A blog about fishing in Utah.

The Green Drake Hatch On The Provo River

incaseyouhaventheard — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:14:27 +0000

Check out this short film by Charlie Bagley.

Green Drake Hatch on Utah’s provo River from Charlie Bagley on Vimeo.

Mirror Lake 8/21/09

incaseyouhaventheard — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:14:51 +0000

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!

Marjorie Lake

incaseyouhaventheard — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:55:56 +0000

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.

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!

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.

Strawberry 5/15/09

incaseyouhaventheard — Sun, 17 May 2009 17:02:00 +0000

On Friday I ventured to strawberry with my dad and uncle. We were hoping to find some fast fishing right after ice off but I think we were about a week too late. We saw several people float tubing in what I thought was water so could it could turn to ice any second. Our plan was to cast flies from shore behind a bubble. I caught a single cut throat trout about and hour in and it turned about to be the only fish we saw all day.

Doing my best to not get skunked.

The weather was windy in the morning for a few minutes, but then it stopped blowing and turned into a warm sunny day. Fishing season has officially started for me. You can expect updates after every trip, hopefully at least 2 updates a month.

Support the locals.

incaseyouhaventheard — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:50:01 +0000

Utah local Jay Morr wrote a great piece for the latest This Is Fly. It starts on page . Be sure to check it out!

Strawberry 10/31/08

incaseyouhaventheard — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 06:23:33 +0000

My dad and I made another trip up to Strawberry today hoping to catch a few more big cut throats, unfortuantely that didn’t happen, I cycled through all my usual flies without even a strike, Finally after tying my zonker on for the 3rd time I managed to hook into one. It was the only fish of the day.

Gill Netting at Strawberry

incaseyouhaventheard — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:57:46 +0000

I just got a an email with a bunch of pictures from my uncle Roger. He went up and volunteered with the DNR guys. He got to see a lot of nice cut throat trout, the kind that I would love to catch. Here are a few pictures.

Part of the gill netting process

2 26″ Cut Throat Trout

Rogers friend John working hard

More big fish