Fishing report: Since summer started I've been fishing the
reservoirs on my kick boat, and I've caught fish on a Chili in every
one. I've fished Strawberry, Lost Creek, East Canyon, Ken's Lake,
Kaysville ponds and most recently a (very small) portion of Lake
Powell. In these places I've caught Rainbow trout, Cutthroat Trout,
Large Mouth Bass, Small Mouth Bass, and Walleye, all on the Chili.
The Lake Powell trip was the most unique. My son is working there
for the summer, so my wife and I drove down with my little pontoon
kick boat in the truck. I attached my 3 horsepower Tanaka motor and
motored across the main channel from Hall's Crossing to the opposite
side which had a solid rock wall with and area of broken rock. My
fish finder sounded like a geiger counter, there were literally
hundreds of fish in that channel, mostly between 20 and sixty feet
deep. They say this may be the best fishing year in the history of
the Lake with huge schools of Stripers, largemouth bass in the
shallows, smallies in the rocks, Crappie in the weeds and Walleye on
the bottom. I used my fastest sinking line but the only fish I could
dredge up from the bottom were Walleye. I had never caught a Walleye
on a fly before so that was good. I never could get a striper to
bite, but caught a bunch of smallies off the rocks.
This is BIG, FAST boat country, when I left early it was quite calm,
but as the day wore on there was a constant din of boats of every
description moving up and down the channel, with "crotch rockets"
zooming in and out among them. The wake waves made by all this
traffic kept dashing me against the wall, so I finally called it
quits. In the process of getting everything ready for the trip
back through the boat traffic, I set my main still water flybox (with
200 plus flies) on the kick plate on the back of my boat, and of
course forgot all about it. The box fell of while bouncing over
wakes on the return trip, and is floating somewhere in the lake (if
someone didn't pick it up).
I didn't bother to go back for the flies. They could have ended up
anywhere in the channel. The ones I feel the worst about losing are
the last fifty or so I tied, including a dozen Chili peppers. I
don't know about the rest of you, but I always have the most
confidence in the flies I have tied most recently.
For those of you not familiar with Lake Powell, it was created by the
Glen Canyon Dam which blocked the flow of the Colorado and Green
rivers (as well as a dozen or so smaller streams) and filled up the
back canyons created by all of those rivers. It is the second
largest man made lake in America, and has a shoreline longer than the
west coast because of all of its back channel. Needless to say I
felt pretty small in that big water.
It was fun, but now I need to go tie some flies.....
Tom
