November Fishing Reports — Late November is often when the weather gets cold enough to provide solid enough ice for ice fishing on lakes in the Palmer – Wasilla area of the Mat-Su Valley. We usually catch rainbow trout, Arctic char, and or landlocked salmon on our ice fishing trips.
November 22, 2016 — It has been quite a while since I’ve been fishing, but weather has been cold recently and I’m planning to guide my first ice fishing trip of the season on Friday November 25. My nephew, Paul Warta has been ice fishing a couple times in the past week and reported about 6 inches of good ice. He caught a single rainbow trout each time he fished, so I’m hopeful we will do considerably better on Friday.
Custom Spinning Rods — I’m planning on putting a few of the custom rods I’ve been building this fall up for sale at 3 Rivers Fly & Tackle in Wasilla later today. These are the same custom rods I have been using on my guided salmon fishing trips during the summer months. Current rods I’ll have available feature St Croix or high quality Batson blanks, Fuji KR guide system with either Alconite, Silcion Carbide, or Torzite ring material, and light and sensitive grips in either Split Winn grip design or full cork handles. Stop by 3 Rivers Fly and Tackle in Wasilla if you’d like to see some of these fine 7 – foot spinning rods that we use primarily when casting spinners for 5 species of Pacific salmon. These rods are light and sensitive, and extremely smooth casting — especially when using one of the new braided lines up to about 30 lb. test.
November 25 —FIRST ICE FISHING TRIP of 2016 / 2017 WINTER. I guided a group of 4 guests each of whom caught a few fish. They ended up keeping 9 of the larger rainbow trout and released some smaller rainbow and landlocked salmon. All of the fish were caught on Balls O’ Fire salmon eggs fished about a foot above the bottom. During the trip we saw several bald eagles flying around the lake. Ice was good and solid with about 8 inches of depth to it. Everyone had a good time, although it was fairly cold — so they opted to quit a bit earlier rather than fish until the end of the trip.
I delivered 4 of my Custom Rods to 3 Rivers Fly and Tackle in Wasilla. These rods are some of the best spinner casting rods I can build — same as used on my summer guided salmon fishing charters. Cost is competitive for high quality rods — and that is what they are — $195 per rod. Stop by and take a look — they would make a perfect Christmas gift for a special person in your life.
December 2, 2016 — Today I ordered up parts to build 3 new custom rods on rod blanks I have not used before. It is always exciting to see how new rods will turn out — as there are often “surprises,” when building with new and different blanks. I’m hoping to use each of these new rods on my salmon charters at different times during the coming 2017 season. In addition to these 3 new to be built rods — I’ve already built several other rods this fall on blanks my guests and I have had great results with during past fishing seasons.