Had a day off, and decided to head down and give Diamond Fork a try with my dad. Unfortunately others also had similar ideas, and all of our normal starting spots were occupied, so we decided to head over to Thistle to give it a go.
Fished for about 1.5 hours using a panther martin #1 blade (silver), and only managed 2 smallish browns (12" - 13"), but they were fat.
Recent activity by beavers in the area, and recent flooding from a side canyon has caused the main channel to fill with silt and sand, and has caused the fish to relocate out of their normal resting spots.
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Thanks for the report UP, I haven't read one from Thistle in many years. How big are the browns that you normally catch there?
WH2
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I have seen some large (18-22") browns in Thistle in years past. I know there are probably still some of those lurking somewhere in that stream.
As of late the larger fish we catch out of there range in the 14 - 16" range, with an occasional 18"
With the recent flooding of side canyons in the last 2-3 years though, the amount of silt and sediment carried in to the stream bed has seemed to diminish the number of larger fish.
Diamond Fork on the other hand seems to have had a boom in larger browns in the lower canyon areas. I know they "poisoned" the stream up closer to the hot springs trail head, I think this may have weeded out enough of the competing fish lower to allow for some of the surviving browns to really flourish. I have also seen some rather large cutts up around the trailhead, and my dad landed a huge cutt along the old campgroud north of the trailhead a number of years back.
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Come on Utah Punk, there all stunted runts over that way[crazy]. No need to leave all those lunkers on the Provo[laugh]
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But I am happy catching "stunted runts"
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Wayyy too much fishing pressure on the Provo, imo.
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I was joking. You'd have to pay me to fish the middle or lower provo[pirate] and even then I'd complain about the crowds and stunted fish.
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