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I was thinking about where I'm gonna head when its gets warmer and Lake catherine crossed my mind, so I began to think of Lake mary below it. I have heard that there are lakers in there, anyone know if this is true? Anyone here caught one? I was reading hartt wixoms fishing guide to utah and he says he knows of a seven pounder being dredged up recently. How long ago was "recently"? I have never caught a lake trout, but If they are in Mary, maybe this year I'll try to, and even if I don't get a laker, I otta get plenty of brookies. Anyone fish Mary last year? Just wondering. Anthony
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What Lake Mary are you referring to? Where?
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]They put a few lakers in Marry many years ago, and it is possible that a few have survived and reproduced, but they don’t offer a significant fishery. Hartt’s guide was written a long time ago. They also tried them in Starvation, but they never took there. If you want to catch a lake trout, go to Fish Lake or Flaming Gorge.[/size][/font]
[size 3][font "Times New Roman"] [/font][/size]Dave W
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Are yo referring to the lake that is by Brighton ski resort?
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Yep, that's the one. Anyone know how deep that lake is?
Anthony
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I have fished Lake Mary several times over the years(I like Lake Catherine much better). I have never caught a laker there. The lake is very deep, especially in the spring when the lake is full, but I don't know the exact depth. If you stand out on one of the solid rock banks, throw your line in, let it sink until it stops, and then reel in, you will notice that your line is coming up out of the water at a very steep angle(nearly vertical).
When the water draws down the lake kind of splits in two. I have never caught a fish on the half of the lake where the dam is. I have always caught my fish on the other half, which is very deep.
I have seen news articles way back when I was just a young kid where few big lakers were pulled out. By big I mean about 5 lbs or so, which is huge for any of those lakes up there. But I think those days are long gone.
There are suckers and shiner minnows in Lake Mary, so there is a forage base for the macks if they were there still there. But in my experiance they are gone. The DWR only plants brook trout anymore.
m
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I haven't fish lake mary for many years. The last time I fished it was back in the drought in the late 70's early 80's. Can't remember for sure when that was. Anywho, as mentioned, along the south side, the high water mark was 40 feet or more up on the rocks. It was low that year and the lake was almost divided into two seperate lakes. All we caught were brookies. Heard there were macks, but never caught one. Late evenings with a fly tied behind a bubble worked the best. Never limited out and fishing was tough. I never did visit catherine, but often wondered if there were fish in it. May have to try it again some saturday morning.
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Catherine is usually really shallow, and I think it winterkills, because the brookies we caught outa there were only about 8" long. Havent been up there for a couple of years, but I give her a try this year, maybe a 30-45 minute hike, not bad at all. Glad were getting all the snow, I may actually have a good year on Am. fork creek!
Anthony
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I wish they still stocked American Fork as much as they used to. When I was in high school I'd head up nearly every afternoon from July-Sept and bring home a limit of fresh trout. My family loved me for it. Now they only seem to put in a fraction of the fish they used to. They say that the DWR is concentrating their stocking efforts on lakes because the survival rate is higher. Too bad, I love stream fishing.
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I have been going to Lake Catherine for about 25 years. It is an awesome lake if you don't mind smaller fish. There are a few places in the lake that are shallow but there are also a lot of pretty deep spots. So yes, it does winter-kill sometimes. But they do stock it every year anyway. When they stock the fingerlings it takes a while to get big, and sometimes they don't survive long enough to get to a bigger size. One day I was there when the plane flew over and dropped the fish in. It was pretty cool to see first hand.
The biggest fish I've ever taken out of Catherine was about 12 inches. That is very rare. Most fish are between 7 and 8 inches. They are the BEST eating trout you will ever find. Their meat is pinker than the pinkest salmon. I don't mind keeping fish from there because of the winter kill issue and how it is stocked so often.
Over the years I have caught literally hundreds and hundreds of fish at Lake Catherine. I have had many 40-fish evenings. Flies in the evening are the ticket.(fly and bubble set-up) A renegade seems to be best even though almost anything will catch fish. If you use worms you will catch fish all day long.
The scenery is awesome there. Once in a while you see deer and the occasional moose.(HUGE moose).
Anyway, I prefer Lake Catherine over Lake Mary. I've caught fish at Lake Mary but, as was mentioned, the fishing is tougher and I've never got a full limit(8 in the good old days) there either. I usaully only go to Mary when Catherine is still iced in and I want to fish close to home.
m
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Its true that they are planting streams less. I talked to a dwr fisheries biologist at a rac meeting last year. He said there were a few reasons for this. One being the already mentioned better survival in lakes. Also with the tight budget theyhave to feed the fish longer in the hatchery. In lakes they can plant much smaller fish and let them grow to catchable size. And the biggest reason stated was the loss of hatchery capacity due to drought and whirling disease.
There is hope as they are rebuilding several hatcheries and hope to get water from wells that wont be whirling disease contaminated. The Kamas hatchery gets all its water from a well, it used to use water from beaver creek.
John
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