Fishing Forum

[cool][#0000ff]Posted this in two reports on the Utah board. Thought some of our tubing fambly might appreciate the info and the pics.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]HUNTINGTON LAKE:[/#0000ff]
[font "Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"][black][size 1][#0000ff]Wednesday was TubeBabe's birthday (don't ask...don't tell). She is an old (whoops) Sanpete County girl and has always has a fondness for Fairview Canyon area. So, we hit the road early for Huntington Lake.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Launched the tubes about 7 AM. Air temp of 55 degrees sure felt good after those 100 plus days in the valley. Water temp was 68. Water level was full to the brim. Green, green, green everywhere, with lots of wild flowers. Only downer was all the brown pines. I guess the bark beetles got to them during the drought. Spoiled a pretty picture.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Lots of fish rising. No big ones though. Just tiddlers to ten inchers. High surface temps probably got the bigger fish deeper. Didn't see many larger fish on sonar though. But, I went across the lake at about the mid point and then up toward the inlet. I'm guessing the larger fish were nearer the dam.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]My sonar showed 50 feet in the deepest part of the channel, across from where we launched. Saw fish at 10-12 feet in several areas, but mostly small to midsized. I did see a few larger fish on the bottom in 25 to 30 feet, but they had lockjaw to vertical presentations...lures, worms, minnows...zip.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Didn't bring flies. Probably could have caught a lot of small fish if we had. We got hits on spinners, small plastics and small jigs. TubeBabe was unable to bring anything to the tube. Not a very nice way for Huntington to treat her on her birthday.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I only scratched out about 4 small tigers. Two on pieces of worm, one on a spinner and one on a tiny jig. None of them was over 10 inches. They still have their silvery summer colors. I will be back in the fall for some "false spawn" color pics (they are sterile hybrids).[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]We had the whole lake to ourselves until just before we left for E-Lake around 11. Well, not quite to ourselves. There were deer grazing next to shore in several places and several noisy ravens. When we drove away, there were three other tubers/tooners on the lake. Hope they did better than we did.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]ELECTRIC LAKE:[/#0000ff]
[font "Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"][black][size 1][#0000ff]This is part two of the TubeBabe birthday trip. First part was Huntington (see other report). [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]We got to E-Lake just after noon. Did a quick lunch and watched a freshening breeze ripple the water. Wondered if it would get worse. It did several times over the next three hours, but died down each time. Water temp was 67 degrees, one degree cooler than it had been at Huntington.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]TubeBabe launched her tube, to try for some of the normally prolific and active cutts and bows. I set out a couple of minnow traps and broke out my cast net. Wanted to load up on the redside shiners. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Man, I need a net with smaller mesh. Mine is 3/8 inch mesh and I lost more minnows than I put in the bucket. I made great casts, could see grundles of shiners twisting in the net and when I got it in there would be only a few left. The only ones I harvested were gill netted in the mesh. The rest had squeezed through and got free. Yep. I will be getting a new 1/4" mesh net for a return bout soon. While I did get quite a few with the cast net, most of my smaller shiners came from the two minnow traps. I ended up with about 15 dozen. Not bad for an hour's efforts.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]After spotting TubeBabe an hour of fishing time, I too launched my tube. She had only one bite before I got out there to "help". We both threw a wide variety of lures and dragged worms too. Not much for midday fishing. The few shore anglers were all sitting around doing nothing and the one small boat that was trolling only had one fish for the day. Quiet times on E-Lake.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Finally, I tied on one of my "go to" minnow imitators...a small plastic tube jig...clear with multicolored specs in it. I think they call it "confetti". Rigged it up with one of my new "yellow-eye" tube jig heads and started working the shoreline on the other side of the channel. That was the ticket. Got several Yellowstone cutts in lingering spawn colors. Pretty, pretty. Cookie cutter 14" fish, with a smaller one or two. All lovely. All still swimming.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]TubeBabe joined me along that steep bank, using the confetti jig too. Alas, in the last half hour before the approaching thunderstorm came in, she had a couple of bites but did not score any fishies. Really a bummer birthday. All she got was a skunk.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Air temp was 75 as we headed back down the canyon. Hated to see the thermometer reading in our vehicle keep going up, up, up as we dropped in elevation. Made the 100 mark as we drove into Salt Lake. Then, we ran into a bodacious dust storm, just as we turned off I-15. Thought we were back in Arizona as the big dust cloud and wind got all of the Utah drivers zig zagging all over the road. Back to reality.[/#0000ff]
