The puddle

[Bscuderi]

Went fishing yesterday afternoon from about 11-2 with jwalker on whatever remains of echo. Had one rod with powerbait hoping to bring home some of those fat echo Bowes. They put an emergency limit increase to 8 on them so it seemed like a good idea to help the fishery and my belly. This rod got no love! On my other rod I went along the shoreline around various structure casting a worm under a bobber looking for panfish. Jwalker did the same and we didn't find the perch but we did find a school of yearling small mouth bass that wouldn't leave our worms alone. I busted out the fly rod and educated quite a few of the little buggers!

I decided maybe there's a decent bass in there somewhere do I rigged a Texas rigged curly tail on the spin rod and managed a decent tug. After missing a couple more bites I didnt have enough worth keeping so we packed up empty handed. 

On the way home I tried my hand at fly fishing the Weber. I haven't ever fly fished a major river like this so I knew it would have a leaning curve. I caught one tree for a loss of two flys. I want to try again at a better spot I don't think I 
Was in a very good one. 
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[CoyoteSpinner]

Sounds like some fun anyway.
Don't know how low below your bobber you were, but I tend to find perch holding pretty tight to the bottom.

Slip bobber rig can help. But maybe a drop-shot setup might get more yellow-stripey lovin!

Curious - the "emergency increase" - where do they announce that? Sign at the lake? Wonder if the DNR posts such notices on their website?

[Bscuderi]

The guidebook isn't 100 percent current per say you have to check the website for new emergency rules etc. it's found here with the electronic copy. http://wildlife.utah.gov/dwr/fishing/gui...ebook.html
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[Jazzperch1]

i was thinking the same thing on a limit increase cause i was there sunday morning and i didnt see any signs or anything but saying that i couldnt get any trout like i had been getting a month or so ago and only landed 4 okay sized perch and a few dinkster bass, i did find a cool piece of what i think is part of a catfish's bone structure i think, its just cool cause it looks like a cross. lots of stuff showing up as the water level drops. Did you guys see the old wooden boat that just got uncovered from the dropping water, i wonder how long that has been there. it looks like this
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[Bscuderi]

I did see the boat other than that I didn't see anything cool just a beer can graveyard! It's disgusting people chuck that over thinking it will never be seen again!! They need to organize a mass clean up before filling it up again!
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[castnshoot]

[quote Jazzperch1]i was thinking the same thing on a limit increase cause i was there sunday morning and i didnt see any signs or anything but saying that i couldnt get any trout like i had been getting a month or so ago and only landed 4 okay sized perch and a few dinkster bass, i did find a cool piece of what i think is part of a catfish's bone structure i think, its just cool cause it looks like a cross. lots of stuff showing up as the water level drops. Did you guys see the old wooden boat that just got uncovered from the dropping water, i wonder how long that has been there. it looks like this[/quote]

Cool bone. Put it on you tube with some kind of holistic story that led you to it.

Then link it to e-bay with another story about how you are living in your car.

You never know.[]
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[Jazzperch1]

i like that, maybe i will[:p]
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[Flyfishinglover]

Where did you get the message that the bow limit went up ??? Ya i was there sunday and nothing good. The bows are pick now. The perch are hard to find as well and to find a decent bass dang hard. I caught only 2 9 in bass that were the biggest nothing trust worthy now. Fishing was amazing when the water level was like 30% when the water reached around the big bolder and a little lower from the big huge rock cave thing out there but after it dropped each week i went there fishing went down down down. I say it will be best when the lake is about 3-5%. Right now its at 9% so i guess 2-3 more weeks.

http://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/basin/tc_wf.html

Ya the bass are not good size latly theres nothing took a senko worm even in the deep rocky ridges ly on a float tube. Just easy pickers in and out bass for now. f
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[Jazzperch1]

i think the fish are just in a major shock since one week they have a spot they like and the next its out of the water, so i think they are moving around as much as the water is dropping. if you can find some fish they should feed i just think its very sparse and the fish are probly wondering whats up with the water levels. now ice fishing there should be good aslong as they dont let any water out after it freezes cause you dont want a foot gap between the ice and the water but i dno how they plan on letting water out this winter so.......
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[Flyfishinglover]

There making the dam go boom boom good bye so im pretty sure all water will be gone the weber will still flow so you might get a small creek to fish around the the lake thats all but i doubt it that there going store and water for ice fishing,
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[Jazzperch1]

so the whole damm will be complety gone this winter? cause what i heard is that its supposed to only get down to 6 percent this fall
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[Flyfishinglover]

thats what i have been hearing while talking to tons of people who fish there and the gas stations. Well think of this have you seen the new huge pile of dirt down by the weber river by the dam they are ripping that place up good. That dam is like 80 years old its the first time going to be fixed up so ya they gota repair the whole thing. They dam should be down some where next year i believe. It all depends how nice the weather will be and how much longer its gona take the water to go down that small tube spilling into the other part of the weber river.
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[pookiebar]

From an article I read, and I can't find it again right now, the reservoir will be down to 5% or lower for about 8 weeks starting in September. They will not completely destroy the dam and start over, but will be treating the dam from inside with a special Calking that will make the dam stronger.

Then throughout the winter and spring they will let the dam fill up as much as possible for the irrigation season. And in the fall they will suck it way down again and put the next round of calking in. They anticipate being done with all the repairs in the fall of 2015. So we will see a few years of this big fluctuation. I think the fishing will really get screwed up by all of this, but it has got to be done.
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[Jazzperch1]

thats what i thought cause ripping the whole damn at once doesent make sense. good info PB
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[Flyfishinglover]

true true to me this year is the last time i fish it till 2020 when the fish will be back up and running lol. It sucks because 2 years ago i caught nice bass this year its nothing but dinks >_<.
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[Flyfishinglover]

I know what you mean. I found a old boat , pc, and a fan
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[riverdog]

Not exactly. The problem is the soils underneath have a high liquefaction properties and in the event of a earthquake the dam is at risk. The will add to the upstream berm a bit but most of the work will be to increase the downstream berm including digging through the layer with the high liquefaction to strengthen the dam from risk of catastrophic failure in a modest quake http://www.usbr.gov/uc/envdocs/ea/echo/EchoFEA.pdf
page 16 has the best diagram of what will be added to the existing dam.
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[fsh4fun05]

If they keep the water low and the brush grows back there's a good chance that in 4-5? years from now Echo could turn into a very good fishery for a good while, it's possible anyway.
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[kochanut]

[quote fsh4fun05] If they keep the water low and the brush grows back there's a good chance that in 4-5? years from now Echo could turn into a very good fishery for a good while, it's possible anyway.[/quote]

Ding ding ding! here is the winning answer!
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[Flyfishinglover]

ya i hope those brushes grown back when the water level goes back up because I caught nice 2 pounders bass in my toon that no boater could get into the rough spot. oh those were good days for bass
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