Utah Fishing Reports

Kevin Fox sent in the photo above, a brown he caught Saturday on Diamond Fork. See his report.

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What's New

International Sportsmen's Expo
The Expo is underway at the South Towne Expo Center in Draper. It's a great show. I stopped by this afternoon and enjoyed wandering around. If you want a guide, gear or info, it's the place to hook up. More info.

Utah Walleye Seminar
This annual seminar will be Monday, March 22, at 7 pm in the DWR auditorium, 1594 W North Temple, Salt Lake City. DWR biologists and walleye fishing enthusiasts will tell and show how to catch walleye in Utah waters. This is the best single source of info about walleye fishing. Be there if you want to learn to catch walleye. More info.

Sportmans Warehouse in Midvale will host a walleye fishing class on Mar 26, 6-7:30 pm.

Utah Wildlife Board Meeting
Possible changes to Utah's elk management plan and permit numbers for this fall's big game hunts are among the items members of the Utah Wildlife Board will act on when they meet March 31 in Salt Lake City. The public meeting will be held at the state capitol. It begins at 9 a.m. The public is invited and encouraged to attend. See agenda.

Combat Fishing
I call it combat fishing, when anglers are elbow to elbow, competing for space. That will be the case during the next few weeks at popular walleye spots, and on the Provo River. I prefer to avoid the crowds. If you want to fish for walleye, boat out to Bird Island on Utah Lake, or to the far dikes on Willard.

If you want to fly fish for trout, try Diamond Fork or the Weber River. The Green will start to get crowded now, but if you get away from the easy access spots you can find relative seclusion.

Jaguars in the US?
Here's one that was news to me. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is setting aside critical habitat to support the re-introduction of jaguars to the Southwestern US. Environmentalists are asking the federal government to set aside an area of the Southwest spanning more than 53 million acres across New Mexico, Arizona, Southern California and West Texas. More info.

In Utah we'd have wolves to the north and jaguars to the south. Interesting...

- Dave

The secret is to fish when the weather is nice. Storms put the fish off. If there are 2-3 nice days in a row, fish days 2 and 3. Day 3 will be the best. That's true for walleye in northern Utah and bass in Powell and Sand Hollow. Fishing will be best early and late in the day but fish may be caught at any time.

Utah Lake catfish will move into shallow areas where the water is warming. People don't usually think of catfish at this time of year, but big channel cats can be caught.

Provo River now has consistent BWO hatches, and is attracting crowds of fly fishers. Green River and other streams don't have the Mayflies yet, but midge fishing is good. The streams will fish better and better during the next few weeks, until runoff clouds the waters.

Snowpack in northern Utah is light and so runoff will probably not be heavy or last long. Southern Utah has 200% of normal snowpack in some areas and so streams there will be blown out in a few weeks. Right now they are fishing well - we have a window good fishing before the flood starts.

Lake Powell stripers are hungry. Wayne Gustaveson says he caught small stripers trolling. He then reports: "A large white bucktail jig dropped to the bottom and fished slowly within a foot of bottom enticed the bigger fish to bite. We used the smaller plankton-eating stripers to excite the bigger dormant fish and had a really great day." Read Wayne's full report. Lake Powell action will get better every week now.