(Intro) Well it is a frosty morning here in Utah. Mickey I can see my breathe, that means it’s ice fishing. (mickey) it’s time, lets go. (adam) alright we’ve got a big group. Where should we go? (mickey) Let’s head to Scofield and go for one of those giant tigers a group like this we are going to get one this big today. (adam) telling fish stories already. Alright let’s hit the road. (mickey) let’s go.
(Adam) minus three degrees. It’s cold.
(James Bradshaw, Maniac Custom Lures) this is my first trip for the year on the ice.
(James) hopefully we’ll get some of those big tigers. I’m excited.
(Nats of auger and water)
(Greg) it’s about 8 inches thick, it’s cold up here too. No slush on top, plenty of ice to fish on.
(Calvin Black) fishing has been great, a lot of these guys are catching a lot of cutthroat in the 12-15 inch range
(mickey) there he is….got him. that close, two feet under the ice.
(Calvin) one or two that are little bigger in the slot.
(Alex hit and misses) oh…
(james hit) there he is!
(Bobber) (adam) there he is.
(Misses hit) (adam) oh rejection…(mickey) denied.
(Calvin Black, DWR; S.E. Region Asst Aquatics Manager) just this past month in November, we’ve had a report of a 12, a 17 and an 18 pound tiger trout in one month and that’s just what we hear. Something is happening right now and Scofield is producing some monstrous tiger trout.
(Jared) What did you catch that one on? (Richard) it’s a pink 1.5 inch cutter bug, tipped with a mealworm.
(Adam) Something new that just came out the last couple of years it’s called the Jaw Jacker. It’s for the guy who’s lazy right. kind of like Greg my buddy. (Greg) No man I’ve got the two pole permit going. I’ve got a pole over there and a Jaw Jacker baby sitting my other pole. (adam) show people how this works. (greg) basically it’s got a little ring that sits on the end here. you hook it up to a little trigger here.
(Adam and Greg Branin, fishing buddy) What have you guys caught them on today? (greg) oh, we’ve been using Maniac cutter bugs have been working really good with those verigo jigs. We’ve had some little glow in the dark ice flies, wax worms, we’ve been putting a little bit of…(Jaw Jacker goes off) (greg) woo, there we go! as we are talking. (adam) did you catch him? (greg) nice oh yeah. that’s a little better, nice.
(Adam) kind of takes the fun out of it doesn’t it? (greg) no fishing is fishing, catching is catching. (adam) isn’t hooking part of it though? (greg) no how many times have you had two poles set up, woo, another bite. (adam) that one at least you can hook!
(Greg Misses) oh yeah you’re right he does need a jaw jacker. (laughs)
(Calvin) anything in a white color, tube jig, spoons, that seems to be the key and chub meat. it seems to be if you are dead sticking a larger piece of chub or a half of a piece of shiner or a big tube jig with a piece of chub meat on it, that’s been the key to catching the larger fish.
(Adam) big fish on the line huh? Be a cutt or a big tiger. (fish out of hole nats) (adam) oh nice fish.
(Alex Eakle) it’s a good one. (adam) not bad huh? (alex) biggest one I’ve caught all day. Only one I’ve caught all day.
A few things to remember if you plan on fishing Scofield this year. Don’t forget the slot limit, any cutthroat or tiger trout between 15 and 22 inches must be immediately released. You know the first few weeks after a reservoir has safe ice can be some of the most productive. But it can also be one of the more dangerous times of year to fall through. Always, go with a friend, and drill test holes, if you are uncertain about the thickness of the ice. Coming up on KSL Outdoors.
(Calvin) Right now the reservoir is over run with chubs.
A new DWR proposal to stop stocking rainbows at Scofield that should lead to fewer chubs. That just ahead, but first tonights Burt Brothers quiz question.
(tight on hole) there he is.
(James Bradshaw, Owner Maniac Custom lures) big one, small one? oh there’s your rainbow you wanted. He was just saying he hadn’t caught any rainbows. (james) yeah we were just talking about not catching rainbows and there he is.
Ever since I was a kid, I always remember coming to Scofield Reservoir for it’s fantastic rainbow trout fishery. But, a few years ago, biologists noticed that the reservoir was being over run with chubs. They started stocking Bear Lake Cutthroat and a hybridized brown and brooke trout called a tiger trout. The reason, these fish are piscivorous, meaning they eat other fish once they grow to a certain size. The hope was to keep more of these fish alive by introducing the slot limit, requiring anglers to release these fish if they fell between 15 and 22 inches. This year biologists will be trying an additional technique.
