Kolob Reservoir Fishing Report 4/26/17

Ice Off!  The ice came off on 4/22/17 this year and every year it does, we get the itch to get out and catch the bows spawning on the shores.  Ken and I slept in and didn't get up to the res until 10:30am. We started out throwing midge patterns from the shore with our 6 weights.  Fishing was slow...water temp was still sort of cold since the ice just came off a few days ago.  After about an hour of no action, Ken threw on a black wolly bugger and caught a planter rainbow from the shore.  So, of course, what do i do? I throw on a black wolly bugger as well.  My 2nd cast i started stripping it back from the shore and caught a 19 inch cut that was pretty healthy lookin, here are some pics of that fish:

About 30 min after that, things started to pick up a little. I think later on in the day with the temp rising helped.  I think it took a little while for the midges to start hatching.  So i switched back to midge patterns and we caught these fish all on the black jack!

It was good trip, fast, but good!  Always a good time, water was super high, we had a really good snow pack year!  Hopefully we can get up there again soon.

Midge Magic! Kolob Reservoir - April 14th 2016

We posted anything for a while, we've been too busy with work and family to go fishing.. I know, I know.. priorities.. haha. We finally got an excuse to leave work early on a Thursday for a quick "birthday fishing trip" It was my birthday that week and I convinced Ken and Jimmy to head up to Kolob for half a day and I think we're all glad we did. The road was great on the way up to Kolob, and there was a little snow on the bank of the reservoir and a few ice glaciers floating around. We started along the shore by the spillway, we tried all kinds of different flies, different colors of buggers, leach streamers, egg patterns, san juan worm,  but nothing worked until ken pulled out the "Black Jack" The black jack is a kind of midge that has two white wings. (shown below). Ken worked his way out to the point and started immediately slaying it, he had already caught 3 before Jimmy and I made our way up the shore trying all kinds of different things. Rainy's Flies is the only place that we know who sells the Black Jack Fly, It was a Fly designed by Gilbert Rowely. Shout out to Gilbert! Thanks Buddy!

The Pink one worked better than the green one. We only had a few of them, and some of them were already hammered from last year when ken killed it, you might remember it from this clip here.. We fished until all the flies we had were literally destroyed. Nothing else worked as well or as consistent. This was the only fly they wanted. We did catch a few using a jig on a spinning rod, (for fun) and 1 on an egg pattern.

The fish are starting to spawn and they are extremely fat! We were all surprised at the number of good sized quality fish that we were catching consistently. I don't think that we've ever caught that quality of fish consistently as we did on that short trip. Out of all of them there were only 2 or 3 that were smaller planter sized, All the rest were beautiful colored fish! It was a windy day and kinda chilly, but we didn't really notice the wind or the cold too much. We were just happy to be catching fish! I'll let the video below speak for itself! Thanks for watching!

Kolob Reservoir 4/24/15

Ken and I decided to buzz up to Kolob to see if we could catch some "spawners" on the 24th of April.  We were lucky to be accompanied by Ken's brother Niels!  It was fun to have him come out and fish with us and hope he keeps coming to fish with us! :)

We got to Kolob around 8:30 and started to throw "the black jack" out at them from the shore.  That was not working so we started throwing other midge patters at them and did not have success with those either.  Ken threw on a black wolly bugger and caught a rainbow right after he put it on so of course weall put black wolly buggers on but did not have any luck, must have been a fluke :)

We continued to walk the shore line and site fish for spawners.  We finally found 2 spawning beds just right off the shore and decided to throw out some egg patterns under an indicator.  We caught a few right in the beds, here are some pics of one of the nicer ones...

We mostly fished between the boat ramp and the spillway for a couple of hours, before we left we started fishing the same egg patterns at the inlet that is to the north of the ramp and caught 4-5.

Kolob Reservoir Ut Fishing Report May 2nd 2013

I was having shoulder surgery on Friday the 3rd so I decided I would get a quick fly fishing trip in before my surgery. I was going to be out of commission for 6 weeks + so no fishing for me. I ran up to Kolob reservoir around 10 am. The ice had been off for about a month but the fish were still spawning around the edges. When I first pulled up I talked to a guy from Washington City that had caught a bunch all morning with a black leech so I decided to start out using the same. I fished for about 2 hours had a couple of bites but only one fish.
About this time I decide it was time to change my fly again and so I put on a little fly that our buddy ties up called the black jack. Lets just say that I love this fly. The only two times I have used I have caught a lot of fish. I fished for the next 2 hours and landed 14 fish with a few misses and one that was on but got off. It was some of the fast fishing I have had in a long time. I only had 2 black jacks I lost the first one after catching 3 fish. I caught the other 11 fish on just the one fly. It eventually got beat up so bad that I couldn't use it anymore and it wouldn't catch fish. I'm sure if I had more flies I could have sat there and caught fish left and right for until dark. Here are some pics and also some footage I took with my HD swann action cam.

