Lees Ferry Fishing Report 5/1/12

Jim Mendenhall, St George, UT

 

 

Lees Ferry Fishing Report
By: Terry Gunn
May 1, 2012
Recent Fish rating
Upriver: 7 to 8.5
Walk-In: 7 to 8.5
Spin-Fishing: 4 to 6
Key: 1 = Go fish somewhere else 10 = Rent a helicopter and get here now!
Today’s Weather: Sunny, Low 60 High 87
The spring weather has been near perfect with very few windy days.
Crowd Rating
Upriver: 2-3 No Crowds during the week & 4.5 on the weekends
Walk In: 1 Nobody here during the week & 4 to 6 on the weekends
Key: 1 = Sleep late and fish where you want. 10 = Very crowded, get up early
Fly Fishing Up-River.
What a difference a week can make! The bugs finally decided it was time to hatch and the midges and blackflies are making up for lost time. Over the past several days we have been seeing epic hatches throughout most of the river and the fish are moving out of the deeper water into the shallows to enjoy the feast. I spent today in the riffles and it was amazing how many fish were feeding on emerging midges below the surface. One way that you can always tell that the fish are feeding heavy is that they do not spook away from you. When the fish are feeding hard they will stay put and almost ignore the wading angler. I usually don’t like to talk numbers but the client I had today was a really good stick and we both agreed that he probably stuck 75 fish, 6 fish I measured at more than 18”, the largest was >20” and all the rest were in great shape and nice fish. I would guess that 25% of the fish were on dry flies and the rest were on nymphs. This was the best fishing day for me of the season and I think that it is a trend and I expect May to be great. I cannot begin to guarantee you that you will have a day like this here but I can assure you that it is more likely that you will have better fishing in the coming weeks than in this past March or April.  I have also seen more spawning fish the last few days than were around last month. Go figure…it is late but it looks like a few fish decided to spawn after all.

Kolob Reservoir Ut Fishing Report 4.23.2012

So the wife and kids were still out of town so I thought I would run up to Kolob Res after work. I left St. George about 4:30 and started fishing at about 6:30. The water is low probably a good 5-6 ft below the spillway. It was around 70 degrees when I arrived with very little wind. I was surprised because when I left Hurricane it was blowing about 50 MPH but I lucked out :).  I fished starting at the spillway north to the top of the corner. I tried an egg pattern with a pheasant tail dropper for 30-45 mins with nothing. Then I switched to brown nympth and tried that for a while with nothing. So I decided to switch to a black bugger. After about 10 mins I caught my first fish. Pretty nice fat rainbow probably 15 maybe 16 inches. Here is a pic of the first fish:

By this time it was about 7:30. I kept fishing with no luck for probably the next 40 mins until just a little past 8. I kept trying different droppers during this stretch just to see if I could up my odds a little. By this time I had been fishing almost 2 hours and only had one fish to show for it. I kept thinking to myself come on at least just catch one more so that you can say you caught a couple ha. Well a little after 8 things started to pick up. I ended up catching this nice little cut throat with small hump back. Beauty of a fish probably 16+ going of the rod shot.

By this time I was feeling pretty good I had caught two with some more fishing light to go. I could see the fish about 5 ft from the shore up ahead of me with quite a bit of action going on as far as fish jumping or rising. So I slowly moved myself into position and cast into the action and bam!fish on! only problem is when I went to set my hook my fly broke off. I got a glimpse of it at the surface and it looked like a nice once. By this time the sun was just barely peeking over the west hillside across the lake and so I tied a another black bugger on. I noticed that if I didn't put a bead headed bugger on left the dropper off that I could get a little closer to the shore line and strip it across the action zone better without getting snagged. I had probably lost 3 flys by this point. As soon as I got my next black bugger tied on I threw it out and started stripping in. On my probably 3rd cast I landed this nice little rainbow probably only a 12 to 13 incher.

As you can see by the pics that is was getting pretty dark. I could barley see my indicator at this point and had to keep my casts directly in the fading light of the sun so that I could see the action. After the fish I lost and this one that I had just caught I said to myself Ken you are not leaving until it is just plain too dark to see anything. I was so excited at this point and I was in such a hurry and I guess you could say the darkness might of played a role that I started fishing again and snapped my fly off getting in too big of a hurry or something. I was like crap its almost dark and Im running out of flys but I was determined to keep going. Needless to say I spent the next 4-5 mins tying a  new fly on holding the line up into the sky where I could just barley see the sunlight still fading behind the mountain. By the time I got the new fly on it was now even darker. I cast out and could just barley see my indicator I stripped in and nothing. I tried it again and lost my indicator in a slight breeze that came up because of the stupid waves. I was like crap Im just going to have to pack it in I guess. I stripped it in and then saw some action over to my left about 10 feet out from shore. Well when you see a fish it is almost impossible to pass on one more cast just for good measure. So I cast out over towards where I saw the fish I could see my indicator right at first but then lost it, too dark, and a little breeze was making it hard with the small waves I kept stripping really slow partly because I didn't want to have to call it quits :) By this time I couldn't see anything and so I just decided to start pulling it in to go home. Right when I pulled that first time, Fish ON! And thats when I pulled the best fish of the night this beautiful male rainbow with gorgeous colors and a big old kyped jaw. I would say he was about 18+, Nice fish really long just kind of skinny. All in all a really fun evening:

Baker Dam Reservoir Ut Fishing Report 4.19.2012

Nate and I thought we would head up to Baker Dam Res after work on Thursday night. Nate just bought a little electric motor off craigslist and so he wanted to test it out as well as get a little fishing in. I am still trying to get Nate to get hooked on fly fishing I think he is almost there. The only problem is he does not have a fly rod yet so he couldn't fly fish. Nate ended up using some spinners with no luck I started out with a green bugger and caught about 2 nice little fat rainbows, holdovers from last year. After I caught two we decided to troll around the lake Nate put on a flat fish and I put my sinking line on with the same green bugger. I was hoping maybe we could snag a nice brown since I keep hearing how many 4-5lbers there are in Baker. I have yet to see one. Anyways here are few pics from our short trip.