08-30-2024, 03:20 AM
Hello! This is a sincere request for recommendations. If you'd be willing to share, please read on...
I'm brand new here. I can't seem to find any really active fly fishing forums that focus on Utah, but stumbled on this today and am hopeful!
I was raised near Salt Lake City and learned to fly fish in the late eighties, primarily on the Weber and Provo Rivers. For many years, I lived in another state, and life and job responsibilities took me away from enjoying this hobby, which at one time was a weekly or multiple times a week activity for me.
Fast forward a lot of years and I'm back in Utah (living in Utah County) for the last 3. I have 4 boys, and the two youngest (aged 12 and 14) have pulled me back in to Fly Fishing. We've had some great fun the last two years, and plenty of disappointing days too. I've come to believe it's really hard to know where to fly fish anymore in northern Utah, within say a 1 hour drive of Salt Lake or Utah Counties.
Our overall best days have been in the Uinta Mountains, where we backpack every year - and now fly fish (and spinner fish) too. In addition to those trips, we've had a few decent days at the lower Provo... but frankly it's become too much of a burden due to the unbelievable amount of "rubber hatch" going on now even until dark on weekdays (to say nothing of Saturdays), and there is a crackdown on private land access going on. Not only those two huge negatives, but the the fishing honestly is NOTHING like it was when I was a teenager and in my early twenties. Ditto for the Weber river between Rockport and Echo. My boys and I have had two outings there, with literally almost no bites at all this summer. When I was younger I never was skunked there, and I mean never - I at least would catch two or three whitefish and hour. What happened to these fisheries?
I'd love to know if there are any nice rivers left, within a reasonable distance of the Wasatch Front, where one can enjoy a day, or a few hours, of fly fishing without a huge amount of hassle, having to know the right people, and so forth.
We like fishing lakes too, and by next spring I hope to have a few float tubes to make that easier and funner for the three of us. I'm attaching a couple photos of nice fish from the Uinta's this year (the beautiful Brook Trout was at a lake called Governor Dern, and the Tiger Trout near Star Lake - both relatively close to Mirror Lake). I would love to share what I've learned this year as well, should anyone be interested. Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer a Dad and his desire to give his two serious fisher-boys some good experiences!
![[Image: 2024-08-29-Screen-211253.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/vg4Bkmf6/2024-08-29-Screen-211253.jpg)
![[Image: 2024-08-29-Screen-211445.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/xqb8Pc9w/2024-08-29-Screen-211445.jpg)
I'm brand new here. I can't seem to find any really active fly fishing forums that focus on Utah, but stumbled on this today and am hopeful!
I was raised near Salt Lake City and learned to fly fish in the late eighties, primarily on the Weber and Provo Rivers. For many years, I lived in another state, and life and job responsibilities took me away from enjoying this hobby, which at one time was a weekly or multiple times a week activity for me.
Fast forward a lot of years and I'm back in Utah (living in Utah County) for the last 3. I have 4 boys, and the two youngest (aged 12 and 14) have pulled me back in to Fly Fishing. We've had some great fun the last two years, and plenty of disappointing days too. I've come to believe it's really hard to know where to fly fish anymore in northern Utah, within say a 1 hour drive of Salt Lake or Utah Counties.
Our overall best days have been in the Uinta Mountains, where we backpack every year - and now fly fish (and spinner fish) too. In addition to those trips, we've had a few decent days at the lower Provo... but frankly it's become too much of a burden due to the unbelievable amount of "rubber hatch" going on now even until dark on weekdays (to say nothing of Saturdays), and there is a crackdown on private land access going on. Not only those two huge negatives, but the the fishing honestly is NOTHING like it was when I was a teenager and in my early twenties. Ditto for the Weber river between Rockport and Echo. My boys and I have had two outings there, with literally almost no bites at all this summer. When I was younger I never was skunked there, and I mean never - I at least would catch two or three whitefish and hour. What happened to these fisheries?
I'd love to know if there are any nice rivers left, within a reasonable distance of the Wasatch Front, where one can enjoy a day, or a few hours, of fly fishing without a huge amount of hassle, having to know the right people, and so forth.
We like fishing lakes too, and by next spring I hope to have a few float tubes to make that easier and funner for the three of us. I'm attaching a couple photos of nice fish from the Uinta's this year (the beautiful Brook Trout was at a lake called Governor Dern, and the Tiger Trout near Star Lake - both relatively close to Mirror Lake). I would love to share what I've learned this year as well, should anyone be interested. Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer a Dad and his desire to give his two serious fisher-boys some good experiences!