Camping on the Manti

[LOAH]

My friends and I have had plans of doing a camping/fishing trip for the past month or so and each week, something pops up that puts it on hold until the next week. Well, that happened a couple of weeks in a row and it became quite the nuisance, especially since my cousin finally got a Saturday off, that he'd been asking for. This time, it was happening no matter what.

Well, as expected, the original party of four turned into just my cousin Aaron and I. As as it was that two of our good friends would miss out, the logistics of it all worked in our favor. Getting four guys and their gear into a Sentra would've proven very difficult.

Saturday

By the time Saturday came, we had the car packed up, a general destination, and a thirst for new waters at our throats. Time to hit the road.



The scenery along the way was incredible. It was hard not to stop around every bend for photos, this being my first time on this part of the mountain.



Exploring the Skyline Drive area is something I've been meaning to do for quite some time and I was glad to see that my car was up to the task.



Talk about a great view from up there! It gives one the impression of how small we really are.





Some of yesteryear's trees show evidence of how harsh the conditions can be on top:





After playing around up there for a little bit (and removing some unsightly garbage), we descended into the basin where we would seek out our campsite. Of course, the drive to such a spot is full of distractions including a really rough patch of road. There was no way that my car would make it back up, if it were to find a way through this rough spot. From where we already were, the steep road might have been too much to climb.

Carefully and very slowly, I navigated the little car through the rocky obstacles and somehow around a really mean looking dip. Once I was through, the road was fine again but the possibility of going back was gone. No short cut over the hill this time.

Soon enough, we were passing some puddles that grabbed our attention. Here's a little spot that looked too shallow to keep any fish, but we couldn't help trying once we saw some ripples. There was definitely something in there, but I couldn't get any takes on jigs or spinners.



Eventually, we came across one of the 'required' stops on our journey and fished for a couple of hours. Fish were surfacing everywhere and they were leaving some impressive ripples. This would've been a perfect place to get out on my tube, but we still needed to find a place to set up camp while there was still daylight and there were also other stops on the agenda.

The shore fishing wasn't too bad though. Aaron scored first with a satisfying 17.5 inch tiger:



He got that on a small silver Blue Fox with a red tail. After only catching a few pan-sized Provo River browns since his return to Utah, a nice strong tiger was a very welcome catch.

Meanwhile, I was switching between several patterns of Blue Fox and a Kastmaster. After a few dozen casts with a rainbow pattern, my first fish came to hand.



From the angle, it's hard to tell, but it was right at 19 inches in length. Not a bad fish for dinner, I thought. I'd forgotten my stringer, so it got a whack on the head right away. Here's another shot with the full fish:



The KM showed promise, as fish would follow it in quite often, but the bites didn't start coming until I switched up my retrieval. As soon as I added some erratic twitching to the rod tip in between cranks on the reel, I started getting the bites.

They were swooping in knocking it a lot, but getting an actual hookset took some time. Finally, I got a smaller one to take a mouthful. This one was released.



After a bit more time at that lake, we realized that we were lagging and that we'd have to forego a couple of 'maybe' spots. Next time, we promised, we'd spend more time at this lake and give it proper effort.

What we were really after was a place to set up camp right next to the water. After driving around the area a bit in search of such a place, it occured to us that we would either have to pay a fee (although small) and put up with several neighbors nearby, or camp a little bit off the main road within short hiking distance. We chose the latter for the solitude.

It's not that we're antisocial or anything, we just didn't want to disturb anyone since we'd brought guitars and African drums (thanks to that extra space in the car) to play by the fire. That wouldn't happen until later though. First thing's first, get a small fire rolling and eat some fresh fish!



Dinner was the only reason for the early fire, so we kept it small enough to die off while we ate. We threw some dirt over the remaining coals and hiked to the lake to try our luck at the evening bite.







Nice looking place. With my go-to Blue Fox, it didn't take long to get into a few of these finless wonders:



That was all I could get them to hit until the light faded and the bite shut off. Aaron had a pretty nice one on for a few seconds until it threw the hook in midair. I think he also scored a dink bow or two.

Once the bite was gone, we took off to enjoy the comforts of a good fire and great company. When the coals were ready, we reheated some left-over pizza wrapped in foil for an unlikely camping treat (great idea for an overnight camping snack, BTW).



