Pine Lake and Tropic Res. in early May

[fishindaddy]

I grew up in Fredonia AZ. just across the border from Kanab. We fished tropic every summer atleast once. We actually spent most of our time up past tropic in the web of small streams that feed east fork which runs into tropic. Up in the streams is mostly brook and cutthroat. We would fish them as early as May most years, it just depends on how much snow there was. Tropic has mostly planted rainbows, along with cutthroat, brook, and brown trout. The browns have always been in there, but in resent years they have really grown in numbers. Up in the streams we catch far more browns than we ever use too, especially nearer to the lake. Last year at our family reunion up there we caught a lot of fish. Early morning has always seemed to be the best for the big cutthroat in the lake which we've caught up to over 20 inches mostly on a fly and bubble. We've never caught very big rainbows out of the lake though.
Pine lake has also been accessible as early as May. There really isn't any gate, so it just depends on the snow. Early spring can be really good for larger rainbows up there. The last time I fished it was with my brother about 6 years ago when we were doing a job in Bryce canyon in early April. It was the best trip I'd ever had up there and there was still snow on the ground. We caught a limit of fat rainbows around 18 inches on yellow roostertail spinners and yellow panther martins.
The majority of our trips up there were to catch the brook trout out of the beaver ponds upstream from tropic reservior.
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