More Splake! And Cutts! And 1 Lonely (and large) Tiger

I'm patiently waiting, as I'm sure most of you are, for the ice to start coming off some nice, higher-elevation lakes so that I can expand my trout fishing to places besides Joe's Valley, the Strawberry and Weber Rivers, and some secret ponds and lakes that are gloriously ice-free.

Until that day, however, I'm stuck going back to Joe's Valley, it seems. I love the place. I should think about relocating to Orangeville, but I sort of have a commitment to Dixie State University, so those plans will have to wait for a while.

Anyways, I made my way out there again this Saturday, this time armed with something different than my usual jigs tipped with plastic minnows setup - I had a Lucky Craft Pointer SP65, in the ghost pattern, with me. The thing cost $16 at Sportsman's Warehouse, and I'd bought one a few weeks ago, only to lose it on the first cast. I wanted to see if these lures were all they're cracked up to be.

Well, first cast I throw that Lucky Craft out there, and I can immediately feel it doing whatever I want through my thin 8-pound fluorocarbon. I jig it, the lure falls, then stops - Lucky Craft pointers are suspending lures, they'll sit still in the water. I got it to swim side-to-side, up, down, everywhere.

And on the very first cast of the day, I got a bite. The thing made two really good runs, ripping line off my drag like no one's business. Finally, I got a really nice hefty splake to hand

Most splake in this size range at Joe's are pretty skinny, but this guy filled my hand up pretty nicely. 

I continued fishing with the Lucky Craft, and I was very pleased with it for two reasons: 1), the fish were biting it consistently, and the fight was better on that lure than on a jig. 2), I could make the lure have any presentation I wanted, at any depth, and I love that freedom. Instead of needing to change lures to a more sinking lure, or a lighter one, I could just keep the Lucky Craft on and be good. Oh, and since it's a bigger lure, only bigger fish were biting it, which was great. 

Pay close attention to that last picture - the fish had gone after the lure, attacking it sideways, as opposed to grabbing it from behind. These splake are aggressive little fish. 

Now, in between this fish and the next one, two things happened. I caught a really, really nice cutthroat, possibly the biggest I've ever caught out of Joe's Valley. The thing was incredibly gorgeous, too. Alas, he flopped back out of my hands and into the water before I could snap a picture of him. 

The second thing? I got my Lucky Craft lure snagged on a rock. My line snapped, sentencing my lure to a watery demise, and I sat on the shore cursing because for the second time in 3 weeks I'd lost a $16 lure. 

So I went back to the tried-and-true method of jigging a plastic minnow and picked up some more fish. 

The first cutthroat I got a picture of during the day. 

Really pretty coloration on that last splake there.

And, a really pretty cutthroat.

Now, I did land a sizable fish today. I was fishing in the deepest water you can from shore, against the wind, and I'd tossed my jig about 20 feet straight up the shore from me, maybe all of five or so feet off shore. I had the jig about 2 feet from me when I saw a large dark green back come up and attack my jig. 

I set the hook, and the fish took off back into deeper water. However, the waves were really doing a great job of crashing against the rocks and pushing everything back towards me, and I was keeping the fish high in the water, so he just got pushed back. As he was almost into shore and my eagerly waiting hands, he decided he had one more fight left in him, swam off, and jumped straight out of the water twice. 

Finally, a few seconds later, I got the fish in and a guy who recognized me from this blog (he was fishing just up shore and had come to see what the ruckus was) came and offered to take pictures of my day's best catch. 

19 inches long, 2.5 pounds fat. Not a half bad fish at all. 

It was a great Saturday, if an exhausting one. Here's to hoping next week's adventure is just as epic. 

Joe's Valley Round....5?

I've lost track of how many trips I've made out to Joe's Valley lately. It's fast becoming one of my favorite places to fish - it's remote, I've never been skunked there, and I always run into a few nice fish whenever I pay that lonely little reservoir a visit.