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Great reports Tube and Happy Birthday to the "Babe" Looks to me like the net got you a few shiners. Did you catch the "cutts" on minnows or spinners?
That one shot of the trout really shows the "cut" throat. That is the first time I have ever seen that. Being an Easterner I don't ever see cutthroat trout. Thanks for sharing.
God Bless,
Don
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[cool][#0000ff]Normally, minnows are the best bait, especially when the cutts are foraging on those minnows. However, recently they have been hitting lures and worms better.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I got mine yesterday on that small lure that is pictured in the mouth of a couple of the fish. It is a little plastic tube jig.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Yep. The cutthroat is definitely a fish of the western states. It is not as easy to plant and maintain as the more common rainbow. Needs cleaner and colder water. Actually, the Yellowstone cutthroat, like we caught in Electric Lake, is a transplant from Montanta. Our two native cutthroats in Utah are the Bonneville and the Bear Lake strains. [/#0000ff]
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Happy Birthday TubeBabe, hope TubeDude made you a nice dinner and a cake too![]
About the pine trees what was done to them? Do those forestery guys just leave it as it is? Don't they burn part of it to control those pine beetles?
Pretty area you guys got to fish!
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[cool][#0000ff]I fixed dinner, but no cake. We are more careful about what we eat these days. The waist is a terrible thing to mind.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]We are in a "wet cycle" in the west this year. This is the second year we have had plenty of rain and snowfall, to keep things green and to keep our water levels up. Before that we had several years of drought. That not only had some of our lakes almost dry, but it was hard on trees and other plant life too.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]There are quite a few places in our western states where the prolonged dryness weakened older pine trees. When they do not produce enough sap, with the turpentine and other natural repellents, it allows bark beetles and other pests a chance to invade them. They burrow under the bark and destroy the ability of the tree to carry sap and nutrients. The trees get brown and die.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]It is not possible to detect the bark beetles until after the damage is done. It is also prohibitive (cost) to spray the vast areas of forest that MIGHT be affected. Once the trees die, they are sometimes harvested by lumber companies who contract with state agencies. Mostly they are allowed to remain standing, where they look bad and create fire danger. Just a spark and they literally explode into flame.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]When we lived in Arizona, there were some areas of the Mogollon Rim country where there were huge areas of forest that were totally brown. Two years in a row there were terrible fires that completely cleared thousands of acres of formerly beautiful forest. The good news is that Mother Nature usually comes back strong and the newly burned areas are quick to turn green again when the rains return. It takes many years to regrow the pines, but the earth is more patient than people.[/#0000ff]
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A belated "Happy Birthday" to Tubebabe! Though you got skunked, I hope that the time spent on the water was enjoyable to you on your special day. We're glad you're with us.

And a great report with pics, as we have learned to expect. These pictorials are great. Just try living through a fishing drought for a few months and you'll see for yourself. No, on second thought, nix that idea. Just enjoy the photo essays. Thanks for sharing.

My fave pic was that Cuttie closeup. We see lots of Cutts here in Oregon as we live in their native range. There is a late summer/early fall run of them that comes up the South Santiam River across from my house that I like to intercept in September. Not many fish but virtually no fishermen to intercept them. All C&R. Beautifully colored fish to about 14 inches within a hundred yards of my front porch, highly susceptible to flies and my 3 weight rod purchased especially with this short annual period in mind. I have a couple of dozen flies tied up that I know work on these fish.

z~
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Thank you for the BD wishes! I hate the idea that I am getting older, but the attention is good for the soul! The scenery was absolutely beautiful and is an area that I spent a lot of time as a young girl, so it was especially pleasing for me to be there. Next time I'm in the area I hope to do better.
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