Horsetooth Reservoir

Made out to horsetooth this morning. Windy but, was able to land one.

Started hitting the home lake close to home with my grandson.

A couple days of warm wind cleared the ice off the lake. Was hoping for an ice-off feeding frenzy, but the bite was tough, and the wind made jigging difficult. Managed a couple of decent rainbows, nothing too big. Great to be out.

Haven't posted up anything in a while. Here is a few pics from the home lakes.

This was last week. According to my weather app, the “feels like” was below zero at the time of this catch. The air temp was down in the single digits too, and icicles even formed on my paddle. The bite was tough, but I did catch one smallmouth bass, jigging at 65 feet deep. I never target smallmouths at that depth, as they are susceptible to barotrauma, but it seemed to swim back down with no problem. The first pic showing the mist on the lake was taken from the comfort of my living room the day of that catch. After yesterday’s storm, our cove is mostly frozen over.

Got out for the afternoon on my birthday. This was 3 days ago before the cold weather hit. Nice day for the middle of January! Didn’t catch an epic trout like last year, but did catch a decent one jigging 70 feet deep. The “holy carp” birthday card was made by one of my daughters!

Merry Christmas y’all! And a merry fishmas for me! It was a slow bite, but finally hooked up with a fattie. At that same moment, a strong gust of wind hit and it started raining hard. This made landing an already-hyper fish much more challenging. When the chunky trout saw the boat it freaked out, and I had to keep a steady hand on the rod to maintain tension as the fish danced around on top of the water. My other hand was holding the net—no wait, it was on my paddle, trying to keep control of the kayak in the wind. Oops, not enough hands. Suddenly my net was in the water and the kayak was quickly being blown away from it. There was a split-second when I could have decided to save my net, or keep trying to land the fish. In the moment I was focused on my Christmas catch, and by the time I wrangled the fish into the boat by hand, the net had disappeared into the dark depths. So it looks like I’ll be getting a new net for Christmas after all! I ended up landing one more without the aid of a net. It was a scrappy male that went from 30 feet deep to airborne by the time I even knew he was hooked. Overall a great Christmas afternoon. (That house is not mine, it is my neighbor)

It’s official, we are now living on Horsetooth reservoir. Sorry for the lack of posting and interaction lately, but we’ve been busy with the move and renovations! Got out for a couple hours on this balmy December day. Most fish were deep and not feeding. I missed a couple, then hooked up at around 45 feet with a fat hen cutbow trout—easily 5 pounds—which put up a great fight. She splashed me pretty good while photographing and releasing her, so I paddled a couple hundred yards back home to warm up on my deck while watching some deer. After a couple more months of renovations, I think I’ll be able to get into the groove of daily fishing!