I took a break from the normal routine of waking up at 5 to go fish on Saturday mornings and made my way to the lake around 11:30. The wind was only supposed to reach 12 mph gusts today, and for the most part that held true I think. It got windy but not to the point that I couldn't fish.

How can you not fall in love with this place? The background photo of this blog is actually a super high-res pic of this exact spot on Joe's Valley Reservoir from November. I lugged along a couple Nikon's and a few Sony video cameras to record that trip. If you haven't seen the video, it's below. 

The huge boulders, towering cliffs that look as if they're about to topple over with the next gust of heavy wind, the pines mixed with juniper and pinion, all set in the foothills of the Manti-LaSalle mountains...it's an amazing place, Joe's Valley. 

Anyways, I did catch some fish, too. The first fish took a little longer than usual to get into - I was probably fishing for nearly an hour before I caught this guy. One of the pale, fat Joe's Valley cutthroats. 

Next up were some of the resident splake ready to play. I honestly feel as if Joe's Valley is a better splake fishery than just about anywhere else in the state. Granted the DWR did plant 39,000 of them in there in 2013, but still. 

That last one was really pretty - very dark with the bright spots on the body. These splake trout are just gorgeous. 

Now, something odd happened to me at Joe's Saturday, which hardly ever happens - I missed probably 6 or 7 fish. I brought probably 2 dozen to hand (I lost count and didn't take pictures of all the fish) but I missed plenty, too. My hooksets were solid, but I was fighting against some tall waves and stronger wind later in the day. Maybe my fishing juju was just a little off on Saturday. 

Regardless, I kept on, fearlessly fishing in hopes of bringing more fish to hand so I'd have enough material for a blog post to sate the desires of my avid readers. Alright, that last bit was pretty Rush Limbaugh-esque, but hey, a kid can dream right? 

I hooked some more cutts in between all these splake, but they all squirmed away before I could take a picture. 

More splake. 

The scientific term for this fancy-schmancy patterning on the backs of brook, lake, and splake trout is "vermiculation." Not sure where I heard that, but it's gotta be true. 

Now, this next fish is something I need to brag about for a second. I was fishing on the eastern cliffs, right where it's deep and lots of boulders provide a lot of cover for the fish to hang out. This time of year, all the fish are holding closer to shore and are relatively easy to catch, so long as you can figure out how deep they are and what they want to eat. Bear in mind, I don't have a fish finder and was fishing from shore all day. 

The wind was the worst at this point in the day, and the waves were crashing pretty good up against the rocks. I was getting wet from the spray, and the water was so rough that even with my 4-pound fluorocarbon line and light-action rod, I was still having a hard time feeling my jig in the water.

The sun was shining on the beautiful aquamarine water, but as I jigged a minnow on a 1/16th oz jig head through the boulders, I glanced to my right and saw a nice solid wall of black clouds making their way towards me. 

Then, as I was just about to pack up and head out before the worst of the storm hit, I glanced down as my jig was getting in close to shore, and saw a nice sized fish come and swallow it, all of two feet off shore. 

I set the hook in a fashion reminiscent of Bill Dance (I almost fell in the water here, wish I had someone filming it), let out a hearty holler that Homer Simpson himself would begrudgingly compliment, and watched as the fish took off with my lure into deeper water. 

Remember - waves are crashing against the rocks and getting me wet, a storm is blowing in, and I almost fell into the lake. That all happened within about 30 seconds. Kind of crazy. 

After about five minutes, some tightening of my drag, a few curse words and another near slip into the water, I pulled out this solid 18 inch, 2 pound splake. 

A nice, solid fish. 

This guy and another splake became dinner for me Saturday night. I'm on a tight budget until payday, and I'll take an easy-to-cook meal any way I can get it! 

Next weekend I'll be trying some rivers for the first time this year, so hopefully I'll have something worth reporting on. Until then, keep your lines wet and your reels humming.

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