I had been spending my time fishing at Flaming Gorge, since it is the closest to where I live, but was getting bored. Fishing was often good, with catches of sometimes up to a dozen fish in an afternoon's outing. But after a few times it gets kind of old, knowing what type of species you are most likely to get, and what size. There's always a chance of getting a larger rainbow or lake trout in the mix....but sometimes you just need to head to a different body of water to up the odds of variety.
Last summer, I drove out to a 2500 acre reservoir in the middle of the most sparsely populated, flattest and most desolate part of the county. It was hot, windy, deserted, and the water looked dirty and at the same time sort of sterile. In spite of the fact that there are no fees for day use, fishing or launching and there were picnic tables and restrooms, there was not a soul to be found. I hopped out of my truck to have a closer look at the water....and was immediately swarmed by what seemed to be every mosquito in the area. Well, that answered some questions about why nobody was there. I hopped back into my truck and drove away, never to bother with that lake again.
Fast forward to last Saturday. Bored, and wanting to go fishing somewhere new for the afternoon, I decided to head back out to that lake. Like the time before, it was completely empty of people. The wind was blowing harder than ever, and since the afternoon high temperature was around 45 degrees, there were no mosquitoes present. I parked on the bank and got out to inspect the lake. Looked yuckier than before, as the wind really churned up an opaque mudline on the already stained water. It didn't look fishy at all. I really didn't want to waste time casting into the wind in an unpromising looking body of water, so I drove down to a wind sheltered spot below the dam, and explored on foot for a while. The low area had gotten cold enough, and the river had dropped to a trickle, so a lot of it was beginning to ice over. Cows were grazing there too, and i had to be careful not to step in their fresh cow pies in the tall grass and brush. I thought I would just drive back home, but when I reached the top of the dam, I drove back to point I had been at earlier, and tied on a quarter ounce Kastmaster copy....just to give a few throws, and say that I fished the lake.
For about ten minutes, nothing happened. Then it seemed like something bumped my lure in the muddy 18 inch swells blowing in. About 5 minutes later, WHAM....my lure was hit by a bus. I was surprised when a very respectable male cutbow ended up at my feet. I fished another half hour and caught a fat rainbow trout Pleased, but tired of fighting the wind, with my casts getting shorter, my line actually blowing behind me, and having my hat blown off my head a few times, I called it quits for the day. But I planned to come back on a less windy day.
That day was Monday. The lake was dead calm at mid morning, with no signs of fish activity on its surface. I had a few light bumps and saw a couple of follows near the shoreline, but ninety minutes of fishing produced nothing. I switched lures a few time, trying especially finesse baits to woo the reluctant fish, but they were not interested. Then two things happened, I switched up to a 1/2 ounce gold colored Krocodile spoon, and a breeze started to come up on shore. These two things changed everything, and while the action was sparse, the quality was great. I had 4 trout who's total weight on the stringer was 16 pounds.I usually throw my fish back, but I had a friend that wanted some trout for their family, so I was going to take these back to them. They were mostly rainbow, but fish like this, that go uncaught end up with hybrid characteristics, so one of the males had bigger dots like a cutthroat, but no chin colors, while one of the females looked to be a brownbow. She was quite beautiful.
Then, somebody else said they would like some trout, so I went back yesterday, and caught a couple more nice sized rainbows, and a beautiful smaller brown trout, that I decided to release, so that I could hopefully catch him someday when he was much larger.
Anyway, I still miss those bass, and plan to keep on fishing until the weather and ice keep me from doing so.
