Flyfishing in Utha !!
Olaf Lindner
We are two students from Germany and keen Fly-Fishers.
We tapped all our sources (grandparents, 3 weeks just
water and bread) to get sufficient funds for a fishingtrip
over to the North-West \ USA in mid July. We alraedy have
some information, but some only seem to be for millionairs
and others are not very specific.
So we hope there are some people out there who empathize
with our situation and can give us some tips about the
following :
- cheap Campers. The cheapest we have been able to find
is from Cruise America $430/week.
- attractive fishingwaters (dry-fly) in 1000 miles round
Salt Lake City (this is where we arriving).
- succesfull patterns (we are flytyers)
- licenses conditions and prices.
We will be gratefull for every piece of information.
Hope to meet you at the waters.
Tight Lines,
Thomas and Olaf
--
<Olaf Lindner | Technical University of Berlin >
<lin...@fb3-s7.math.tu-berlin.de | Department of Mathematics >
Bruce Pencek
>We are two students from Germany and keen Fly-Fishers.
>
>We tapped all our sources (grandparents, 3 weeks just
>water and bread) to get sufficient funds for a fishingtrip
>over to the North-West \ USA in mid July. We alraedy have
>some information, but some only seem to be for millionairs
>and others are not very specific.
>
>So we hope there are some people out there who empathize
>with our situation and can give us some tips about the
>following :
>
>- cheap Campers. The cheapest we have been able to find
> is from Cruise America $430/week.
Sorry, I can't help you on that one. You might be able to rent a car and
buy good-enough camping gear for less. (Just remember that there can be
tremendous temperature shifts from day to night and valley to mountain.)
>- attractive fishingwaters (dry-fly) in 1000 miles round
> Salt Lake City (this is where we arriving).
1000 miles is a BIG radius; it would get you to most of the famous
rivers of the Western USA. I'll confine my remarks to Utah.
The most famous ones are the Provo River, which is pretty near Salt
Lake, but not close enough to be exactly in the suburbs, and the Green
River, near Vernal, which is about four hours east of Salt Lake. It is
a famous river, for very good reasons: it has lots of big fish in it,
thanks to the combined effect of thermal control of the dam and special
regulations that prohibit killing anything between 16 and 20 inches in length.
The Green gets a lot of pressure, especially in the summer months,
especially in the first 7 miles below the Flaming Gorge Dam. It is probably
a "must" for you, since you're traveling so far for a fishing trip. The same
goes for the Provo, which I've never seriously fished.
There are a several very good, small streams in southern Utah, lovely for fly
fishing, not too terribly pounded, which we southern Nevada fish a lot (there
being very few trout streams in southern Nevada); the Las Vegas Fly Fishing
Club will be doing an outing on one of them, the Beaver River, around 24
July, if I remember correctly. (Email me if you want details; feel free to
join us if you're inclined.) The date might change, since a week ago the snow
was 7 feet deep in parts of the Sevier River drainage ... the valleys, with
14 feet on the plateau where the streams start. Runoff might not be over till
July... On one of these streams last summer (a drought year) I caught two
20" brown trout in sucessive trips, one on a size 14 tan elk-hair caddis, the
other half a mile downstream on a size 18 pheasant tail nymph. The average
trout size, of course, is less, pretty evenly divided between browns and
rainbows, with a few cutthroats and brook trout to add color. These streams
are about 4 hours, plus or minus an hour, from Salt Lake. Some of them are
the Beaver, Sevier, and Fremont Rivers, and Mammoth, Asay, and Panguitch
Creeks, their various branches, tributaries, and reservoirs. (For detailed
locations -- if you decide to head south of Salt Lake rather than stay on the
Green or Provo or to head out of state to Idaho, Montana, or Wyoming -- email
me; I'm not SO generous with my information as to send it out over the net ;-)
>- succesfull patterns (we are flytyers)
I don't have my Green River notes at hand, but the new issue of "Fly FIsherman"
magazine has a story on the Green, focusing on cicadas. There are lots of
scuds there. Midges are there year-round: pupae, emergers, griffiths gnats.
Small (size 16 to infinitesimal) nymphs, such as pheasant tails, have always
worked for me. Pale morning duns. I always take a collection of caddis
patterns. Streamer fishing can be effective, though I know very few people
who've tried it. But I'm sure you'll get plenty of advice on the Green, from
people more expert than I. There are several guide services (most headquar-
tered in Salt Lake) some with fly charts in their brochures; Flaming Gorge
Lodge (Dutch John, UT, the post office for the trout-fishing part of the
river) has a very nice hatch table in theirs. (If you can get any of the
US fly fishing magazines, I'm sure you'll find ads for guides and outfitters
you could contact.)
The little streams feature fish that are much less selective, more oppor-
tunistic. You can do well with general attractor patterns like Wulffs and
Trudes, sizes 12-16, and Bivisibles, sizes 14-18. And Elk-Hair Caddises from
sizes 14 to 20, with bodies in olive, gray, and brown. (In July there's
a little dun caddis, about an 18, all over) Some of the streams in the
Sevier drainage are carpeted with cased caddis up to size 10 or so. So soft-
hackles are a good standby pattern. Black stonefly nymphs, weighted,
sizes 10-14 have been productive. I haven't seen steady, predictable may-
fly hatches on these streams, so probably the fish are less inclined than
elsewhere to key on one insect to the exclusion of others. I've found that
reducing the size of my fly has attracted more fish than changing colors has.
If you tie dries, eg Comparaduns, in olive, yellowish-tan, brown, and gray,
in sizes 14-18, some spinners in those sizes, and olive, brown, and black
midges, 20-24, you'll do fine as far as mayflies are concerned. (We're
talking around the club about pooling our notes to come up with hatch charts,
but I don't know if we'll actually do it.) Terrestrials can be effective: red
and black ants, grasshoppers, beetles, cicadas. Streamers should be good in
brown-trout streams like the Sevier, but most streamer fishing is done in the
various reservoirs; Wooly Buggers are the first choice among the lake-fishers
I know.
You don't mention what sort of rods you'll be bringing. A 9' 5 or 6 would
be a good average on the Green, though on the small streams, 7' is much
handier, since you have to fish pretty close in.
>- licenses conditions and prices.
Last year, the non-resident annual Utah fishing license cost $40. I believe
there are licenses for shorter periods as well. Most sporting goods stores,
including the sporting goods departments of discount department stores like
K-Mart and Walmart, sell them. I've never heard of any special rules for
foreign nationals. In general, the fishing season is year-round. There are
streams with special seasons, but I think they'll all be open by July. (I
haven't bought my Utah license yet, owing to the snow and my current poverty,
so I don't have the 1993 regulations at hand.)
If we in the LV Fly Fishing Club can be of any more help, just get in touch
with me; we'd love to fish and/or visit with you. We're pretty knowledgeable
about the San Juan (New Mexico) and Colorado (Lees Ferry) Rivers as well as
most of Utah.
--
* Bruce Pencek Political Science Dept UNLV Las Vegas, NV 89154-5029 |
* 702/895-4595 Internet: bpe...@nevada.edu Bitnet: bpe...@nevada2.bitnet |
* "To him, all good things -- trout as well as eternal salvation -- come by |
* grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy." Norman Maclean |