Southeast Wyoming Trout Ice Fishing Report

I was fortunate enough to spend half of Christmas day on the ice in Wyoming with my dad catching some of the most beautiful trout I’ve ever seen. The weather was great, the scenery was awesome and the fishing was outstanding. We were fishing at Finley Reservoir just outside of Saratoga, Wyoming at the bottom of the beautiful Snowy Range mountains.

I’ve fished this lake with open water once before with my dad and knew that the fishing could be outstanding. I had never ice fished for trout like this before and really didn’t know what to expect. After asking a few questions at the local bait shop, I felt I was up to the challenge. The ice was not in the greatest of conditions but it was in good enough shape to hold the two of us. We drilled several holes in depths from 5ft to 9ft and started fishing. This was the first time my dad had ever used a Vexilar for ice fishing and it didn’t take long for him to figure out how they work. I quickly got him set up in 7 feet of water with a white Genz Worm tipped with a waxie. While I was getting my stuff together he told me there was something coming in on his Vexilar. I quietly made my way over to him and coached him through catching his first ice trout. It was a nice 14 inch brook trout.

While I was trying to get things going for myself, I had to keep dropping what I was doing to take pictures of my dad with all of the fish he was catching. I apparently had him set up on the "honey hole" for the day. It didn’t take too long for me to get into a few too. My first fish for the day was a beautiful male brook trout. These things are full of fight and are a blast to catch on ice fishing gear.

We have caught trout in this lake over 6 lbs on open water and we really wanted to see if we could find them through the ice. With several fresh water springs in this lake we were a little nervous about venturing too far so we decided to try fishing a little more shallow. My dad tried a spot that was only 5 feet deep and it didn’t take him long to connect with the trout in the first picture. It was a nice 20 inch rainbow trout. Soon after I was able to get another rainbow that went 21 inches. I caught her on a red #8 mini mert from BfishN Tackle. It was our largest fish of the day. It was also one of the most fun fish I have ever caught while ice fishing. It took several minutes to land and gave my drag one heck of a test. I sure can’t wait to get back out to Wyoming and try to find some of the 6+ pound brown trout that live in that beautiful lake!!