LOAH
01-29-2012, 05:51 PM
With a heck of a cold messing with all facets of my existence lately, I only fished for a couple of hours on the Provo River last weekend. It wasn't extremely eventful, but I did end up with a really pretty rainbow.
Finding a rainbow on the Lower is a bit of a rarity for me, especially below the Olmstead Diversion, where the special regulations end and general regs are in effect downstream from there.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7029.jpg
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7030.jpg
It came from the deeper part of this run, about 5 feet in front of the fallen branch below.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7031.jpg
With this world famous river flowing through my stomping grounds for the last 27 years, I've spent my fair share of time near its banks, although I find myself neglecting it these days. It's nice to pay it a visit from time to time when traveling to distant venues isn't on the agenda.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7035.jpg
A couple of the typical dink browns came to hand, but there was one really nice brown in the 4-5lb class that I could see right below my feet. Unfortunately, I couldn't get its attention with anything I threw at it.
Here's the best of the smaller browns that I was able to catch.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7037.jpg
Even though I was feeling awful and I had some conference championship games to watch, I stayed for awhile longer trying for that big brown, but had to call it quits. Missing both games just wouldn't fly for this football fan.
This week:
With the warmer weather over the past week, I had word that Starvation Reservoir had a lot of open water and unsafe ice, then a last minute report stated that areas near the state park boat ramp had refrozen, with 4 inches of clear ice. This I had to see.
When I pulled up to the ramp, I noted the presence of open water quite close to where I had hoped to fish. A quick ice check gave me confidence to push on.
There was a lot of older ice stacked up on the ramp, but about 100 feet out, newer ice had recently covered over a gap. I was able to drill through that quickly and measured down to the bottom, which was around 25 feet.
Immediately upon lifting my jig from the bottom, I felt a tiny bump. I missed the bite, and the following several, but I knew that there were perch down there taking swipes. Recent reports had stated that the perch were hanging around the 25 foot depth.
After quite a few bait checks and retries, I finally got one to hang on to my jig for a ride to the top. It was no wonder that I wasn't getting connections before, since this perch may have stretched out to a whopping 6 inches. Back it went and I continued to try at different depths.
It was a long time before I felt any other bumps and those only came from the bottom. Another tiny perch came and went before something actually put a bend in my rod. It was a nice thick female rainbow of 17 inches and 2 lbs, just like the ones 2 weeks before.
It was great to break up the monotony and pretty soon, more of her buddies (although much smaller) showed up for a quick visit before going back to grow larger.
After some more depth experimentation, I hooked into the fish of the day, a large male with a mighty girth.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7095.jpg
The day wore on with just enough action to keep me trying and I noticed that nobody else was having much luck at all. There were quite a few parties fishing similar depths to each other and I only heard of two fish being caught between all of them. They looked as if they were fishing too shallow in my opinion.
Right before I decided to leave, it happened. I finally got my first brown through the ice. Long time coming on that one. Pretty good size too!
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7103.jpg
Here's what the park looked like before I left. Yes, that's open water and it's got fishable ice right by it.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7104.jpg
Happy Fishing, Humans.
Finding a rainbow on the Lower is a bit of a rarity for me, especially below the Olmstead Diversion, where the special regulations end and general regs are in effect downstream from there.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7029.jpg
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7030.jpg
It came from the deeper part of this run, about 5 feet in front of the fallen branch below.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7031.jpg
With this world famous river flowing through my stomping grounds for the last 27 years, I've spent my fair share of time near its banks, although I find myself neglecting it these days. It's nice to pay it a visit from time to time when traveling to distant venues isn't on the agenda.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7035.jpg
A couple of the typical dink browns came to hand, but there was one really nice brown in the 4-5lb class that I could see right below my feet. Unfortunately, I couldn't get its attention with anything I threw at it.
Here's the best of the smaller browns that I was able to catch.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7037.jpg
Even though I was feeling awful and I had some conference championship games to watch, I stayed for awhile longer trying for that big brown, but had to call it quits. Missing both games just wouldn't fly for this football fan.
This week:
With the warmer weather over the past week, I had word that Starvation Reservoir had a lot of open water and unsafe ice, then a last minute report stated that areas near the state park boat ramp had refrozen, with 4 inches of clear ice. This I had to see.
When I pulled up to the ramp, I noted the presence of open water quite close to where I had hoped to fish. A quick ice check gave me confidence to push on.
There was a lot of older ice stacked up on the ramp, but about 100 feet out, newer ice had recently covered over a gap. I was able to drill through that quickly and measured down to the bottom, which was around 25 feet.
Immediately upon lifting my jig from the bottom, I felt a tiny bump. I missed the bite, and the following several, but I knew that there were perch down there taking swipes. Recent reports had stated that the perch were hanging around the 25 foot depth.
After quite a few bait checks and retries, I finally got one to hang on to my jig for a ride to the top. It was no wonder that I wasn't getting connections before, since this perch may have stretched out to a whopping 6 inches. Back it went and I continued to try at different depths.
It was a long time before I felt any other bumps and those only came from the bottom. Another tiny perch came and went before something actually put a bend in my rod. It was a nice thick female rainbow of 17 inches and 2 lbs, just like the ones 2 weeks before.
It was great to break up the monotony and pretty soon, more of her buddies (although much smaller) showed up for a quick visit before going back to grow larger.
After some more depth experimentation, I hooked into the fish of the day, a large male with a mighty girth.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7095.jpg
The day wore on with just enough action to keep me trying and I noticed that nobody else was having much luck at all. There were quite a few parties fishing similar depths to each other and I only heard of two fish being caught between all of them. They looked as if they were fishing too shallow in my opinion.
Right before I decided to leave, it happened. I finally got my first brown through the ice. Long time coming on that one. Pretty good size too!
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7103.jpg
Here's what the park looked like before I left. Yes, that's open water and it's got fishable ice right by it.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/justisaurus79/IMGP7104.jpg
Happy Fishing, Humans.