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Any Southwest Utah Stream Reports
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12-30-2017, 07:26 PM
Anyone fish the small streams of the SW corner of Utah lately? Used to be a few that would make the trek into Beaver Dam Wash on here- that’s what I’m most interested in overall. Leeds Creek always fishes fine if not blown out or frozen over. Did fish ever get re-establish in Browse- I’m assuming not. Not really interested in anything much above 4000 ft as I’m considering a trip in the next 2 months.
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02-20-2018, 01:25 AM
Well I did make it to southwest Utah for several days. Friday I fished Leeds Creek for about 90 minutes. I got skunked and didn’t even see a fish. Ran into one other person fishing and he said he had 2 strikes but didn’t land either in an hour of fishing. Saturday I headed out on the long rough drive above Motoqua to Beaver Dam Wash. it’s a good 90 minutes from St George mostly on dirt roads and fairly rough. It has about 8 creek crossings to get up by the cabin and the start of the wilderness area. Then I usually hike for 30 minutes to find trout. Well everything was going as planned but in the first half hour I didn’t see any trout or fish at all. Usually once you start seeing some spinedace in there the trout will show up in the next mile.At this point I realize it’s going to be a slow day but it’s such a commitment to get in there I stick it out. Long story short is that I hike half way to the Nevada border before I finally pick up 4 dinks under 6 inches. Then several hours hike back out without a trail. Beautiful place and the Basalt Canyon in there had the start of it’s typical Presidents Day caddis hatch even if there were no trout to feed on them this year. Now Sunday was my birthday and I went to check out a new stretch of water a few locals told me about previously but I never fished as the dogs were along on previous trips. Anyway it was a little bigger stream than the others but still only about 15 cfs so quite small. I start of with a bh prince but after 5 minutes, no strikes and the water looking very fishy I switched to a size 12 pearl zonker. About 5 casts later I hook up with my first fish. Only problem is it’s bigger than I planned. I’m using my 5’8” 1 weight, battenkill 1 click and pawl with a 6x tippet. It makes a couple of deep runs upstream but then I convince him to turn down stream and land him on a gravel bar. Nice 20 inch brown. The colder water slowing him down helped in landing him in about 90 seconds. In the next 5 minutes I hook into a couple more but lose about a16 inch brown probable because of my gingerly hookset on my ultralight set up. I do catch a 14 inch Cutthroat. Fishing was steady including a 18 inch sucker. Then about an hour later a few wind gust in front of the advancing storm intermittently blow interfering with casting and line drift. Fishing slows down. I spot a nice hole with a log across the stream. I decide to fish it and call it a day. The wind holds off and right in front of the long I hook into one. I convince him not to go downstream under the log with my 1 wt putting on a good bend. He comes upstream and I quickly land a 16 inch brown. I’m untangling my line after let him swim off and I’m thinking maybe I should fish a little longer. The Fishing Gods remind me their birthday gift is over and not to get greedy by blasting me with a 40 mph wing gust. My hat that is cinched tight under my chin blows down knocking my sunglasses off my nose. I thank them for the warm sunny day and great fishing and take their advise and head back to the car.
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02-20-2018, 04:58 AM
Awesome adventure and great fish. Thanks for the story!
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