Kolob Reservoir 10-12-12

 

Ken and I hadn't gone fishing since alaska and were really hurtin for even just a short fishing opportunity. The weather was looking pretty ugly in St. George and even up north in the mountains but we had both got permission from the wives and figured if we have permission then we're going! We left town about noon and made our trip up to Kolob Reservior. The weather was still stormy and as we kept climbing started to turn snowy and slushy, Ken said it would start to clear up though. Haha. We unloaded the boat put all our rain gear on and were excited to get in the lake. fortunately the wind wasn't blowing too bad. We started with our new fly rods we got when we went to Alaska. I tried a black bead head bugger and Ken put on a green bugger. we both had a bite in about the first 15 min so we were pretty excited. Even though the wind wasn't blowing it was cold. The temp gauge said about 38 degrees and it started snowing. We were dry and warm, the only thing that was uncomfortable as the  day went on was our hands just about froze off. We fished from about 1:30 till 5. so about 3 and a half hours. I got 4 fish, 1 bow and 3 cutthroat. Ken caught a nice cutthroat about 16 and a half inches. We switched after a while to a purple bugger that they seamed to like. They were really pretty fish and about the same size we caught up on the Russian river in Alaska. we weren't slaying it, but the fish we did catch were really pretty and a lot of fun. All and all it was a great trip to take a break from life, get out in God's beautiful country with the fall leaves changing and do a little fishing.

My Fatty Rainbow

Kens nice Cut

pretty cut

Kolob Reservoir Fly Fishing Report 5/19/2012

Nice little 15 inch bow, pic doesn't do justice on how pretty it was :)

Well we woke up Sat morning from our campsite over near Blue Springs Reservoir, ate some breakfast and headed down the road to Kolob Reservoir to do a little fishing. The night before we got our butts handed to us and since the wind wasn't blowing we were optimistic that we were going to be able to do better.

We ended up parking on the damn at the south end of the lake and fishing on the damn and near the spillway along the shore line to the east. Last year Jimmy slayed it here with an egg pattern and could see all the fish spawning in the gravel beds near the spillway.

When we first showed up we all started using black and green buggers with no luck. So then we tried pheasant tails, zebra midge, trout beads, egg patterns, and some gnat looking flies with no luck. We threw everything we could think of with no luck. Everyone around us was having the same luck. Kolob Reservoir opened up to bate fishing this week so there were people using power-bait and spinners and minnows all with no luck.

The shore was riddled with the skins of literally millions or even billions of little skins of some kind of gnat or mayfly hatch or something. I wish I were better and knowing the different kinds of hatches. One of the guys said that that a couple of days earlier when this hatch was taking place that the fish were almost boiling on top of the water eating like crazy. We were thinking that fish were just really full and had maybe gorged themselves on this hatch that had taken place a day or two earlier.

The other frustrating thing is that we could see the fish cruising the shore line back and forth all over in the rocks and gravel beds by the spillway and were throwing everything we could at them with no luck. We could see the fish and they would always just follow our fly and then turn away at the last second turning their noise up at what were trying to give them.

It was Niels first time fly fishing so Nate and I felt bad that he didn't catch anything and get to experience catching a fish on the fly. So Niels had stopped fishing with my Dad and Nate and I were still just trying to catch those stupid fish that we could see right in front of us like 6 feet away. I switch to a brown and black bugger for one last try and threw it out I started to strip it in and then Nate was like come look at all these fish so I stopped stripping and started walking up the shore line to where he was. While I was walking to him I felt my line start to grab, I thought it was the bottom but low and behold it was a fish. The only one any of us actually caught the whole weekend. I was happy and of course my Dad grabbed his rod and said you got anymore of those brown ones? and started fishing again for a few mins ha.

I also talked to my Friend Kenny who was fishing on the other side of the lake that caught a nice little cut about 17 inches. He caught it on a dry fly that looked similar to the hatch that had just taken place. But that is all he caught too. So fishing was really slow. Too many bugs, a full moon, wind, and the Fish Gods were all stacked against us, oh well can't complain about being out on the mountain and throwing some flies!

Kolob Reservoir Fishing Report 5/18/2012

Hendrickson Boys gearing up for some Fun!

This weekend was our wards fathers and sons outing which was conveniently held at Blue Springs Reservoir about 3 miles south of Kolob Reservoir. I felt luck because we were able to make it work out so that my Dad and 2 brothers were all able to go. I can't remember the last time we all had the opportunity to go camping and fishing with just the boys. Nate and I had been up to Kolob a couple of weeks ago and caught about 8 fish in a couple of hours and so we were really excited to get up there and start fishing.

We arrived at blue springs around 6pm set up our tent, ate some Kentucky fried, and then headed down the road to Kolob Reservoir. The temp was about 48 degrees when we pulled up and it was blowing like an Oklahoma twister in spring. We decided to make the best of it and fished for about 2 hours which with 4 guys fishing equals 8 hours of fishing with nothing. It was blowing so hard it was really hard to cast and it was also freaking cold. My left hand got so numb I could barley feel anything I guess I need some gloves. We pretty much through black and green buggers at them with no success.

Once it got dark we headed back to our camp and since it was right next to Blue Springs Reservoir, which is a private lake and it had all but pretty much stopped blowing we drove down to the boat ramp and decided to throw a couple flies in just to try it out. My Dad stayed in the truck and said as soon as you guys start catching them I will come help you. Well Nate got out and started casting trying his luck. On about the 3rd cast Fish ON! from what I saw it looked like a really nice fish but before he could land it, it got off. Well my Dad jumped out of the truck like he was getting ready to run the St George Marathon and started fishing thinking that we were all going to end the night catching some fish.

We fished for another 30 or 45 mins with nothing. I got a bite but that was it. So we ended the night at about 10:30pm and went to bed. Fishing was slow!