President's Weekend Ice Fishing on Strawberry: Our Annual Tradition
Park City only gets the single President's Day off — no full ski week like Summit County. So instead of fighting the resort crowds we drive over the pass to Strawberry Reservoir with my parents from Heber and ice fish for three days. Here's the gear, the spot, and what it actually costs.
One of the quirks of being a Park City School District family is that we don't get the full President's Week off. We get the Monday. That's it. Friends in other Utah districts and definitely friends visiting from out of state are baffled by this every year — they assume PC is the ski-week capital of the world and instead we send our kids back to McPolin on Tuesday morning. The upside is that the resorts are absolutely slammed that weekend with everybody else's vacation, and locally we've all figured out that it's a great weekend to leave town.
We leave town to go ice fishing. Specifically to Strawberry Reservoir, which is a 45-minute drive from our house over Daniels Summit, and which is where I learned to fish as a kid because my parents in Heber have been doing this for 40 years. They still come. Tyler runs the auger, my dad runs the snacks, my mom runs the kids, and I run point on whether anybody has remembered to put their bibs back on. It is the un-fanciest weekend on our calendar and the one the kids ask about first every January.
The cost breakdown is what sealed this as a tradition. A Saturday lift ticket at PCMR President's Weekend is north of $300 a head right now. For five of us that's a $1,500 ski day. Our entire ice fishing weekend, three days, five people, two adults bonus from Heber: about $90 in propane, bait, and a chub for the tip-up. We own all the gear — Tyler's had the same Eskimo shelter for ten years and the auger was a wedding gift from my dad — and we sleep in the Sprinter at the Strawberry Bay or Soldier Creek pull-offs. License is $40 a year for me, kids fish on my license under 12.
The Spot (Loosely)
I'm not going to publish a GPS pin because that's a great way to get yelled at by half my dad's fishing buddies, but I will tell you this: do not fish where the parking lot is plowed and the trucks are stacked five deep. Drive the loop road to one of the smaller pull-offs on the east side of the reservoir. There's one in particular my dad's been going to since the '80s — the locals' tell is that there's a single bent guardrail post and a beat-up dirt turnout with room for maybe six trucks. Walk out 150 yards. The fish are there. Strawberry is loaded with cutthroat and rainbow and you basically can't fail if you're willing to drill a few holes and move.
What the Kids Actually Use
I gave up buying kid-specific anything years ago. The cheap kid rods break, the kids want what we use, here's what works:
- Liam (9) — short jigging rod with a small spoon tipped with a piece of nightcrawler. He drills his own hole now with the hand auger. Caught his biggest cutthroat last year, a 19-incher we let go.
- Ava (7) — same rig as Liam, but she will not bait her own hook. She is also our most patient fisher — she'll sit on a bucket for two hours and out-fish everyone.
- Beck (5) — a tip-up flag he is in charge of watching. He gets to reel anything that hits. Last year he caught his first fish on it and screamed loud enough that my dad spilled his coffee. We have it on video.
The Setup
Tyler runs the gas auger and drills six to eight holes in a rough circle so the kids can move between them. We put the Eskimo pop-up over the two adult holes if the wind is up — otherwise we just chair-and-bucket it because the kids overheat in the shelter and start fighting. Heater inside, snacks in a bin, hot chocolate in a Stanley, sandwich fixings in a cooler so they don't freeze. Yes, you can freeze a sandwich. Ya, that's a lesson we learned the hard way.
Sleeping in the Sprinter
We park overnight at the Strawberry Bay area where it's allowed. The Sprinter sleeps all five of us, barely, with Beck wedged crossways at the foot. We run a Buddy heater for an hour before bed and then crack a window — Tyler is paranoid about CO and rightly so, do not sleep with a propane heater running. By morning the inside of the windows are iced over and the kids think it's hilarious. Coffee on the camp stove, oatmeal, we're on the ice by 8.
Why This Beats a Ski Day
The honest answer is that this is the kind of day my kids are going to remember when they're 30. A lift ticket day at PCMR is fine — Tyler works in mountain ops, our kids ski more days than most adults, they get plenty of it. But the slow weird quiet of the ice, with my dad telling the same fishing stories he's told my whole life, with Beck losing his mittens for the third time, with Liam learning to read a flasher — that's the stuff. That's the President's Weekend the kids ask for. Ya, the resort weekend is louder and shinier. We'll be back at PCMR Tuesday after school. The ice is the move.
For PC Families Who Don't Own the Gear
I get this question a lot. The answer is: borrow first, buy used. Sportsman's Warehouse rents augers and shelters reasonably. KSL Classifieds has used jigging rods all winter for $15. You don't need fancy. The kids do not care if your shelter is the latest model — Tyler's is older than Ava. Bait at the Strawberry Bay Marina if it's open, or grab nightcrawlers in Heber on the way out.
I will keep saying this until somebody listens — the President's Day weekend in Park City is a great weekend to leave the resort to the visitors and go do the local thing. Ice fishing is one option. Snowshoeing in the Uintas is another. A drive to Antelope Island if you don't mind cold wind. We pick Strawberry because my parents are 30 minutes away and because I want my kids to know my dad on the ice the way I do. Next post is the holiday-break itinerary for staying in PC without spending a fortune — it's the question I get most after Halloween.