Fall reservoir trout

[markkstanley]

Having recently moved to UT from Minnesota I was anxious to to try my hand at shallow water fall trout. Much like walleyes trout move shallow to feed during fall but unlike walleyes they can be caught during daylight hours. Methods used range from floating bobbers, to tossing small cranks, swimbaits and tubes and to long lining cranks and spinners (Pop gear here in UT). My sons and I opted to try Strawberry reservoir, a prime UT trout water located east of Park City at about 8,000 ft. Strawberry is managed by the UT DNR for native cutthroat trout but they also stock rainbow and konanee salmon in the lake. We launched in clear skies and 29 degree temps and immediately noticed the lake had turned over - lots of floating junk. Not the best sign but turns out it didn't matter. The plan was to start throwing baits to the shoreline while slowly moving along with the trolling motor. If that didn't work we were going to switch to long lining small cranks and spinner rigs. Since the water was a little murky we decided white was going to be the color of the day. First baits tied on were a shallow Xrap, a 4" Berkley T Tail and a white/grey flecked 4" tube jig. Three casts in and the tube jig scored this nice rainbow.

The T Tail was getting hammered but not hooking any fish and the Xrap was just getting wet. The tube jig however put another two fish in the boat in short order and the choice was made. We were missing twice as many strikes as getting hooked so a small treble hook stinger was added to the jig. Game on. We also quickly learned to key in on small main lake coves with a weed edge in 5ft and a clear sand/rock shoreline inside the edge. Casting the jig into the shore and swimming it back with an occasional twitch and fall was the key to getting a strike. And the strikes were hard. The trout were just smashing the baits. All in all we landed 19 fish in about 4 hours with all but 2 over 20". The big fish of the day taped at 27". The bigger trout would make several runs before we could get them to the net. Very fun day and plan to make a few trips. The shallow bite continues to ice over which is about late December.

Here's some pics of typical cutts we were catching.

[DTro]

Now that looks like fun!!

Sounds like you are having a good time out in UT!

Good Luck Mark

[markkstanley]

The fun is just beginning.

[Scoot]

Sweet!!! That looks like a hoot!

[MnSota8022]

right on

[Scott M]

Nice job Mark!