10-13-2019, 03:37 PM
I did make it back to Utah. Fished My home stream for 1 day before cold front pushed me south a day earlier than planned. Unfortunately that cold weather again pushed me south after 1 day of fishing there. As usual I fished in complete solitude. The fishing started slower than normal with it taking about 90 minutes to pick up a dozen fish. The next 90 minutes produced twice that number of fish. However not all was well on the stream. All but 5-6 were under a foot and the biggest was just 14 inches. Most trips in the past the average fish would have been around 14 inches. All were browns except a sole cutthroat that I took a picture of. The water was a bit lower and clearer than normal. Not sure if that pushed the bigger fish down into the canyon. Just didn’t have the time to hike down. It was clear from horseshoe and hoof markings that the cattle had just been rounded up. The stream damage from the cattle was worse than usual. This has been strongly correlated with reducing the biodiversity of the riparian habitat including the flies for the trout to eat. This is 1 of only 4 streams I fished in Utah that has salmon flies. Hopefully this stream isn’t losing its prolific salmon fly hatch or the various stonefly hatches as a reason for the smaller fish. I did catch a 3 inch brown - usually 11 months after the spawn you don’t see any browns under 8 inches anywhere on this stream so it makes me wonder. I won’t go into the politics of subsidizing destruction of wildlife habitat but as the Logan River shows it’s hard to re-establish salmon flies once they’re gone.
Headed south to avoid the deep freeze. The next day I skipped fishing the East Fork of the Sevier to fish a lake up above 8000 feet. I mainly did this as my dog is 14 and about to retire from stream fishing. 2 days in a row we’re going to be too much for her.
Absolutely beautiful day and again not a single person around. Managed about 10 10-15 inch tiger trout. Certainly no fight at all in this size of Tiger in still water. Switching to an ultralight setup didn’t matter much. Much bigger ones were cruising out of reach of my casts from the bank. Cold weather moving in pushed me into Arizona and then back to NM.
Just waiting on the browns to start moving prespawn in another couple weeks here. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to target Gila trout next month in southern NM as well.
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Headed south to avoid the deep freeze. The next day I skipped fishing the East Fork of the Sevier to fish a lake up above 8000 feet. I mainly did this as my dog is 14 and about to retire from stream fishing. 2 days in a row we’re going to be too much for her.
Absolutely beautiful day and again not a single person around. Managed about 10 10-15 inch tiger trout. Certainly no fight at all in this size of Tiger in still water. Switching to an ultralight setup didn’t matter much. Much bigger ones were cruising out of reach of my casts from the bank. Cold weather moving in pushed me into Arizona and then back to NM.
Just waiting on the browns to start moving prespawn in another couple weeks here. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to target Gila trout next month in southern NM as well.
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