Great year for big trout

[TubeDude]

Wow, Pat. Those are awsume. I fished Utah most my life. And never caught a trout over 3 pounds. My first trip to Chesterfield I got 4 and 5 pounder.  Then got into lots of 4 and 5 pounders at Blackfoot Reservoir for a few years. But it died off because of Pelicans . And now they have got rid of the Pelicans some how. Shotguns I think. And I expect the 5 pounder to come back this year. Are they some of your Starvation stealheads?

Nope.  Never got anything over about 21" from Starvy...and the average is in the high teens.  Those fish are a once in a lifetime thing from Yuba Reservoir.  When it drained down to a trickle running through the lakebed in 2004, only a few walleye and pike survived upstream in the Seveir River.  The lake refilled completely the next year and was stocked with rainbows to at least provide a fishery.  Those rainbows found the lake overrun with fathead minnows that had exploded due to lake of predators...and the trout grew big and fast.  There were some up to about 8 pounds taken out of Yuba before the trout and newly planted perch slurped up all the easy groceries.  Then the big trout starved out and it was rare to catch anything over about a skinny 16 inches.  I am attaching a writeup I put together for someone a few years ago.  It explains that in greater detail. 

By the way, on the day I took that picture my wife and I each caught well over 20 big trout.  The smallest was probably still over 3#.  But, like many good things, it did not last. 

And I fondly recall fishing Blackfoot reservoir when I was a kid living in Idaho Falls.  I only had an old steel telescope pole and a reel full of well used line handed down from a relative.  But by lob casting whole crawlers from the bank I still caught some humongous trout.  Actually put a kink in my poor steel pole.  Put a kink in my young fisherman's psyche too.  Never been the same since.