[atownbasser]

My adventure began when I left my humble Aurora home at 4:30 A.M.  I love driving to places while it is still dark, and the early bird always catches the worm.  Makes you feel like a real fisherman or something.  Anyway I arrived at BELLAIRE LAKE, in the Red Feathers area after learning about it on this site (Thanks Hatchmaster for the report), at about 6:45 A.M.  No one else was at the lake when I arrived, it is really a beautiful lake.  Drilled a hole and had my first stocker in about 30 seconds, and the action never stopped.  Methods used: many small ice jigs in multiple colors tipped with mealworms and nightcrawlers, silver kasty also tipped, white tube jigs tipped with nothing.  I ended up catching about 30 rainbows in about 2 hours, all small and about 10 inches give or take a couple inches.  The hike up to the lake was really not bad, but be prepared for some wind!!! It never stopped blowing.  I left at 9:30, headed to Boyd to fish some OPEN WATER?!?!........first some pics from Bellaire

When I got to Boyd at 11:00 I was sure there would be open water.  This was not the first time that this fisherman was dead wrong.  To my horror there was no open water and I was bummed.  I decided to walk out on the boat ramp peir and drill a hole to test the thickness of the ice.  1  inch thick and solid as a rock if you were a rabbit.  Stepped on it will holding on to the peir and it cracked in every direction and UNSAFE! I then decided to drill a few holes at the end of the boat ramp peir.  I dropped down an ice jig and got a bite in about ten minutes.  Missed the bite but he came back.  A nice 15 inch bow that I thought was a bass by the way he fought me right under the hole.  Then this guy and his wife show up with his pontoon boat and decided that they are going to break the ice!!!! There was no open water even in the middle to go to!  Anyway I tell him that I dont think it is a good idea while his wife is calling him a nut.  I pulled out the camera a took a picture as he tried to back up and "launched" onto the frozen lake.  Scrapped his transom pretty hard and cracked the ice a little and got about 3 feet from shore before giving up and going home. Pics of the frozen lake, the bow, and the nut and his boat.

Left boyd at about 12:30 and called it a day.  It was a great and relaxing time that I hope all of you can experience soon.  Lets keep those lines tight.

 

[atownbasser]

Just to answer some questions on the post: I kept two fish from bellaire that I deep hooked, and each fish was about 8 or 9 inches. I also kept the bigger bow from boyd to go along with the other two. They tasted good on the grill. Thanks everyone for all the responses, and I will definitely post more reports since you guys liked it. Hopefully someone can use the information to get out and catch themselves some fish. I have used these same methods at other lakes in the Red Feather area and usually caught good numbers of stockers, so pick any lake around there and you should have some luck.