Mid-March fishing southeastern Utah fishing report

By Sun Advocate

•Abajo Mountains. Sergeant J. Shirley reports good fishing at Blanding number four reservoir. Fishing has been slow at Recapture Reservoir.
•Cleveland Reservoir. Deep snow around the shoreline makes access difficult. Very little fishing pressure.
•Electric Lake. Fishing has been fair. The lake remains iced over.
•Gigliotti Pond. The pond is ice-free. Conservation Officer Chris Pugliese says that fishing with nightcrawlers was good over the weekend.
•Huntington Creek. Try a number 12 beadhead Montana nymph, drifted along the bottom.
•Huntington North State Park. Ice is off. The water level is very low and will remain that way until work on the dam gates and spillway is completed in April. Jerry Jones fished last night and caught eight rainbows and a bass on a gold Jake’s Spin-a-Lure. Over the weekend, fishing was fair with a worm dangling four feet below a bobber. Conservation Officer Chris Pugliese says that crawdad fishing has been good.
•Mammoth Reservoir. A blanket of snow covers a thick ice pack. Bring a snow shovel and auger extension. Fishing success has been sporadic, ranging from slow to fair. Try a chartreuse or white jig tipped with a nightcrawler and salmon egg, fished 12 inches off the bottom. Tiger trout range from 12-17 inches. Closed to the possession of cutthroat trout.
•Joes Valley Reservoir. Fishing is not recommended until ice-off. The ice cap is thinning dangerously. Special regulations apply. Please refer to the 2007 fishing guide.
•Lake Powell. The big high pressure system parked over the west this week is warming the surface of Lake Powell. In the morning the surface temperature is in the low 50’s but by afternoon the sun warms it to almost 60 F. The warm water layer is thin but cold-blooded fish really like warming water.
Fishing has not “taken off” in the main lake. It will take a few more warm windless days for fish to get active. But that is exactly what the weather forecast predicts. The key water temperature is 57 in the morning with warming to the mid 60’s in the afternoon. When that happens spring fishing will peak. The question will be if the current warm weather pattern allows that to happen in March.
If warming continues then bass spawning can happen as early as the last week of March or first week of April. The normal bass spawning period begins in mid April. An early spawn precedes snowmelt runoff and provides better fishing than late spawning that occurs while the lake is rapidly rising. Take a close look at the weather patterns and plan a spring trip accordingly.
The most active fish right now are largemouth bass. They are near brush and often in shallow water warming their backs in the sun. They can be caught on a wide variety of lures from the standard plastic grubs and tubes, to spinner baits and jerk baits. The best time to fish is late afternoon with water temperature at its peak. Cloudy water warms quicker than clear water but finding brush is important. This week bass may be caught in clear brushy water just as well as in cloudy brushy water.
The best fishing location is the northern lake from Farley and White Canyons down to Scorup Canyon. With shad still common in this stretch look for good early activity from bass, stripers and walleye. Good catches of healthy stripers were recently reported from these northern canyons on anchovy bait. Stripers are sluggish in the rest of the lake with only a few fish being caught. Stripers will be more active in the afternoon and at night for those that like to fish “under the lights”.
For those coming to Lake Powell from water infested with quagga mussel, please make sure to wash any boat coming in and inspect it for hitchhiking adult mussels. Don’t bring these unwanted nuisance shellfish to Lake Powell.
•Lasal Mountains. Kens Lake has thawed. Tom Ogden fished from a tube on Saturday, but battled high wind. He used a number eight copper-colored wooly bugger and hooked two fish. Brown trout range from 12-15 inches. Mountain reservoirs remain frozen and inaccessible.
•Lower Fish Creek. Tom Ogden recommends a number eight beadhead San Juan Worm, a number 12 beadhead hares ear, or a number 12 beadhead Montana nymph.
•Millsite Reservoir. State Park Manager Dan Richards reported that the reservoir opened up over the weekend, he fished with his son and each took a limit of fish, trolling spoons behind his boat. Bait fishing from shore has been fair to good with worms and PowerBait.
•Scofield Reservoir. Fishing success has been sporadic, ranging from poor to good, depending on the day and angler expertise. Reports of “slow” fishing far outnumber reports of “good” fishing. Shoreline ice tends to be soft and slushy, although the ice pack itself remains solid. Try a chartreuse tube jig, tipped with a mealworm and salmon egg. Some anglers have been using a nightcrawler tipped with PowerBait.