With a recent report of massive perch slaying going on at Starvation, thats where we went. Arrived at 8am, I found half of Utah saw the same recent report and showed up to the same spot. I drilled some holes in "the spot" and rigged up the poles for our family. I dropped a camera down expecting to see schools of fish. NADA!!! Nothing. Fish finder was silent as well. Looking around, NO-ONE was having any luck. I talked to some BFT guys next to me and we all set off to try other places.
We moved off out to a shallow island and drilled a test hole. Fish finder showed 30 ft. I left my boy watching it and moved 50 yards closer to the island and drilled another hole. My boy ran over with the sonar and we saw 2 fish right off in 20ft of water ... Bingo! I drilled 7 or so more holes around this test hold, both closer and laterally around it. We got the rods back in the water and after a very short time homebrew my PCV "autohooker" went off and it was fish on! I knew right off it wasnt a perch, they dont fight like this one did stripping line like crazy. After a few minute fight a FAT bruiser rainbow emerged from the hole. Not the perch we were targeting but a great catch.
I reset and a few minutes later it went off again, and again another fat bow hit the ice. It continued on, like this fairly steadily. We lost some absolute MONSTER bows that broke off when they got within sight of the hole. We ice'd 7, the largest two right at the 20" mark.
Ironically... not one single perch to be found. Talked to a bunch of other people, and besides us, only the two BFT guys had caught a fish (they had 5 between the two of them). No-one else had any luck. Stopped off at the gas station back on the main highway and the girl working there asked if we'd been fishing and how it was, she had heard it has been terrible. I told her we got 7 really nice ones and she was surprised.
All in all a beautiful day and some tasty fish for dinner. I'll dig up some pictures and post'em tomorrow
-DallanC
