I had wanted to go on another fishing trip with my boys for quite a while. Although they don’t share my passion, I always hoped it might be cultivated over time. It had been a couple years since I took Brian and his friends to Cave Lake and Great Basin National Park, and about five years since Tom, Doug, and I went on a tour of northeastern Nevada that included the Ruby Marshes, Illipah Reservoir, Cave Lake, Silver Creek, and Great Basin National Park. Now that they are older I thought they might appreciate the fishing experience a little more and be better able to master the technical nuances of fishing. They seemed interested in the trip (or was it just mid-summer boredom), so we planned a mid-week trip around Doug’s days off.
Utah Fish and Wildlife manages Kolob as a Blue Ribbon water. Anglers must use artificial lures and all trout must be released – except one fish over twenty-two inches. These regulations produce larger trout (which also benefit from the large crayfish that inhabit the reservoir). This trip would also be my first trip to Kolob Reservoir. Preoccupied by the lure of large trout, I miscalculated the possibility of large trout could incentivize the boys. I failed to consider the trade-off for catching large trout in this vast reservoir would be that there are fewer of them to catch. Nonetheless, off we went on Tuesday morning toward Kolob with fat rainbows on our mind.
Tom was in need of driving time for his learners permit, so he drove us to St. George. From there Doug drove us up to Kolob. There were a series of wildfires along I-15 that kept a haze over the land for over a week, and so our drive up north was blanketed in an ash-colored haze. Upon reaching St. George we could see the hot spots on the Pine Valley Mountains. We could smell the smoke in the air when we stopped for lunch. I recall hoping that the fires didn’t harm the Pine Valley area.
Taking Utah Highway 9 to Virgin, we proceeded up the Kolob Terrace Road. I think Doug enjoyed driving up this long, winding road, but since he had to keep his eye on the road he missed much of the beauty. We did not stop for pictures because we had planned to return the next day, and I thought we’d stop for sightseeing on the way down, maybe even hike a trail. Tom took one picture of the sandstone formations which was quite good considering it was from the moving truck. Unfortunately, we did not return the next day so the scenery will have to live on in our memories, perhaps encouraging us to return another day.
Once at the reservoir, the comedy act of “Tom & Brian” was in full force. While Doug and I got down to the “serious business” of preparing to fish the reservoir, Tom and Brian manifested into goofy characters that reminded me of the Martin/Akroyd Saturday Night Live routine, “Two Wild & Crazy Guys.” They began filming a “Dolphin Feesh” documentary, which can only be explained through viewing the nauseatingly erratic filming technique employed by Brian as the camera dangled from his neck while running from man-eating damsel flies or while attempting to dump in a stool-style camping toilet. But I digress…
A stiff breeze was blowing towards the eastern shoreline where we launched our first fishing assault. I brought three float tubes, one each for Brian, Doug, and me. Tom said he wasn’t interested in fishing, but I brought an extra rod for him anyway. I knew from my own experience that it would take a while for Doug and Brian to get the hang of the tubes. The stiff breeze would add to the difficulty. But to my surprise, Brian declined to use a tube. I guess he was having too much fun making the “Dolphin Feesh”documentary. Doug wanted to try fly fishing, adding yet another layer of complexity; not only would he have to learn how to maneuver the tube so he wouldn’t be blown where he didn’t want to go, he would also have to learn the physics of casting a fly rod.
We first concentrated on the float tube: kick paddling for best propulsion with minimal water disturbance, and controlling direction by strategically employing one foot or the other. After that we worked on the casting. I am not the best at describing the physics of fly casting, so I was not an effective instructor. I was able to teach Doug how to let out line while kick paddling; sort of a float tube version of trolling. After what seemed like a couple of hours, I had one strike that I missed and caught one five-inch rainbow… a little disappointing although, technically, not a skunking.
At Brian’s urging, late in the afternoon we drove over to the western side of the reservoir, just past the Kolob Creek inlet. As we pulled up to the shallow shoreline, we noted large trout rolling and slurping about seventy feet off the shoreline. Doug and I quickly got into our tubes to advance on the feeding fish. These were definitely the “Dolphin Feesh” Brian said we were hunting for. Once out on the lake, huge trout continued to rise and slurp bugs all around us. Unfortunately, I neglected to bring the floating line in the tube so we could fish on the surface of the water; so both Doug and I were stuck using sink-tip lines. It became obvious that these fat trout were only feeding on the hatch, which looked to be Caddis flies. I can fish all day and catch nothing as long as I know there are large trout to be caught. But the boys were beginners and needed to catch lots of fish to have fun, which I completely understood. So, on the way off the Kolob Terrace we decided we needed to fish someplace else the next day. I thought that Little Reservoir outside Beaver could be good, and with the July 4th weekend approaching I correctly assumed that it would have been recently stocked with lots of catchable trout. So we kept going until we reached Cedar City for a good night’s sleep.
The next day Tom drove us up through Beaver and on to Little Reservoir. Doug decided to forgo the float tube and the fly rod, deciding rather to spin cast from the shore. I rigged up the three spinning rods for them to use, and then launched myself in the float tube. I hooked three trout in a row as soon as I got out into the middle of the lake (true, as supported by Brian’s video tape). Shortly thereafter the boys started catching trout. Brian and Tom caught three each, and Doug caught about ten. Doug became the official “trout releaser” as neither Tom nor Brian wanted to extract the flies from the trout mouths.
As for me, I lost count, but Brian estimated I caught about twenty trout. That might have included about five that came off the hook before I brought them to hand. Nothing big, but lots of action.
During those three and one-half hours at Little Reservoir we saw a yearling mule deer come down for a drink, a beautiful yellow-breasted finch with a red head, and several domesticated ground squirrels that readily took peanuts from the boys. All in all, I think everyone had an enjoyable afternoon. Perhaps we’ll come back some day and try the Anderson or LaBaron Reservoirs. Regardless, I was happy that Little Reservoir put the Kolob memories behind us.
