I've been hearing reports of a monster tiger trout caught through the ice at Scofield Reservoir. And it now appears the fish is a new Utah record.

Brett Prettyman tracked down details and published them in this blog. Here are a couple quotes:

The monster trout, officially weighed and measured today by a DWR fisheries biologist at the Springville office, shattered the record set last year, tipping the scales at 18 pounds and four ounces. The tiger, a hybrid between a brook and a brown trout, was 32 3/4 inches long and caught by Chris Nilson of Benjamin.

"That's a heck of fish and not that far from the world record," (DWR's Justin) Hart said of the 18-pounder. "I'd be curious to know if that was one of the first fish we stocked in 2005. If it is, imagine what we might see if those fish live a couple more years?"

Read his complete report.

Utah's DWR reports very good fishing at Flaming Gorge Reservoir. There is stable ice on the north end of the lake, but open water or unstable ice on much of the Utah side.

DWR put this information on its Facebook page:

Ice remains on most of the reservoir north of the Pipeline. With the high winds experienced last week, some spots are opening up in the main body of the reservoir. This past weekend, there was a large expanse of open water north of Anvil Draw to Middle Marsh Creek. I also observed some wide pressure ridges with open water in the main lake areas. Be safe around these areas and recognize that winds can have a dramatic effect on the consistency and duration of ice. 

Ryan Mosley, DWR's Flaming Gorge project leader, has this update:

"Where we fished the ice was thick (12 inches of clear ice) and the fishing was still really good. Even with the recent success reports for lake trout pups in the main channel near Buckboard, we decided to fish for shallow rainbows further south. Rainbow fishing was very good in 15–25 feet of water and also provided the occasional lake trout. We selected shallow points towards the backs of bays and augered a lot of holes until we found fish. Many of the fish came through suspended, making it advantageous to have a fish finder so the presentation could be placed at the depth of the fish. 

We caught rainbows up to 20 inches and about 2 pounds. The quality of the rainbows caught this year is impressive, and even the smaller size class (14 inches) are fun to catch and exhibit thick red fillets. Fish hit a variety of lures, but I had much of my success using small 1/4 oz jigging spoons, including Swedish Pimples (whites and pinks) and Kastmasters (rainbow), and also 1/16 oz PowerBait Atomic Teasers (white with orange trout worm). 

Tip the lures with Gulp maggots, mealworms or wax worms. Upon cleaning the fish, many of the rainbows were foraging on chironomids, but some were also utilizing zooplankton. Chironomids tend to be more abundant on shallow sand/mud habitat, and this time of year zooplankton can be more abundant in the backs of bays or along southern exposed rocky shoreline where water is slightly warmer."

Don Allphin enjoyed some good largemouth bass fishing last week at Sand Hollow Reservoir near St George. He described his trip in this article in the Provo Herald. Here are a couple of interesting quotes:

We began fishing on a grassy flat in 25 feet of water. As I lowered by trolling motor into the water and the fish finder registered the bottom, bass began to show up in very good numbers. I spotted a nice group of fish in 26 feet, turned to tell Sackett there were fish under the boat just as he set the hook on a very scrappy 2-pound bass. Before I could grab the net to land his fish, my own rod dipped and I also hooked a nice bass. Within a minute of beginning our day, we had a two-fish limit.

The rest of the day was just like the first few minutes. We caught just over 40 fish and had an incredible time basking in the sun and catching bass. We caught fish on blue gill colored jigs, tubes and drop shot worms in 20-to-30 feet of water.

Read the entire article.

Strawberry Lake in Utah reports: Anglers report slushy conditions, so the use of ATVs or snowmobiles may not be a good idea. Just about every angler reports good fishing this week. Central Region aquatics manager Mike Slater reports fishing with his daughter on Tuesday. They caught two rainbows and about 15 cutthroat, and had a lot of fun missing others. They did well fishing just off the bottom; they would let the line go down, let it hit the bottom, and bring it up a couple of feet. If they were there for more than five minutes, they'd bring it back up again, 10 to 15 feet, and let it drop to the bottom, and then bring it up off the bottom a couple of feet; then they would get hits almost immediately. They mainly used a 1/16 ounce or 1/8 ounce jig head tipped with PowerBait. They also used a spoon or some kind of flasher a couple feet above that to give it a little more weight and attraction. One angler caught a kokanee through the ice.

Utah DWR photo contest has some great entries including:

31" Lake Trout caught at Bear Lake, weighed in at 13lbs!!

(This information was provided by Utah's DWR.)

This year's Burbot Bash at Flaming Gorge broke all the records: most people, most teams, most fish caught, most tags returned and the most money given away. The event attracted almost 1,200 participants composing 563 teams. That's over double what we saw the first year when there were 485 participants. Anglers caught about 4,200 burbot in just two nights! Compare that to the first year of the Bash when anglers caught just over 4,000 burbot in eight nights. 

Our tag recapture rate also went up. We had 9 PIT tag returns (internal tags) dating back to November 2010. We'll be able to get more movement and growth data based on the data collected from these tags. We also tagged 25 burbot with red anchor tags for the grand prize categories, and two of these fish were actually caught! Unfortunately, neither of these tags was a big cash prize, but the one tag number was only one digit off from being a $2,500 winner. 

