SCHIESS: Coldfooters rewarded at Ashton Reservoir

The hit was soft; a light tremor of the bright orange spring bobber extending from the eye of the hook indicated something had stirred the water around the bait 15 feet below the ice. About two minutes later the bobber bounced once before the line started moving around the hole about a half of a mile up from the Ashton Dam in Fremont County.

“That was a weird hit,” I told Wayne after I tried to set the hook but missed. “It almost acted like a perch, but I have never caught a perch up here.”

After checking the bait and lowering the mealworm tipped jig back down to the bottom, I was taking the slack out of the line when the lure was hit violently. After a few head shakes, the fish came straight up from the bottom – like most perch do. It was one of the largest perch I have ever caught, a female slightly over 12 inches.

About an hour after we had caught the perch several other fishermen came and started catching perch and planter rainbows in about eight feet of water closer to the shore. We had been fishing for trout with minnows and worms while they were using glow-in-the-dark pink and green jigs. We would catch a nice brown and a rainbow while they were kept busy landing fish after fish.

“Oh, yes; we have been catching perch there for years,” Jason Sorensen, of St. Anthony, told me several days after this experience. “Locals who know the bays and where the perch are do really well.”

This year fishermen with families are working the deep water just above the dam and doing very well on planters. During the summer months the Idaho Department of Fish and Game stocked over 39,000 rainbows in the reservoir and it appears many have congregated near the dam. Some fishermen report catching from 20 to 30 per outing, making it enjoyable for kids to spend a day on the ice. Several nice rainbows over 16 inches have also been taken just above the dam, but closer to the east and west sides along the cliffs and large boulders.

Jigs tipped with wax or meal worms are usually setups for holdover or native trout while nightcrawlers, Powerbait or corn have been good for the stocked fish. Perch are usually taken in bays where the water is less than 20 feet deep and are taken on small jigs tipped with a wax or meal worm fished below a spoon or larger jig. The brown trout we caught were on minnows or a piece of nightcrawler fished below a flasher.

Access to the reservoir by the dam is fairly easy, but on weekends parking is limited so if you want to take the kids for an ice fishing trip, go early. Last season I took my grandkids and they had a great time until one stepped in an old hole and the wet foot sent us home a little early.