Flaming Gorge 2/8 - 2/9
Took my maiden voyage to Flaming Gorge on Fri and Sat with a couple of BFTers. I accepted an invite from Catchinon and Joatmon, met them at Echo to carpool the rest of the distance. Made it to Buckboard around 1:30. Weather was cloudy and chilly. Negative temps and a slight breeze when I was getting dressed. Access and sled pulling was fairly easy. Solid edge, no slush, and a small amount a frozen snow on top to keep it from being real slick. Ice was 13-16 inches where I checked. My goal for the trip was to catch my first lake trout and first burbot. Fishing that evening started slow. Only saw a few fish and missed a couple bites. Finally decided to get setup for the night. No wind when I put up the shack, but I staked it down well anyway so I didnt have to wake up if the wind did come. Caught my first burbot around 8, which I was happy with. Now I could try and sleep instead of focusing too hard on catching throughout the night. Didn't care much for catching large quantities this trip. Sleeping turned out sort of rough. My heater kept shutting off due to frozen propane. I'm not sure if it's normal for Flaming Gorge, but that is the loudest ice I've been on. It was continually cracking and popping. So between my heater issues and noisy ice, I didn't sleep as much as planned. On a side note, I still slept better than Craig and Brett. Those 2 are crazy. Woke up for good a little bit before the sun did. Tried one more time for burbot and caught 1 more little guy. Sat morning started slow for me. I moved spots and started graphing more fish. Finally connected with my 1 and only laker. Mission accomplished. Fished for a little longer with little showing on my screen. Walk back out was easy and the drive home almost went well. I nearly donated some gear to Joatmon after switching vehicles. Had to backtrack a small distance to track him down before he got too far away. It was a great trip. I appreciate receiving the invitation and letting me tag along. Learned alot and looking forward to returning.