Just got back from a weeks vacation in St. George, Utah. The highlight of
the trip (for me) was an afternoon of fishing on Kolob Reservoir. Beautiful
scenery (the back side of Zion's National Park) on the way up and feisty,
chunky rainbows on Damsel Flies and Olive Buggers. This time of year they
are down deep close to the bottom, about 20 feet. This reservoir is managed
as a trophy fishery, artificial fly or lure only, and only one fish over 20
inches can be harvested. Most that I caught were in the 15- 18 inch range.
There was only one other tuber on the water, who was out fishing me about 2
to 1. I'm not ashamed to learn from my betters so I drifted over to check
out his technique. He had the fly the fish wanted, an ugly thing made with a
size 8 standard hook, body of Peacock Glimmer chennille, no hackle, and a
clump of dark olive marabou for the tail about twice the length of the body.
The man's name was Danny Rose, so I'll call this a Danny Bugger. The lake is
full of dark olive crayfish, so I suspect this is what the fish were taking
for his fly. He was fishing close enough to the bottom that he actually
brought up four or five huge crayfish that had grabbed the fly and wouldn't
let go!
My wife wanted to see the scenery in the pre-sunset light, so I had to
leave just as the lake was literally covered with rings of fish rising to
midge clusters and terrestrials blown onto the surface. Only true love could
have pulled me away!
