Currant Creek / Scofield / Beaver Ponding
Last week, my family and I spent Sunday evening at Currant Creek Reservoir. With quite a bit happening in our personal lives lately, it was the best we could do to get out at all, so we were happy to go.
The road going up was dry and in pretty good shape, aside from some rocks that found their way down the hillsides. Nothing hairy though.
Starting at the north end, Low Pass Creek was running muddy and the piped-in Duchesne wasn't crystal clear, but not too bad. Overall, the was on the murky side at the north end.
Up there, I only managed one cutthroat on a jig and decided to try the dam instead.
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Though we didn't even get to the lake until about 3:00 in the afternoon, we still had plenty of good daylight to give it a go.
At the dam, water clarity was noticeably better. We didn't see any minnows along the dam yet, but it shouldn't be too long. The tigers were there, and I got quite a few bites and misses to every catch. Quick hits or tail bites on the Gulp minnows were the norm.
A few of those misses were a shame to lose because I was fighting some good sized fish. I ended up holding only one fish over 20" though:
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Some rainbows were on the prowl as well, so a few made it in for a greet n' go. They were looking healthy and fought well. Most were around this size:
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People are wondering if the ice is gone. It looks as though the snow is almost gone!
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Sonia had been fishing the whole time with only one bite on a worm under a bubble. That one got away, so when the bite turned on later, I handed her my rig to throw while I checked the lonely minnow trap.
Right away, she was getting bites, but wasn't having much luck keeping them on. Finally, one stuck and she had her first catch in awhile.
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It was a really nice evening. We fished until the sun hit the mountain and drove back home. Even for a short amount of time, Currant Creek can be a lot of fun. My greatest days there have been best in the evenings.
SATURDAY (MAY 10)
My buddy Keala was in town this past weekend and he and I went fishing. We followed a hunch of mine about a stream with beaver ponds on it that I'd never spent very much time fishing, but always wanted to. The hopes were that we'd stumble upon a reclusive population of big cutts and browns (and maybe more) in them.
The reality though, was a good hour of marching the stream without ever really finding much fish. One hole I managed to haphazardly stomp into once I'd let my guard down had at least 5 fish in it. Most were pretty impressive for that size of stream too! There were a couple pushing 18 or more, I would guess.
Naturally, we didn't find any more fish for awhile until I watched a decent cutthroat with a lot of color move across a riffle behind an undercut horn of land around a bend.
It might have been how I held my hand up to signal Keala to stop, or maybe it was the startled expletive, but he obliged and I tossed my Gulp right behind the fish. At first, it didn't flinch, but as I hopped my jig past his right side, he swooped and I had a beautiful specimen from a small stream.
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All dressed up for the party at the end of the month.
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After that, we there was again, no sign of life for some time. We decided to follow a fork in the stream and actually found some fish that would show themselves. They were pretty small.
Eventually, Keala hooked into a tiny cutthroat that kept aggressively nipping at his line. At that point, he was just happy to catch something.
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He started catching similar fish with more frequency and I did too, once I tied a small bead head prince nymph behind my jig.
A small fish hit that right away. It was promising, so I got the fly rod out and caught a couple on that as well. The fish were all small, but they were pretty and the surroundings were phenomenal.
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The stream was so overly inviting, it was amazing to us that we weren't catching multiple fish from every hole. Regardless, the place was really nice to explore.
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The average catch was about this size:
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Gorgeous setting.
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We had our fun, but the fishing was pretty slow for most of our time there. In the spirit of trying to get him into a big fish before leaving Utah for a number of years, we resorted to fishing Scofield Reservoir for the chance of a monster trout of some kind.
When we got there, it was a bit surprising for us to be the only people at the dam. We got right to casting and Keala struck first with the Lucky Craft. It was a medium/small cutthroat.
My own mid-cutt hit me a few minutes into it.
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A smaller tiger came awhile later, after more of the same skinny cutts and a tiny rainbow.
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The bites were coming and that was nice, but we weren't seeing anything with actual size. I caught a fat 7 inch chub that was killed (it bit a 78 pointer!) and Keala actually lobbed it out there by hand with his bale open, letting it sink to the bottom. We laughed about how great it would be if something actually grabbed that huge offering.
Well, something actually did about 15 minutes into soaking. We were both in awe as we watched line jumping from the open bale. Whatever it was, it was moving fast for about 20 seconds, then nothing. The longest seconds ticked by and the line stay slack. It was somewhat heartbreaking when Keala started reeling to feel only the resistance of the big chub.
He did catch the biggest fish of the day though, as I had predicted to his brother he would. Unfortunately, the only photo I got was from across a small bay and fish slipped at the last moment. It was a pretty nice cutthroat though.
http://i1266.photobucket.com/albums/...9.jpg~original
We called it a day without any real trophies to show for it, but it was great to see Keala again. He'll be out of state for a few years before he'll be able to come back to Utah again. It's a shame I couldn't lead us to bigger fish, but the setting was amazing.
Happy Fishing, Humans.
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