Well, my annual Flaming Gorge camp-out has come and gone and I am wishing I was still there.
My buddy and I loaded up and headed out on Thursday afternoon. We rolled into Greenriver at 3:00 to a balmy 46 degrees. We had considered running to Buckboard but with the warmer temps and recent reports of deteriorating ice we decided to head straight to the Confluence and try our luck. When we arrived there was one group on the ice set up for burbs. We stuck fairly close to shore but headed towards the cliffs. I knew the pressure ridge was there so we stopped about 400 yards away and set up camp. Once we had camp set we started drilling holes. On the first drop I had a heavy bite and set the hook, it felt like I snagged a log. Fought the fish for a minute and pulled out an awesome 28" burb.
We continued to fish that night and ended up catching about a dozen between two of us, nothing of any size after the first one.
We woke up the next morning to go on the laker hunt. We went all over the place looking and fished hard only to hook into 3 out in the main channel. Spoke to a couple of other groups that where having similar luck.
We had a late night on Thursday so we fished for burbot for a while Friday night with only a few light bites. We went to bed early so we could catch up on sleep and get up early the next morning.
We hit the ice early Saturday and went to the main channel again. I couldn't mark a single fish for about an hour. We decided to head in shallow and go after rainbows. I am glad we did.
fishing was hot for chunky rainbows all morning. I was fishing with three rods and and my buddy was fishing two and there were times that we had three rods getting bites at once. I landed about 15 and missed many more and lost a few at the hole. Some of the best fighting rainbows I have had in a while.
White seemed to be the ticket for the rainbows, tried a couple of different colors but nothing scored like the white curly tails and tubes.
We finished the day at noon with limits of rainbows, none under 18". I was a little discouraged with the slow laker fishing but the rainbows more than made up for it.
Conditions were good wwhile we were there but it was warm both days we were there and the ice was deteriorating in places. We fished on ice anywhere from 4"-9" during the trip. The main pressure ridge by the cliffs had open water and the ice thinned as you got closer. Talked to a guy that tried to get close and ended up on 2".
Just south of where road 11 meets the lake there was a open spot that grew each day we were there. The picture below is from Saturday.
There was a pressure ridge off of that open spot that ran down lake, this also had spots of open water and grew while we were there. Spoke to a guy on Friday that walked out that direction and he told me he lost his spud bar near the pressure ridge when he hit the ice and it went right through.
There were a couple of people that had four-wheelers and one side by side that came off the Lost Dog side, I wouldn't recommend it though with the changing ice conditions. Also make sure to bring cleats. Saw a guy hit the ice hard and split his head open, his buddies ran him off the ice towards their trailer. Hope everything was alright.
I also glassed towards Buckboard on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. There was a bunch of open water that also got bigger everyday we were there, but there were still some people out fishing that area.
All in all it was a great trip, one that I hope to do every year.
