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Ice fishing season has arrived in earnest across much of\nsouthern Idaho! It took a while thanks to lots of snow and some\nwarmer-than-usual weather, but many popular ice fisheries are now open for\nbusiness. Here are the latest ice reports and tips for helping you plan your\nwinter adventures: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cascade Ice Fisheries <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ice fishing is available on the \u201cbig three\u201d winter fisheries\nnear Cascade: Lake Cascade, Horsethief Reservoir and Warm Lake. After a snowy,\nslushy start to the season, conditions on all three lakes are starting to\nimprove. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lake Cascade traditionally starts out slow and heats up as\nwe move into February, particularly for its coveted jumbo perch. Some anglers\nhave been catching a few perch, along with some nice rainbow trout, but the big\nperch hauls are still ahead of us. Up until mid-January, snowmobile travel wasn\u2019t\nsafe on the lake. A few sleds are starting to venture out, and having that mobility\nis key to tracking down the jumbos. Perch-colored spoons and minnow-imitating\njigs like the Rapala Slab Rap and Salmo Chubby Darter are go-to presentations for\nperch anglers. If the fish are finicky, try sizing down to small tungsten jigs\nfished within inches of the bottom. Trout are usually caught higher in the\nwater column. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Horsethief is a smaller, more accessible fishery that\nusually provides plenty of action for small-to-medium-sized rainbows trout,\nalong with occasional Kokanee salmon and brown trout. I enjoyed a quick morning\nsession there on New Year\u2019s Day and landed more than a dozen rainbows. Small\njigs like the VMC tungsten nymph tipped with a mealworm are usually my go-to\npresentation at Horsethief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Warm Lake splits the difference between Horsethief and\nCascade. It\u2019s a bit of a drive to get back there, but the road is kept in\npretty good shape all winter. Catch rates are usually steady for rainbow trout,\nsmall Kokanee and brook trout, and the size tends to be better than Horsethief\n(it\u2019s less crowded, too). Warm Lake also has big Mackinaw and bull trout that\ncould show up and provide some excitement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Payette Lake in McCall is a late freezer and does not have\nsafe ice. It usually freezes over sometime in February, and when it does, it\nprovides a unique Mackinaw fishery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Magic Valley Ice Fisheries <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Magic Reservoir has had safe ice for several weeks. Fishing results\nhave been mixed\u2014some anglers are catching nice trout, but the action has been\nhit-and-miss and there aren\u2019t many perch being caught yet. Thanks to another\nlow water year, only the southern portion of the reservoir is available for fishing.\nSmall spoons, tube jigs and perch-colored minnow patterns are good bets for\nMagic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I have confirmed reports of safe ice at Salmon Falls Creek\nReservoir, Oakley Reservoir, Lake Walcott, Mountain View Reservoir on the Duck\nValley Reservation, and the Riddle Lakes in the Owyhee desert. I personally\nfished one of the Riddle Lakes and had a successful day\u2014it was technical fishing,\nbut the fish we caught had nice size. Fishing at Mountain View requires a daily\n(or annual) permit. Roads to some of these fisheries, Oakley in particular, can\nbe tricky in the wintertime. Mormon Reservoir, Fish Creek Reservoir and Little\nWood Reservoir are not viable fisheries this year because of low water conditions.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Open Water Fishing <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Options are limited for launching a boat, as there is at\nleast fringe ice covering the edges of many lakes. If you want to fish open\nwater, the Boise River is probably your best bet. I\u2019ve been catching a few\nbrowns and rainbows on bait and minnow imitations like a trout pattern Rapala.\nTight lines! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ice fishing season has arrived in earnest across much of southern Idaho! It took a while thanks to lots of snow and some warmer-than-usual weather, but many popular ice fisheries are now open for business. Here are the latest ice reports and tips for helping you plan your winter adventures: Cascade Ice Fisheries Ice…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1554,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions\/1554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}