Taking the suggestion of Vex-Um, I drove down to Wellington Lake south of Bailey on Sunday to introduce a friend to ice fishing. It is a private lake and it cost $5 for the car and $5 per person to get in, and it is artificials only. I also think it is catch and release. Beautiful lake nestled beneath mountains. We walked out onto the ice near the west end, and found out right away that the surface was semi-frozen slush, so that with most steps, we sunk down 5" to the real ice, so initially it was pretty frightening.
We opened up a couple of holes, and found that beneath the slush there was about 5" of ice. We were told when we signed in that water was probably going to be let into the lake this week, which would ruin the ice. So we got there just in time for a last hurrah.
After trial and error, we began catching a few fish - but only on a small white Swedish Pimple. I didn't matter which of us was using that lure, that was the only one they hit (and of course, I only brought one). My friend's very first ice fishing catch was a fat 19" Bow (pic below). About an hour later, he caught another 19" twin. The other two catches were somewhat smaller.
