I heave a rule: when the weather is nice then go fishing. Today it was and so I did.

It was a delightful day and I had great fun fishing, event thought action was a bit slow. The air temperature was warm, the sunshine felt very nice and it was very nice to get out.

I choose to fish Diamond Fork, which is just minutes from my home. The level was low and the water was crystal clear. Before starting to fish I walked to the middle of a bridge to survey the water. As I paused, I saw a nice fish scurry for cover. The fish was about 50 feet away, and I had walked softly, yet it sensed my presence and disappeared into overhanging brush.

When I saw that I knew it would be a hard to catch the skittish fish. It is almost impossible to sneak up on them, and very difficult to fool them when they know you are around.

I saw a few midge flying above the stream but no bugs on the water and no fish rising. I considered fishing small nymphs along the bottom but finally elected to try some minnow imitations. I had several fish bump my hook but they failed to hang on. The fish were lethargic and strikes were soft.

My nephew, Kevin, fished worms slowly along the bottom. He used enough weight to keep his offering bumping the bottom in the deeper holes. He reported several light bites and he managed to hook and land a few browns and one cutthroat. He said the fish took the bait so softly you could not feel the strike. He kept his line tight and watched it carefully. If the line stopped or moved funny, he lifted it up and sometimes felt the weight of a fish.

The stream was accessible with little snow of ice. It felt like late March, not mid-February. A cold storm is expected tomorrow but I suspect unseasonably warm weather will return quickly. I suspect we are on the front edge an early spring. Conditions will probably be even better within a couple weeks, and I suspect at that time we will start seeing decent bug action. I'll looking forward to an early spring.

It was nice to get out, nice to find that my waders still fit.

- Dave Webb

Stripers are now active on the upper end of Lake Powell. www.wayneswords.com offers the best fishing info for the lake. Wayne Gustaveson is the Utah DWR project leader for the lake and he updates fishing conditions weekly from March through October. His site also has a buletin board where readers post good information.

Here's the latest post:

"Just came home from one of the best trips ever. Located a few small schools on the high spots in striper city from 35-40 ft. Also caught a dozen walleye while jigging a kastmaster. Then I found a really large school in 55 ft in the mouth of trachyte on the west side. The school was so large it was 25ft thick. When a striper was brought up the whole school followed. As soon as I could get the spoon over the side you could catch another at less than fifteen ft. by myself I caught 42 and one walleye in just over an hour. I had to just drive off and leave them. It would be a great place to take kids. Most of the time you did not even have to jig your spoon. There is a small rock island and the school was located straight towards white canyon from that island. Also caught a few crappie just north of Farley canyon."