A blog about fishing in Utah.

My fishing days this summer have been cut back quite a bit as a result of a move I’m in the middle of.  After missing 3 weeks in a row, I knew I needed to have a phenomenal day on the water, so Mirror Lake was the destination. We arrived around 9am. I could see fish jumping all over the lake and started feeling optimistic. My Dad and I each caught a couple fish within a few minutes of launching our tubes, but then things started to slow down. After cycling through a few flies I settled on a green mini leech and things picked up almost immediately.

I caught fish all over the lake that day, but I seemed to do slightly better out in deeper water. Halfway through the day my Dad decided to switch to a floating line (I typically use a #3 sinking line) because there were so many fish rising. There were a lot of gnats on the water and the fish were definitely keying in on them.

Things for my Dad had slowed down quite a bit since he put his floating line on, We decided to switch rods for awhile because I wanted to use a few dry flies, Unfortunately I left my dry flies in the car, I just had a few that were mixed in with my nymphs from previous fishing trips. It didn’t seem to matter too much. My experience from fishing the Uintas so often is that the trout aren’t really that picky.

I started casting the fly into some shallow water, the brook trout didn’t pass up a chance to nail it. This was my first time this season tying a dry fly on. I forgot how often fish will rise for a fly and just completely miss it. There were at least 20+ times a fish would come out of the water for my fly and completely miss, however one of the little brook trout I caught came about 2 feet out of the water with my fly planted firmly in his lip.

On our way in my Dad caught the largest brook trout either of us has seen in years. This fish was definitely getting ready to spawn and was extremely colorful. Overall it was an extremely successful day, Mirror Lake rarely disappoints, if you get the chance, be sure to get up there as soon as possible!

A few years ago my Dad told me about a lake in the Uintas that had grayling. One of my goals this year was to catch some new species of fish and fish some new lakes. Marjorie Lake fit the bill perfectly. To get to Marjorie Lake you park at the Crystal Lake trail head. It’s about a 3 mile hike, Mostly flat, a few small hills but there isn’t much vertical change over the whole trail. There are lots of mosquitos out, I highly recommend some insect repellent.  It took us just over an hour and a half to complete the hike in. It’s a beautiful little mountain lake.

Marjorie Lake from the trail.

After only a few casts I hooked into my first fish, luck would have it that a grayling was hungry for my fly. I managed to catch 6 total, 2 on a fly rod, 4 using spinning gear with a fly behind a bubble. One of the unique features about grayling is their very large sail fin. I was trying to get a good picture of this, but fish are rarely cooperative when they want to swim away.

The final grayling of the day.

My dad caught a chubby little brookie, My camera is terrible, but this fish was extremely colorful.