Pete Drochelman and John Walker took their annual fishing trip to explore new locations and strange new waters. We are sort of the starship Enterprise of the FATC. This year’s destination was Utah. Neither of us had ever been fishing out there but we had heard there was good fishing, so we decided to give it a try.
Like last year’s trip to Idaho, we elected to go with an Orvis endorsed lodge for this first time out there. We stayed 3 days at the Falcon’s Ledge Lodge in Mountain View, Utah, which is nestled in the Uinta Mountain Range. The scenery in this part of Utah was beautiful, a mix of high desert, mesas and mountain forests. The lodge is excellent with superb meals and provided Orvis fishing gear: rods, reels, waders, flies, etc.
This area has several creeks and small rivers, so it was all wading this trip which both Pete and I prefer. We fished 3 different waters: the Yellowstone Creek, Rock Creek and the Strawberry River. This area has multiple trout species, Brook, Brown, Rainbow, Cutthroat and Tiger. Tiger trout, what is that you may ask? We did not know either, but they are the sterile offspring of a Brown and Brook trout. We were especially interested in Brook trout as Pete had never caught one and I had only caught a few that were all very small. So, this trip was going to give us an opportunity to hopefully catch a couple of nice Brookies.
We fished Yellowstone Creek the most. It is a relatively fast-moving freestone creek with lots of boulders, providing lots of pocket water and slower moving seems where fish were holding. Pete also found a nice slower moving side channel that was very productive. For this creek we fished almost exclusively a PMX with an emerger dropper. The majority of the fish took the PMX (a small hopper variant) but we also caught a few on the emerger fly. We had a lot of luck on the Yellowstone on Day 1, catching double digit Rainbows and Brook trout.
Day 2 we returned to fish both above and below the spots we fished on Day 1. This also included starting at a small reservoir and working our way upstream. Pete did very well on Day 2 catching numerous Brookies and Rainbows. Perhaps basking in the glow of the two really nice fish the day before, John did less well but still managed to catch a couple of Rainbows and Brooks. Again, the PMX + dropper was the rig of choice.
To break it up on Day 3, we spent the morning at Rock Creek, which is a tailwater coming out of a large reservoir and fishes somewhat like Yellowstone Creek. I redeemed myself a little bit from Day 2 and caught several rising Brook trout in the morning and Pete had a solid effort as well.
In the afternoon, we decided to go for size and traveled to the Strawberry River which has a reputation for not yielding many fish, but the ones caught are generally pretty big. There is only a small section of river to fish as most of it runs through Indian tribal land which is prohibited. We switched up flies on the Strawberry to large hoppers with Copper John droppers. Dodging rain and some hail we managed to fish this pretty river for a few hours with a big payoff, for Pete at least. Towards the end of the day a big Brown took Pete’s Copper John. After a nice fight Pete landed a 21.5” Brown trout. Then, with the heavens about to erupt, we decided it was time to leave, ending our great trip.
We really enjoyed Utah. The Uinta Mountains were very beautiful and offered some great fishing in a spot we had never been before. The lodge was awesome and treated us great. The guides were excellent and had some great recommendations for other future spots to try in Utah.
We are still working on next year’s “Starship Enterprise” adventure, but we are considering Oregon, Maine, or a different spot in Utah. We are also considering trying a trip with 4 guys. Pete especially requested this (“No I didn’t”), so he doesn’t have to put up with me all by himself. So, if you’ve ever wanted to try something new, let us know, we’d love to have a couple more.
