I went to east canyon with my dad today. The plan was to get there early and leave around 10:30. It was a rough morning since I only managed to get 3 hours of sleep. I ended up forgetting my camera, and more importantly, I forgot to get my box full of bass flies… We were on the water around 6:30am. It was unusually cold, the car said it was only 48 when we first arrived, I also failed to bring any thing to stay warm with. Luckily I am more motivated to go fishing than most things, so the cold was tolerable. As soon as the sun got over the mountain, the temps warmed up and I was happy.
The fishing was slow for me. I had cycled through all of my usual flies in about an hour without any success. My dad had managed to land 2 small bass. I decided to tie on a vibrant purple streamer, I’m not sure what exactly it was. I managed to get a fish on it but ended up snapping my fly off pretty quickly… 3.4lb tippet was a bad idea. I tied on some 5lb test and decided to try a prince nymph with rubber legs. As soon as I put that on I caught my first bass of the day. It was the biggest one I had seen come out of East Canyon.
Because this was the biggest bass I had seen so far I decided to take a picture of it with my blackberry. Things went dead again for the next hour. I had given up on bass fishing for the day, so I decided to go into deeper waters and see if any trout were hungry. Since they weren’t interested in my bugs I decided it was time to go. Before I started heading back to my launch spot I decided one more fly change was in order. A big brown leech of some sort was the only fly in my box that was dry. I started paddling in and managed to get a decent strike, Fish on!
I had tied into an 11 or so inch rainbow. After letting him swim away I had just enough shoreline left for 1 more cast. I threw my leech right in front of some trees. There was small splash and my line went tight. I thought I had snagged, my line wouldn’t budge. A few seconds later to my surprise what I thought was a snag started swimming and peeling line of my reel. Fish On! Whatever was on the end of my line was big and didnt want to come in. My 5wt rod was a little light for this battle. I played the fish carefully and about 15 minutes later I could see a very large smallmouth bass splashing around. After a few more minutes my dad had him in the net.
This guy was huge! I would say he was around 15 inches and weighed as much as a gallon of milk. This was the best way my time on the lake could have ended.
After a quick photo he was back in the water swimming again. I hope he comes back around next time I am up there!
Filed under: East Canyon | Tagged: East Canyon, Leech, Prince Nymph, Rainbow Trout, Smallmouth Bass
Brilliant!
How’s the fishing out that way in late August. I’ll be taking a business trip and would love to get some fishing in while out there
The bass fishing is more consistent all year long, The trout are in deeper cooler water, and there are lots of boaters in the deeper middle section. I would recommend fishing early (6am-11pm) or later (6pm-dark) It’s one of the lower elevation lakes in Utah so it gets pretty hot and the fishing slows down mid day.