(Calvin Black) what we did this past year, we went through all the RAC’s and the Wildlife Board presenting a proposal to discontinue stocking rainbow trout for 3-5 years. so we can double our cutthroat trout stocking efforts in the reservoir and hope we can control the chub population in the reservoir biologically. (adam) this doesn’t mean you are not going to ever stop stocking rainbows. (calvin) hopefully here in 3-5 years we can start putting rainbows back in and we push the chub population back far enough that the rainbows can start surviving and competing against the Utah Chubs and continue to grow in the reservoir, right now they just disappeared. we dumped our last 80,000 in this past fall. so there are some out there this spring, and through the ice fishing right now we can catch but probably the next few years you are going to see fewer and fewer rainbows, more cutthroat, more tiger trout but we are trying to do that to control the chub population and keep us from having to treat the reservoir.
(Dan Eliason, Draper Angler) that sounds like a pretty good idea to me. You’ve got to do something to get rid of those chubs, the rainbows aren’t helping that out any. Although the rainbows are pretty good to eat.
(Dan Eliason) There he is. (adam) get him? Nice. (dan) two feet down.
(Dan Eliason) I’m here for more of the sport, you know I do like to eat some fish, but the tug is the drug. (laughs)
If you are looking for a reason to come to Scofield other than the fast fishing. How about an excuse like the annual Scofield Derby happening next Saturday.
(Mike Milburn, Price Angler) State parks is sponsoring the derby again on the 28th of December, it’s a Saturday and I know the registration is open right now. if you go to the state parks website, there’s info on there about the derby.
(Mike Milburn) Price Angler) and I believe they are going to limit it to 200 participants. like they did last year.
(Mickey just off cam) got him. (adam) oh he got him.
Mickey is catching fish after fish. He was finding them about two to three feet under the ice. While James was doing better near the bottom. James believes to have a better chance at catching more fish, you should use a fish finder to see what depth they’re coming in. He also says some of his bigger fish last year were using a bigger bait.
(James Bradshaw) big bait, big fish they say right. I caught a lot of my bigger fish last year through the ice on this 2.5 inch cutter bug.
(james Bradshaw) you might not be seeing anything on the sonar, might not be getting any bites, you put on a bigger bait, especially a glow lure, this is an orange glow, you’ll get hours of glow time out of this glow orange. it attracts them and surprisingly enough even the little ones try to eat it.
(James) there he is! See it brought him in and all I had to do was bounce it a couple of times to get him to eat it. Took a couple of times before I actually hooked him.
(ADAM TAG) so even though you are not going to see as many rainbows here you’ll see more tiger trout and cutthroat and hopefully fewer chubs in the future. Nice catch dude. (james) thanks. (adam) not to bad huh? (james) yeah orange cutter bug did the job. (adam) hey let’s head over to Mickey now, he’s down the ice, for tonights Fish Tech fish report.
(Adam) Welcome back to KSL Outdoors, back here on Scofield Reservoir, I’m Adam Eakle. Many of you have probably heard of KSL drive during the holiday season. We’ve been doing it for decades, it’s called KSL Quarters for Christmas. It’s where people get a chance to give back to those in need. That young man behind me, six year old Gavin Robbins has taken it to a new height. Raised a few hundred bucks that turned into well over a thousand.
(Mickey) Come on back. (gavin hits) did you get him, you did this time. Nice job. (laughs)
(Gavin) fun. (laughs)
This is Gavin Robbins. A young boy who got into the Christmas spirit by helping out KSL’s Quarters for Christmas.
(Cody Robbins, Dad) We were driving down the road, listening to Doug Wright, he came on about Quarters for Christmas and I just asked him if he wanted to do it and he said yes. So the next day at Thanksgiving dinner he passed a little cup around and asked people for some money.
(Cody) He just started taking it everywhere he went, asking everybody he saw. We told him we’d match whatever he collected. Got a little bit scary there towards the end when we seen how much he had.
In just two weeks Gavin collected two hundred and twenty bucks. With mom and dads match, he had four hundred and forty dollars that he came in and presented to the Doug Wright show.
(Cody) yeah he was on Monday morning with Doug Wright and got to talk for ten minutes or so with him and then they had some people call in and match what he had donated. So he had two people call in and match what he had donated So there’s the thirteen hundred and whatever it came out to be total.
(Adam) why did you decide to do the quarters for Christmas? (gavin) cause I thought kids would need it.
(Adam) obviously you are raising him right with a good heart? (cody) I think we are doing pretty good.
(adam) That’s a lot of money huh? (Gavin) yeah. (adam) are you pretty proud of yourself? (gavin) yeah. (adam) well you should be. If more people were out there like you we wouldn’t have as many people in need, huh. good job kid, let me shake your hand, glad to meet you. Glad you came out ice fishing. Did you have a good time. (gavin) yeah. (adam) that’s good. Go catch another one. While Gavin here is back at fishing let’s check out this weeks addition of our utah field guide.
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