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!
Filed under: Uintas
I can’t believe I have never fished, or hunted Utah, I have fished every state surrounding Utah. From your pics, I definitely need to put it in my summer travel plans. I have found a great web site for locating great hunting and fishing, in areas I am unfamiliar with. A friend of mine suggested http://www.huntfishguide.com I t would be fantastic to get into some large brook trout, as well as rainbows and browns. Is there any good cutthroat trout near Mirror Lake?
The best lake in Utah to catch big Cuthroat would have to be Strawberry Reservoir. The smalles cuts I typically see come out of there are easily 14 inches, and some of them are 5lbs or more. There are also Rainbows and Kokanee Salmon, Although I rarely see them. As far as cuts near the Uintas, no where really comes to mind. Most of those little lakes off the Mirror Lake Highway are “put in, take out” lakes that are heavily stocked with Rainbows, while the brookies spawn naturally. I believe cuts are present in some of the lakes you can hike into however.