Cottonwood Res 8/17/24

[joatmon]

Took my canoe out to the Uintah Basin yesterday with the intent to fish Cottonwood Reservoir and Big Sand Wash. I started at Cottonwood with the hope of catching some wipers and possibly a tiger muskie. The only other time I fished Cottonwood I got skunked on a sunup to sundown ice fishing trip.

One pole I set up for tiger muskies, with a slip bobber, 60# fluorocarbon, and wire quick strike rig with dual treble hooks. Used a little bigger chub minnows. My other rod was an ice fishing rod with a medium sized jig. My plan was to stay in about 15 feet of water or less. I would row, then anchor up and fish. I had my ice flasher for depth and fish observations while jigging. 

I caught a whole bunch of nothing on the tiger muskie rig. However, had better luck on the short pole. At the first location, I marked fish in the 12-15 foot depth (0-3 feet off the bottom), so targeted my jigging in that interval. I used a chunk of nightcrawler and eventually got a wiper to play. Then nothing even though I was still marking fish. I switched over and tried mussels, still no additional bites. Eventually I tried pieces of chub minnow but by then I wasn’t marking many fish, so made a big move. I occasionally stopped and fished but didn’t anchor up until I was marking multiple fish in a small cove. The wipers seemed to like just a small piece of chub meat. If I cut a minnow in half, that was too much. Just the head or and “end of the pinky” sized section of chub minnow was the ticket. I had caught several additional wipers when I got a huge hit, then line went limp. Hook, line, and sinker (jig) all gone. Suspect it may haven a tiger muskie and maybe I should have been better prepared for that. 

Tied on a little bit bigger jig and…. nothing. Put a smaller jig on and game on again. Caught about 6 wipers (all in the 12-14.5 inch range) in the 2-3 hours I fished at Cottonwood. Took three home for dinner. The wind started picking up and the clouds were gathering, so I rowed back to shore and got loaded before the rain started. As I was beaching my canoe, I noticed a small dead minnow, which I think was a bluegill (see photo). I know they have stocked bluegill in there, but not sure about the forage base there.

I decided to drive by Big Sand Wash on the way home. Having never been there, it took me a while to find the unmarked road to the dam and ramp. It was quite windy with lots of waves at that time, so I decided to just head for home.