Day after Christmas- Ice Fishing

Manuta Reservoir

5 Rainbow Trout and 2 Bluegill- Not bad for a few hours.
All caught on a pink and white "Toadie" with black spots.

My friend Brad and I got to go ice fishing up at Mantua Reservior for a few hours today. Surprisingly, all of them came out of the same hole- it was a nice little hot spot. We actually caught a 6th Rainbow trout but it was a little smaller than the rest, so we let it go. It was a beautiful day and the ice was 13.5 inches thick- plenty safe. I got to try out my new ice fishing sled- it worked great! I think playing chill radio on Pandora (Internet Radio) through my phone lured the fish in. Brad didn't have to much luck, but he brought me some! Hopefully, he will want to go again. I'm sure he will have better luck next time.

Christmas Eve Duck Hunting

Rooster Pheasant feeding in field.

Pheasants running in field.

Christmas Eve morning my neighbor, Brad Hansen and I woke up at 5:50 to go duck hunting. We were afraid it was going to be too foggy, but it turned out just fine. Around 6:30 we had the canoe all loaded on Cutler Reservoir and were paddling to a new spot. You could hear the ice chunks scrape the canoe as fog rolled across the water. We ended up jumping a lone Canadian Goose on the way to our set up but it was too dark to shoot. With Brad's decoys we were able to set up a nice spread just off a point in the main channel. It wasn't too long before a lone duck came bombing out of the fog and caught us off gaurd. We didn't even get a chance to shoot. You think you would learn but we let it happen once again a few minutes later. I guess you can't eat jerky, talk, and shoot at the same time. We had a flock of Canadian Geese pass by but were unable to call them in (Brad tried real hard-but it isn't easy without a call or goose decoys). After freezing for a couple of hours we walked around the island we were set up on in hopes of jumping one sitting near the shore. Instead as we circled back we jumped a mallard hen out of our own decoys! It was too far away to shoot. It was a beautiful morning, but we packed it up.

We checked out some public access to see if it had any open water and on the way we kicked up about 15 pheasants. It turned out there was open water and we jumped a Golden Eye- it was too far away to shoot, but we took cover. Brad called it back and it circled right over our heads. Brad got off two shots and I shot 3 times and we both missed!

We then went exploring around Newton Reservoir and the eastside of Cutler Reservoir. We came across a field where we saw about 15 pheasants out in a field feeding. We passed by and drove back to get a picture, but most of them had scattered by then. The two pics above are our attempt to get some pics.

Overall, still a fun day and a great day to watch the sun rise over the mountains.