with us, we would crush em, but that is against the rules.......


HELP!

Someone school me...........

 

[woodzy]

maggots?

 

[Jeff C]

Yep, we tried maggots, caught both on frozen minnows

 

[nitromaniac]

Try some corn on the tips, worked well when we fished the Montana side for cuts and rainbows.

 

[Jeff C]

Nitro:

Are we hitting "the bite" at the right time?

In Minnesota, the Crappies and Walleyes hit about 30-45 mins b4 sundown for about two hours, then it tends to shut down a bit.......

 

[woodzy]

Try it in the morning before sun up

 

[Jeff C]

Try it in the morning before sun up

Darn it! I was hoping you wouldn't say that.

That means one less night of drinkin I guess......

Might just leave the portable up from the night before.......



Just before sun-up until?____________

 

[Skogen]

Live Minnows, if legal work good.

 

[Bubba700]

Live Minnows, if legal work good.

live bait isnt allowed on the idaho side

 

[nitromaniac]

Nitro:

Are we hitting "the bite" at the right time?

In Minnesota, the Crappies and Walleyes hit about 30-45 mins b4 sundown for about two hours, then it tends to shut down a bit.......

The lake we fished at, we would get over at 12 or 1 maybe, and then fish until 4 or 5. Sometimes we got lucky and were only there an hour. Sometimes we stayed after sundown and used the headlight off the sled to lure more in. The corn really seemed to work, but we were in only 8 to 10 feet of water. The lake is maybe 30 miles from the reservoir, so I would think the same techniques would work. However, the fishing wasn't hot last year, never even made it over.

 

[adrenaline junkey]

I second the corn and add a little bit of beer added to it also that power bait works pretty good the orange paste

 

[woodzy]

Anywhere we've ice fished out here, I've found the bite stops after 10 in the morning.

 

[Jeff C]

Anywhere we've ice fished out here, I've found the bite stops after 10 in the morning.

I seem to see people out on the resovior in the morning and none in the late afternoon/evening.

I guess my thoughts on Minnesota fishing do not translate to Idaho/Mountain fishing.......

I think we will try early morning fishing on a day that we do not go riding.

 

[woodzy]

good luck

 

[Scott]

You have to keep your maggots warm ya dumb azz.