Saturday we ventured south to Scofield Reservoir in the Manti La-Sal Mountains. We started the morning off at 4:30 am loading up and hitching up to the Fish Steeler, on the road by 5:00 am. Stopping to pick up breakfast and fishing supplies and at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon by 5:30 am and on our way. We made it on the water by 7:00 am. When we launched we were the only boat on the water which we thought was strange for a Saturday morning but as the day progressed more boats launched and pulled into their favorite spots. Had rigs in the water by 7:15 and our first fish in the boat by 7:20 am we were thinking alright it is going to be a great day! Max got the first fish to the boat and Jim and I looked at it said "Oh great a chub!" Max was elated he reeled in the first fish of the day and was all about getting some more.
Utah Chub a non-game fish of the waters in Utah in our view are trash fish that choke out the game fish. We had fished the reservoir a few times during ice season and we got some nice Cutthroat Trout and a couple Tiger Trout and only a couple chub. The reports had been that the reservoir was choked out with chubs but with our winter season results we thought we would be good for some nice action on Tigers and Cutthroats. Much to our dismay the reports seemed to be correct.
We trolled the entire lake and we did our civic duty to remove as many of the chub as possible. It was a great day for Max he caught so many fish by 10:00 am he was tired of reeling them in and just waited for the trout. We did finally manage to get a nice Brown Trout on the dam leg of the reservoir and its belly was full of eggs as it puked them up on the deck! We quickly released it back to the water. We continued to fish running all different types of combinations of lures and colors trying to entice just the trout to hit but most times we couldn't even get our line out far enough to get the reel set before we had another chub online. As we trolled you could the schools of chub on the surface some of them looked like there were 100's of fish in them.
We did manage six trout for the day, two Tiger trout, two Rainbow trout and two Brown trout. None of them had any size to them, most of the chub being caught were heavier than the trout. By 10:30 am Max was spent and ready to go and wanted to run the "big motor", so we put things away and readied the boat for the "big motor". He loves to run fast in the boat. The day couldn't have turned out better for having my grandson on the boat he caught so many fish he was exhilarated with each catch but had, had enough of the "stinky chub". We finished the morning off with over 40 chub, keeping the bigger ones for fillets of bait meat for other outings the others became fertilizer. We each had fun and never got bored with hits and catches happening every few minutes. It was fun for me to watch Max get excited about fishing and just being outside with his dad and me. It was also fun trying to figure out what would catch just the trout and not entice the chub.
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