A good jam session came next. We may have caused a few landslides with our drumming, but we were polite enough to stop before 10:00. After that, it was a focused guitar duet like the days of old (we learned together as teenagers). It was great to have such a nice time with a cousin whom I'd missed dearly over the past few years while he was living in Arizona. We both hit the sleeping bags with sore fingers.

Sunday

Being the first one up (always...don't know why), I got another small fire going and warmed up some pre-made BBQ pulled pork burritos wrapped in foil (another great camp food for an overnighter) for breakfast.

While the burritos warmed up, I pumped up my tube and got my cousin moving. We munched away happily on our easy breakfast and packed everything back into the car. Back to the lake to find "the hog", so we kept saying to ourselves. Aaron set off on foot to find a decent hole in the shallow lake and I kicked around in my tube.

The lure I already had on from the night before was all I would need for the whole day. That gold Blue Fox was on fire! Seriously, it was like all the fish had heard that it was the hot lure and they all got in line to give it a try.

My first hit was a pan-sized tiger and the rest was nubby finned rainbow history. There were several times where every cast provided another nubster. It was tedious, even. It's not like I wasn't pursuing other species. I used everything I could think of to hone in on the tigers, but my only hits came on the Blue Fox.



The strange part is that nobody else was having massive success. I saw fish landed by a total of three people, one being Aaron (who got into a few) and the others only got lucky every once in awhile. People kept on asking what I was using and I told them exactly what it was. Looks like a few more tackle boxes will soon be home to a gold Blue Fox.

Aside from the spectacular rainbow fishing, the lake was a nice place for a float. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 rainbows (no kidding...probably more) had already met my forceps.

It was getting monotonous to reel in 10 inch planters every 45 seconds, so I kicked over to Aaron and parked the tube for a bit. We followed an inlet up the steep slope and found a beaver dam that seemed fishless. Kind of neat though, right above the lake:









That's a pretty cool little pond that probably goes unnoticed by most. After getting back to the shoreline and casting lazily for a few minutes, we decided that it was time to leave the area (the long way, remember) and hit a familiar water on the way back home.

While crossing back toward the car, another rainbow catching spree ensued. Every cast remotely near the middle hooked up and quite a few near the edges. Absolutely ridiculous. It didn't make me feel like a good fisherman. It made me feel like I just snuck into a hatchery and used pellets. Way too easy.

Upon arrival to the car, Aaron announced his plans to purchase a tube.

Off we went down the canyon. It was another gorgeous drive down a road that neither of us had previously traveled.



And, like most canyons, a nice creek trickles down the middle:



The creek didn't hand out any fish, but I watched as a small cutthroat came and sniffed my lure before disappearing under a rock shelf.

We finally hit civilization which was good for some gas station junk food and a Pepsi (much appreciated) to keep us entertained while we made the drive. Along the way, we stopped at another lake to get something other than a rainbow on the line.

Aaron caught a small tiger that accidentally came off while I was fuddling with it (oops) and I got a pretty cutthroat after a bit of a coaxing.





We could see them circling a spot as if they were on patrol. It was just that much more frustrating when they'd come up and reject the offering because it was in plain sight. I suppose that's the difference between wild cutts and hatchery pet rainbows.

Having to actually try to catch fish was a good thing to feel again. We took off after spending a couple of hours there and didn't make any more stops for fishing.

It was a great weekend and it had been far too long since my last campout with Aaron. The fishing was incredible for dink rainbows and rewarding for tiger trout. The cutthroat was icing on an already sweet cake

Happy Fishing, Humans.


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[luv2hookem]

Great report and pictures. Makes me jealous. I would love an outing like that!!!
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[hppyfshrmn]

fantastic report and great pictures. so gold blue fox seemed to be the trick .
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[schfifty5iv]

well 2 things i am doing 1. buying a gold blue fox
2. going to go fishing with it =D
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[LOAH]

The best lure I've ever used, hands down. Blue Fox doesn't pay me or anything like that. I just really love their Vibrax series of lures. The gold has produced more fish for me than any other lure and not just little guys.

My biggest trout came from the same # 2 Gold Blue Fox (24" tiger). I've lost 2 other fish that would've had that one beat, both on a type of Vibrax. I don't know what I'd do without Blue Fox...

...I'd probably just have to try and get by with Kastmasters.
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