A Tale of 2 Rivers

[Jig-fisher]

On my lunch break I drove over to the Malad River and dunked some crawler pieces.  It has been really cold lately and there was ice along the edges in spots. I guess the fish didn't care and ended up catching 4 fish including a big carp that was right around 26".











On my home from work I decided to continue to take advantage of the nice day and fished a stretch of the Weber that I haven't tried in years.  Threw jigs into some very promising looking holes and was rewarded 5 times over a 1/2 mile or so of river by some aggressive browns.  The 1st one was right about 17", the second about 14" or so.  The last 3 were 11-12" skinny ones.

[Cowboypirate]

I really enjoy playing on the rivers this time of year. I know whitefish have a bad rap, but I can entertain myself for hours with some tiny nymphs and a school of whites. Having a big brown or cut slam it is just icing on the cake.

No whiskers on the Mallad? Its a bit early but they do seem to start early in that water. I think our first cat last year was a feb mallad cat. Pretty small but started the year off

[SkunkedAgain]

Nice job Paul, that was a great day.... I can't believe you had that many carp and suckers biting this time of year... they are usually pretty slow to start biting... I noticed the ice was starting to clear from the Bear River here in Benson yesterday... Crazy how fast it changes, it was 8" of ice not long ago and it's been really cold for the last week, yet one day of 45 degrees and it starts to bust up and clear out... Just seems crazy to me how fast it can change... By the end of the week it will probably be open clear to the reservoir... Guess I need to start a post about the cat contest seems it's about two weeks out to the start... congrats on a great day out... Later J

[JArner]

Saw the browns on FB, nice job on all the success. The days are warming and I feel the draw to open water again.

[Jig-fisher]

I really enjoy playing on the rivers this time of year. I know whitefish have a bad rap, but I can entertain myself for hours with some tiny nymphs and a school of whites. Having a big brown or cut slam it is just icing on the cake.

No whiskers on the Mallad? Its a bit early but they do seem to start early in that water. I think our first cat last year was a feb mallad cat. Pretty small but started the year off

I love catching whitefish too.  I rarely take my fly rod anymore so I haven't targeted them for a while.  

No kitties yesterday.  The bite was light on the sucker and one of the carp, but the bigger 2 carp would have taken my pole for a ride if I wouldn't have been paying attention.  I only used very small pieces of crawler, using up just one crawler broke into 5 pieces, just enough to cover the hook.

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Nice job Paul, that was a great day.... I can't believe you had that many carp and suckers biting this time of year... they are usually pretty slow to start biting...  I noticed the ice was starting to clear from the Bear River here in Benson yesterday... Crazy how fast it changes, it was 8" of ice not long ago and it's been really cold for the last week, yet one day of 45 degrees and it starts to bust up and clear out... Just seems crazy to me how fast it can change... By the end of the week it will probably be open clear to the reservoir... Guess I need to start a post about the cat contest seems it's about two weeks out to the start... congrats on a great day out... Later J

Surprised me too.  I was hoping for a sucker, but was just trying to enjoy the weather more than anything.  I kept being interrupted by those fish biting...ha ha.  What a good problem to have.  I'm hoping tye cats will play those year.  My favorite location had a total fish kill last year due to the low water.  Hopefully I can find some in other stretches of the river.

[SkunkedAgain]

I sure hope the cats will move back into your area this year... I know they were down last year in my stomping grounds as well... The year before we seen some sort of sick looking cats, so i wonder if they didn't have some kind of a die off hit... Last year they seemed pretty healthy, just down in numbers and size... You're inspiration of catching carp got me on the cutler ice and I actually caught a carp through the ice yesterday... Only one, but that's a first for several years... I didn't have a crawler, so I used spikes and it took it... Really like catching them through an ice hole, the whole time I'm sure they are going to break off... Those carp can really fight, fun fish except for what you get when you catch them... Too bad I don't like their flavor... Later J
PS... but they make great bait for kitty cats..