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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