A blog about fishing in Utah. » Rainbow Trout

Trial Lake 6/20/09

incaseyouhaventheard — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:34:52 +0000

I went up to the Uintas for the first time this year yesterday upon reading the news that the Mirror Lake Highway was now open. Trial Lake was the destination, it is one of the easiest lakes to get to while the snow is still melting. I did have to carry my tube over a patch of snow that hasn’t yet melted, but it was well worth it, The Unitas rarely disappoint.

I forgot my camera, so my blackberry had to be used as a substitute. The final count of the day was 38, fish ranged from 6 inchers fresh from the hatchery truck to a few that were 14 inches long. The fishing was fast, everyone on the lake seemed to be catching fish, including people from shore. Just about anything will work up there, I used a several different leech patterns of all different colors.

A day at Strawberry with DNR

incaseyouhaventheard — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:23:11 +0000

You might remember an entry from last year where I posted some pictures my uncle took after he volunteered to help the Utah DNR guys with their fall gill netting survery. This year I got a chance to go and help out with the spring survey. I want to say thanks to all the guys that work hard to make Strawberry the great place we all love to fish. They were more than willing to answer all of our questions and let us be involved in every step of the process. I’m going to post these pictures in chronological order to give you an idea of how the day was spent.

As soon as the boats pulled in they unloaded these buckets containing the nets, which contained the fish.

Next we strung out the nets, and started untangling the fish.

You can see how some of the fish can really get tangled in the net.

Everybody took a chance to pose with this monster cut throat. 26 inches, 7+ pounds. They caught him in the net that was 55 feet deep.

Next we started collecting information about the fish, including weight and length, where they were caught (location and depth)

The fish are then dissected. Their stomachs are opened to see what they were eating. One of the bigger cutthroats had eaten a small rainbow, We also saw lots of crayfish and beetles, but the overwhelming food of choice for the cutthroats this time of year is midge pupa. This is why they are so much harder to catch in spring. The fishes organs are also checked. The DNR guys have a code for everything so I was not able to understand everything they looked for, but the whole process was very impressive.

Not wanting to waste such quality fish, we filleted them…

And then ate lunch!

Inspiration

incaseyouhaventheard — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:12:41 +0000

This morning I was bored in one of my classes, I opened up my rss feeds and came across this.

I need to go steelhead fishing asap.

The picture is from ThisIsFly’s daily blog. If you aren’t familiar with ThisIsFly you should definitely check it out. It’s my favorite magazine, and the fact that it is available free and online makes it even better. You can find it at www.thisisfly.com Enjoy!

Mirror Lake 9/29/08 and 10/2/08

incaseyouhaventheard — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:44:36 +0000

The Uintas have been the place to be for me this fall. A few posts earlier I talked about Mirror Lake and Moosehorn. I have been back to Mirror Lake twice since. While neither day was quite as good, I still managed to catch around 80 fish spread between the two days, often on consecutive casts. I caught fish on every fly I put in the water. I used various crystal killers and leaches. I had success on green, black, orange, brown, white, red, and purple patterns, all beadheads. I was fishing my flies very close to the surface. I did see a few anglers floating bugs on top but they weren’t catching as many fish as I was.

One of the bigger fish I caught from Mirror Lake, around 15 inches.

It definitely pays to be out in the middle of the lake, people from shore were catching fish, however it was much slower for them. I was catching fish everywhere, but found it to be the most productive out in deeper water with a faster then average retrieve. It was not unusual to get a strike on almost every cast.

My dad showing off one of his nice rainbows.

It rained all day yesterday in Salt Lake, which means snow in the moutains. The Mirror Lake Highway may be closed by now, however if you can still get up there I’m sure it will be worth the trip. Be sure to dress extra warm if you are going to be sitting in that water all day.

A nice colorful Brookie from Mirror Lake.

Mirror Lake and Moosehorn 8/15

incaseyouhaventheard — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:00:15 +0000

I hadn’t been fishing in a couple weeks and was definitely in need of some quality time on the water. My favorite place to spend the hot summer months is in the Uintas fishing at all the lakes along the Mirror Lake Highway. I always catch fish when I go, even a slow day in the Uintas is at least 10 fish. Other days I can catch fish all day long, On August 15th for example, I caught a total of 55. It was the most successful day I have ever had up there. My dad also did extremely well catching 30 for himself.

Here is the first fish of the day, I caught it after only being on the water about 5 minutes.

I know generally people who fish claim its one of the most relaxing things they do. I tend to agree most of the time, however on days like today I was really enjoying catching fish cast after cast after cast (7 casts in a row) while a few people fishing from shore with powerbait watched in disgust. One guy even started asking me if he could have a few of the fish I was catching. I believe very strongly in catch and release fly fishing so I had to decline.

A lot of fly fishermen from Utah spend a lot of time chasing Cutthroat Trout. There are several species of Cuts native to Utah. My favorite kind of trout to catch however, is definitely the Brook Trout. I think they are they best looking fish out there, They aren’t nearly as big as most of the other fish I catch but that doesn’t make them any less fun. I caught several nice little Brookies from Mirror Lake. Here a few pictures.

Here are some of the Rainbows.

Even though I managed to catch a ridiculous amount of fish, The largest fish of the day went to my dad. I think this Rainbow was most likely one of the spawners that the hatchery was finished with. He caught it in Moosehorn. It was around 17 Inches long and had a lot of girth. We didn’t weigh it be it was probably 3 to 4 pounds.

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!

Uintas 7/04/2008

incaseyouhaventheard — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:10:33 +0000

Summers in Utah are often in the triple digits. The best way to escape the heat is to head up to the Uintas which have an elevation of around 10,000 ft. There are many lakes easily accessible from the Mirror Lake Highway. I dragged myself out of bed at 4:45 today and was fishing by 7:30. Last summer I had some of my most successful (in terms of quantity) days up there. Today was a bit slower then what I expected, but the fact that the temps were in the 70s made it worth it. The water up there right now is also very cold. If anyone plans on going I would definitely recommend some extra insulation.

Moose Horn is one of my favorite lakes to fish. It tends to have around 11 inch rainbows. They stock it with lots of albinos which you can see and are pretty easy to catch. Albino trout don’t have very good eyesight so I have found a flashy crystal killer or leech patten will work best.

I caught this guy on my second cast of the day on a black mini leech.

Another albino just about to be released.

Here is my dad landing a trout.

I caught a few little Brook Trout. They have always been my favorite. This little guy actually hit my fly so hard he pulled my fly line out of my hands as i was retrieving it.

If you show up right after they stock the lake (before any holiday weekend) you will find lots of these little planters.

Echo Reservoir 7/1/2008

incaseyouhaventheard — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:50:46 +0000

I went to echo with some guys from work today for some classic bait fishing from the shore. We started fishing around 6:15am. I had managed to catch a couple of smallmouth bass, but things were pretty slow. I used just about everything I had with me, including worms, powerbait, streamers, nymphs, poppers, and even a mouse pattern. Around 9:30 another one of my coworkers shows up. I had made a joke earlier about how he was going to catch a bunch of fish and we wouldn’t, well thats exactly what happened. His first 7 casts managed to land him 7 nice rainbows. I think he caught around 12 total all around 14 to 16 inches. The amazing part was the 3 of us all switched to the exact same powerbait setup he was using and for the most part were unsuccessful. It was a good reminder that no matter what you do or how hard you try when you’re fishing, the best thing can be a little bit of luck…

My first smallmouth the day, caught on a black mini leech.

Second smallmouth, this guy took a worm.

This is the second fish of the 12 or so he caught in just a couple hours.