Because participation was up, the Flaming Gorge Chamber of Commerce increased the prize categories. They paid out five places instead of three for each prize category and also increased the total cash payouts. 

As an example, the biggest fish and most fish category went from $1,500 to $5,000! They also increased the reward for tags from $100 to $300. Participants were happy with the adjustment and many went home with padded wallets. 

The winner for the category with most fish had a total of 211 burbot. The winner for the biggest fish captured a 35-inch 7-pound burbot. The biggest burbot caught in the youth category was 32 inches.

Last week Jesse Pond caught a 28 pound striped bass near Forgotten Canyon at Lake Powell. His father, Sean, posted this account of the epic battle in the Anglers' Corner section on WaynesWords.com. He posted 2 photos, one of which is shown here. Below we give excerpts from his account. It is worth reading the entire post.

While traveling west over Eisenhower tunnel and over Vail pass everyone looked at us like we were crazy for having our boat in tow in January. as we headed out of Grand Junction Colorado into the Utah Desert the outside temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit and my wife started to believe I was crazy too……….

The next morning we slept in until about 9AM, grabbed a quick bite and headed back to the off shore marina to look at the house boat, when we finished our houseboat tour we made it back to the Boat inspection station about 11AM and it was 43 degrees, sunny and no wind, once the inspection was complete we hit the boat ramp to launch and realized there were only 2 other trucks in the parking area, we had the lake all to ourselves!

Jesse had been bugging me to fish so I finally gave in and rigged up his and my poles with a couple of cast masters and trolled all the way out of Forgotten Canyon with no luck, as we reached the main channel I rigged up 2 poles with leaded line , mine had a Rapala CD9 and was out 7 colors, I set Jesse up with a Storm Thunder stick in green and let him out 8 colors and settled in behind the controls, I varied our trolling speed between 1.5 – 2.3mph on my GPS, about 15 minutes later we had just turned into the main channel towards Bull fog when Jesse Yelled “ DAD, I HAVE A SNAG” I looked at the fish finder and said Jess we are 200 ft deep , that’s not a snag, HOLD ON!

some 20 to 30 minutes later with the fish actually coming our way he must have been able to see the bottom of the boat because he dove straight down and hard! It pulled Jesses rod so fast the handle was forced into his groin, Jesse yelled and fell forward , I grabbed Jesse by his hoodie with my left hand and his pole with my right, feeling the weight of this fish...

Once the fish was in the boat we snapped bunch of pictures and decided to head to bull frog marina and get it weighed. The post office scales were all that we could find and it showed about 27 ½ pounds. We froze Jesse’s fish that night and upon return to Bailey Colorado my wife had it weighed at our local Safeway and it came in at 28.31 lbs.

Several big consumer trade shows will take place the Salt Lake City area during the next few weeks, giving people a chance to learn about, test and buy the latest products related to outdoor recreation, leisure living and adventure travel.

Here's a list of some of the major shows, which will be held at South Towne Expo Center, 9575 S. State Street, Sandy.

Feb 2-3 - Crossroads of the West Gun Show

Feb 7-10 - Utah Boat Show & Watersports Expo

Feb 14-18 - UT Sportsmans Vacation & RV Show

March 2 - Safe Kids Fair

March 2-3 - Rocky Mountain Gun Show

March 8-10 - Salt Lake Tribune Spring Home and Garden Festival

March 14-17 - International Sportsmen's Expo

March 22-24 - Gem Faire

March 29-30 - Wasatch Fly Tying & Fly Fishing Expo

April 13-14 - Crossroads of the West Gun Show

April 20 - Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Salt Lake Chapter Banquet

Jan 25: Uah's DWR gives these reports:

Ice update: The cisco are running at Bear Lake, and the ice is three to six inches thick. Come up tomorrow for the Cisco Disco!

Ice update: The ice is five to six inches thick at Pineview Reservoir, and the perch are biting.

Want to catch some fish? There are three fun winter-fishing events scheduled for tomorrow in northern Utah. | http://go.usa.gov/4kkF 

Ice update: At East Canyon Reservoir, the ice is about six inches thick, and anglers are catching 16- to 18-inch rainbows.

VisitUtah.com reports: The 2013 Burbot Bash is Feb 1-3 at Flaming Gorge. Get a team together for fun catching the ugliest fish in the West. http://bit.ly/Y4aaxq 

Saturday, February 09, 2013

If you've ever seen a bald eagle in the wild, you know it's an experience that can take your breath away.

On Feb. 9, you'll have a chance not only to see bald eagles, but to learn more about them. The Division of Wildlife Resources will hold its annual Utah Bald Eagle Day that day.

Bald Eagle Day is free. You can see eagles at five locations across the state. Viewing times vary depending on the viewing site you visit.

Complete details.

You can learn how to fish through the ice, eat a hotdog or two and maybe win a prize at a free ice fishing clinic on Jan. 26.

The clinic will be held at Strawberry Reservoir from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Adam Eakle, host of KSL television's "Outdoors with Adam Eakle" show, has teamed with several partners, including the Division of Wildlife Resources and Strawberry Bay Marina, to host the free event.

Details.