Utah Fishing Reports

♣ Read our fishing articles
♣ Listen to FishBytes on KSL Outdoors
♣ Take a SkyCall satellite phone on your next adventure
♣ Follow me on Twitter

Rec Property

Soldier Summit Cabin:
- 12.86 acre lot
- 3,054 Square Feet
- 2 Bedrooms, 3 Bathrooms
- Family Room & Den
- Hardwood Floors
- Huge Kitchen and Large Dining Room
- 1160 sq ft basement framed for family room, 2 bdrms, 1 bath

What's New

Super Fisherman Challenge
I'm about to launch a friendly fishing challenge and want to give you folks a sneak preview. I'd appreciate any feedback you may want to give.

The challenge: Catch 9 different kinds of fish between now and April 1. The first 5 people to accomplish that goal will get $50 gift certificates to a local tackle shop. See details.

Nine different kinds of fish - is that too easy? Too hard? Is $50 enough of an incentive?

The idea is to encourage people to try fishing new waters for new species. Many guys go to Strawberry, week after week, year after year. They drive past the white bass in Utah Lake and the perch and walleye in Deer Creek. It would be nice to see people spread out a bit and try new things.

Adventure Community
Another goal of the Super Fisherman Challenge is to introduce the new community section on my website. I've added forums and some tools to help people interact and get to know others with similar interests.

I believe it's important to encourage new anglers by sharing good information. I also believe it is important for experienced anglers to get to know newbies and invite them on fishing trips. I'd like to promote that kind of interaction.

For years, people have encourage me to add forums to my website. I've resisted because several good forums already exist - why add a new one? I've finally acquiesced because I think I they may help me accomplish some specific goals.

If you read good forums you will be exposed to new ideas and you may learn about new places to fish and techniques to try. However, on most forms the good info is somewhat hard to find. Posts aren't indexed very well and good ones get buried. I think I can make it easy for people to find posts with good information.

My forums aren't perfect. I'm still polishing them up to bring out their full potential. I'm offering several forums that are very specific. For example, I think Strawberry warrants a forum of it's own. The Strawberry forum may never draw a tremendous number of posts, but I will try hard to encourage relevant posts and let the best information rise to the surface. I'll add and remove forums as I gauge interest.

My inspiration comes from www.wayneswords.com. Wayne Gustaveson provides a tremendous service by sharing his personal knowledge about Lake Powell, and by encouraging others to share their information. Wayne's website isn't fancy but it does the job. I'd like to provide a similar service for Strawberry, and for Flaming Gorge, and maybe some other waters. I don't have Wayne's extensive knowledge, but if several of us work together we may be able to get something going that is valuable.

Between the new forums and my fishing wiki concept, I think it can work. Please give me feedback: dave@redrockadventure.com.

Our recent warm weather has slowed the freeze on waters like Jordanelle, Rockport and Echo. They could become solid any day now, but with these mild days it may yet be a week or more main-lake areas are safe on those waters.

Basic ice fishing techniques are working for trout and perch. Many fish are caught on Rat Finkies tipped with wax or mealworms. It really helps if you have a fish finder or flasher so you know how deep the fish are. If you don't see some action within 20-30 minutes, move to a new spot. When you are ice fishing, location can be very important. Success may be dead slow in one spot and very good just a few yards away.

Ice fishermen tend to be gregarious. Most are happy to saw how they are doing, what's working and what's not. You don't want to encroach on their fishing spots - don't drill holes right next to them - but don't hesitate to say hello and politely ask how they are doing.

In shallow water, noise can put off the bite. Don't stomp around on the ice. Many people use snowmobiles and ATVs to get to fishing spots, and that's ok but the fish might not bite for a few minutes after a machine moves over the area. Don't race around on the ice just for fun. If the fish are deep the noise factor isn't as important, but you should still do what you can to minimize noise and vibrations.

Fly fishing is decent on the Green, Provo, Weber and Blacksmith Fork. Steve Schmidt reports, "Midges have already started to produce some very good fly fishing opportunities. They are early this year and typically when we see them at this time of year, they pop right into the New Year and offer up some pretty consistent fly fishing opportunities. Just about all techniques are producing; dry fly, nymph and soft hackles. Streamers will produce, but they aren't near as productive as they were earlier in the fall." Read his complete report.

Below we list some popular waters that should offer safe ice fishing this weekend.
- Strawberry
- Scofield
- Electric Lake
- Huntington Reservoir
- Otter Creek Reservoir
- Mantua Reservoir
- Currant Creek Reservoir
- Panguitch Lake
- Utah Lake
- Causey Reservoir
- Pelican Lake
- Grantsville Reservoir
- Mantua
- Starvation
- Red Fleet
- Steinaker