Fishing in Utah 7/15-7/20

My girlfriend wanted to drive out to Colorado to attend this years Rockygrass festival so I, as usual, scheduled a few side trips to break up an otherwise long, boring drive. 

Our first stop was Bryce Canyon.  Although Bryce is in Southern Utah the elevation makes the mid-summer temps much more bareable than in nearby Zion - mostly upper 80s and low 90s.  We camped in Kings Creek campground on the Tropic Reservoir.  It's about a 30-40 minute drive from the park and has really nice, shaded sites with nice, clean bathrooms.  There was a fire burning very close by which made us change our plans around a bit but we still saw Bryce Canyon and did some fishing in the reservoir. 

The reservoir is not used very heavily by fisherman.  The area is, like most of Southern Utah, used mainly by ATV enthusiasts.  While they can be noisy, I didn't mind since we had the lake mostly to ourselves.  It was pretty funny to sit at the campsite at night and watch the same families make endless laps on thier ATVs.  They have to slow to 5mph in the campground, making it look sort of like a fat redneck parade.  Some of them should get off and take a walk sometime . .ha ha.  Everybody we met was really cool, though, so I kind of even feel bad for making fun of them (but I still will).

Here is a shot of Tropic Lake.  Not fog - smoke!


The lake has rainbows, cutthroats, browns and brookies.  Some of the browns get pretty big, from what I have read.  We didn't catch any trophies but used silver spinners and kastmasters and had plenty of action.

We caught a bunch of little trout like these:


and these:


We saw this guy along the road to the campground:


Because of the fire we decided to head to our next stop a day early.  This was the part I was most excited about - the Flaming Gorge in North Eastern Utah near the Wy border.  The Flaming Gorge is a super big, super deep, relatively high elevation reservoir.  It has a reputation for huge trout - rainbows, browns and lakers.  It is also reputed to be the best smallmouth bass fishery in Utah.

We camped in the Red Canyon part of the Flaming Gorge NRA at a campsite called Canyon Rim.  I highly recommend this place.  Even though it is about 10 miles from the gorge itself, it has awesome views of the gorge, a really nice single-track mountain bike trail and 2 different small trout lakes nearby. 

Here is a view of sunrise from the campground:


This lake reminded me a lot of Lake Powell but it's much more kayak friendly since there are several places you can launch from to check out different parts of the lake.  There are also more campgrounds, more places to swim and more things to do, in general, for the human powered or even boatless crowd.

Each morning I went out and tried for the big trout . .either by jigging deep for the lakers or trolling with in-line weight for the rainbows.  I had no success at this but it was still fun to try.  I saw a couple of decent rainbows but everybody was saying that the trout fishing was pretty slow that week.  I saw some huge marks on my fish finder that will probably haunt me forever, though.

On 2 afternoons we went down to the Gorge to swim and fish for smallies.  This was a blast.  The water in the gorge is so clear you can see the bottom to about 20 feet.  The first day we launched at Sheeps Creek Bay, about 20 miles from our campsite towards the WY border.  This spot was recommended to us as better for kayaks since the canyons were a little narrower and there was slightly less waterskiers, etc.  There were tons of powerboats out but we found plenty of space to paddle, fish and swim. 

The bass were small but extremely cooperative.  We tried small, crawfish-immitating crankbaits and brown and green worms and grubs and caught fish on just about everything we tried.  On the first day we caught about 20 fish between the 2 of us but I noticed that the pumpkin green colored yamamoto grubs were getting bit the best.  When we came back for a second afternoon we stuck with the grubs and caught a fish on nearly every cast for 4-5 hours.  We started off having a fun little contest but it was 35 to 25 in less than 2 hours so we stopped counting.

All the bass were around this size but lots of fun:



One day it rained a bit and we took the opportunity to check out the Green River and one of the little lakes at the campground.  We weren't prepared for the Green River and came home empty handed.  The sections we were at were very fast and shallow.  I lost 3 spinners in about 30 minutes and then gave up . .vowing to return someday - after more study.

We did better on the little lake and caught a bunch of stocker trout.






After 3 nights of camping we were feeling pretty grungy so we got a room at The Flaming Gorge Resort near Dutch John, UT.  It was a cool place!  Clean rooms and not too expensive and the restaraunt has decent breakfast.  I would consider staying here the whole time when we eventually return.

Here is another shot of the gorge from the road on the way out:

Nice road trip!  And fish too!  Way to go!

Thanks for the cool report MBY, sounds like a good trip. Beautiful photos.

Brought back some nice memories - spent some time backpacking into the canyons on the Manti-La Sal NF in so. Utah back in the mid-90s - Thanks!

Smoke'n post!!! I may never get up there, but thanks for posting with those great pics.

Beautiful wilderness...thanks for the pix!
I'm convinced I need to get up there some day...

Beautiful pictures thanks for the report! Do you have any you can share of the fat redneck parade? That is a hilarious image!

-Eliot

Thank you very much for the report. I was talking to one of the utah boys at albion about fishing the Gorge from a kayak.  I want to get up there and chase some of those monster kokanee they have.

Great report thanks for bringing me along!

Great report!!! If u ever go back hire a guide to drift fish below the damn...best fishing I ever had "fly fishing"  150 got me a nite in a log cabin and a day fishing the guide would stop half way through and whip up a meal on the Bank...so many brown trout it was ridiculous...it was so good I opted to do the next day...it sucked the next day...but the first was memories of a life time...

U got a bunch of memories...WTG and thanks for the pics and report...

I want more info on the fat redneck parade....what type of beer were they drinking and did you have to wear overalls to avoid spooking them?
 

I wish I had taken some pictures of the nightly parade at the Kings Creek Campground . . a lost opportunity for sure

BTW Sledge . .I saw those trips being offered and they looked really awesome.  In addition to guided trips (around $325 for full day) I also saw shuttle services being offered ($75 pick up at Little Hole and return to dam), as well.  If I ever do manage to get back there I will definitely take advantage of one of those options.