A blog about fishing in Utah. » East Canyon

East Canyon

incaseyouhaventheard — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:45:19 +0000

I have fallen way behind with my updates. I wish I could say this happened because I was too busy fishing, but that would be a lie.

My first fish of the year came out of one of my favorite places to start the season, East Canyon. The way it happened is kind of unusual. I was hanging out with a few friends, and must have been talking an awful lot about how much I love to fly fish (Probably because I was catching up on missed episodes of the Orvis Fly Fishing Guide podcast on the drive over.) After a couple hours of conversation I found myself at Walmart at 1:30 am buying fishing licenses with my friends. We had plans to set out at 7am.

If you gauge a successful fishing trip by the number of fish caught in the day, then today would have been a disappointment. Fortunately spending time with friends who were excited to go fishing made the day a huge success! I landed a good sized bluegill on my first cast of the day. After that however we didn’t catch anything else.

Fishing Crew

I went back to East Canyon the next day armed with a float tube and fly rod. This time I did much better. 5 fish total, 3 Rainbows, 2 Smallies.

Here is the biggest fish of the day. He was hungry for a brown and yellow girdle bug.

This was the biggest Rainbow of the day. He was about 15 inches long.

The bass fishing at East Canyon should be really good right now. The water is really starting to warm up. I just had a pair of shorts on under my waders and was comfortable all day. I hope to make it up there 1 more time this month before I start heading up to The Uintas.

Echo Reservoir 7/17/2008, East Canyon 7/17/2008

incaseyouhaventheard — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:57:09 +0000

I went to Echo with my friend Cody on July 17, I know the update is about a month late but I still had the photos on my camera so I thought a blog post was in order.

I never really considered Echo a great place to fish, I’ve spent a bunch of days sitting on the shoreline with a few coworkers (as seen in my previous posts.) Ive caught plenty of fish there, but I’ve never managed to catch as many as I think Ie should. I generally try to make it to the water right as the sun is coming up. This morning when I got to echo there were bass jumping several times a minute. Usually I consider this to be a great sign the fishing will be great, but Echo simply likes to tease.

I ended up catching 3 bass all day, which worked out to be about a fish every 90 minutes. Cody did better then I did by a few fish. Below are some of the pictures I took.

This is the first fish of the day, caught by Cody.

Another nice bass.

Here is one that I caught using a black mini leech.

After spending about 5 hours at echo, and a lunch stop in Park City, we decided to stop by East Canyon on our way down Parleys to try to catch a few more fish. I ended up catching 5 bass, Cody came up empty handed. The water level at East Canyon had dropped quite a bit since my previous trip. A lot of the trees that were submerged creating ideal bass hideouts were now out of the water, It didnt seem to slow down the fishing. I didnt take any pictures from East Canyon. Overall it was a great day. Fishing with a buddy is definitely better then fishing solo!

East Canyon 7/10/2008

incaseyouhaventheard — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:27:45 +0000

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!

East Canyon 7/03/2008

incaseyouhaventheard — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:49:23 +0000

I went up to East Canyon this afternoon. I really wanted to try out some poppers and see if I could tease some bass to the surface. Unfortunately When i got there the temp was somewhere in the 90s and the fishing was slow. As things cooled down the fishing got better. I got around 10 fish in 3 hours all on subsurface flies.

My first fish of the day was another Black Crappie. That brings my lifetime total to 2.

My biggest Smallmouth Bass of the day. Caught on a black mini leech.

There were dragonflies emerging everywhere. If you don’t have a couple of these and a few dragonfly nymphs you should seriously purchase some.

East Canyon… again!

incaseyouhaventheard — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:43:22 +0000

I went back up to East Canyon today. Last time I was there (see previous blog entry) I saw so many great spots for bass, but didn’t really have the right bugs with me to try and catch any. It ended up being a slow day for trout. After picking up a few Bass flies I had high hopes for today. It turned out my hunch was a good one, I had a great time and caught some more nice fish, I don’t make an effort to keep track of everyone I caught, but it was somewhere around 8 total.

These partially submerged trees looked like they probably would have some Bass in them.

I was right about the trees. Here is the first fish of the day. I caught him on a black mini leech. I also took this picture underwater with my new water proof camera!

I didn’t know what kind of fish this was when I caught it. After a quick websearch I discovered it is a Black Crappie, coincidentally its also the first Black Crappie I have ever caught.

I was using a dragonfly nymph and doing really well with the bass. I was surprised to find this guy hanging on the end of my line. It was bigger then both of the Rainbows I caught last week.

This was the biggest of all the bass I caught. He was probably just over a pound.

Gone Fishin…. East Canyon 06/26/2008

incaseyouhaventheard — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:47:00 +0000

Today I was supposed to get my car fixed. For some reason the power lock in the drivers door no longer works so I have to lock it manually each time. The same thing happened to another door in my car a year ago. I called the dealer a few days ago and made an appointment at 11:00 today, then last night I decided that going fishing would probably be a lot more fun then sitting around the car dealership for an hour.
On Tuesday I went to both the Provo and Weber Rivers and didn’t do well, the rivers are really fast and high right now. Today I decided to go somewhere I had never been before, East Canyon. I read online that they stocked twice as many trout as they usually do and the fishing was pretty good (If catching 12 inch hatchery fish is good…) I got to the lake at 7:30 and fished for around 3 hours. I only caught 2 fish but overall it was a great day. I definitely made the right decision, my car can wait.

10″ Rainbow Trout caught on a Prince Nymph

13″ Rainbow Trout caught on a black Mini Leech.