home or office during the winter
months. Others thrive in outdoors
no matter what.
This article celebrates the cold and
one of the sports it brings. Ice Fish-
ing! Though this sport is enjoyed
across much of the country, I am
sure the techniques, though similar,
varies from region to region.
Today we explore Ely, Nevada and
Illipah Reservoir. Illipah (shown
miles Northeast
Illipah is at an elevation of around
6800ft.
A 4 wheel drive was not even neces-
sary. The temperature was in the
20's. The sun shining. We met a
local walking up the grade to the
parking area, with a stringer of trout.
Just finishing up his morning. He
said the ice was safe but not that
thick...but the trout were hitting
good.
There were 7 of us. We started out
across the ice to some existing
places we could see old holes. The
ice creaking and cracking. Some
cracking causing the noise to streak
clear across the lake. Kind of an un-
nerving sound at first. We tried to
stay away from standing too near
the next guy :-) The 7 of us now the
only ones on the lake.
We augured the first hole and
We set about drilling more holes,
setting up our chairs, and rigging
our poles. A small hook, a single
split shot, and half a night crawler.
We dropped the bait to the bottom
and reeled up just enough to get off
the bottom. The bottom was in less
than 10 ft of water.
Some of us were slower at rigging
up than others. Someone yelled out
"fish on" before everyone had a line
in the water. It was an indicator of
what was to come for the next hour-
hour and a half. It was nearly non-
stop.
to get cold. Everyone had limited
out with some very nice fish. We
have fished Cave Lake, also in the
area. On this trip I would have to
we have taken out of Cave Lake the
past 3 years.