Small Mouth Bass at Jordanelle

Went fishing with my brother Kelly on Jordanelle Reservoir. We started off at 5 am on Thursday morning, drove up to Heber stopped for supplies and back on the road. Next stop Jordanelle, we pulled in at 5:45 and the sun was nowhere to be seen so we readied the boat and waited for enough light to see the lines on the ramp without lights. Launched to the boat and noticed the wind had picked up significantly. We planned on fishing for Rainbow trout in the morning and then going after some Small Mouth Bass after we limited out on trout.

With the wind blowing as bad as it was we decided to stay in the marina bay that was protected for the most part. We fished down the south bank into the bays and caught the first fish within a few minutes. The lake is loaded with small mouth bass and has large ones over 4 pounds. They have opened the lake to spearfishing and some fishers think they have devastated the large fish, but each year the UDWR find big small mouth bass in their survey. We fished for about an hour in the bay moving all the way around it and thought the wind had laid enough to go trolling in the small boat bay so we left the protection of the marina bay and found out quickly that the wind was still howling. Three to four foot swells were still rolling with whitecaps, so we went across the main body into another bay that we thought would be protected from the wind, but we were wrong. The wind was blowing directly into the bay we entered.

We still tried our luck at catching some bass but quickly tired of fighting the wind and waves and moved to the dam and into the Rock Cliff leg of the reservoir. Along the dam we got into the fish again catching a number of small mouth bass within a very short period of time. We fished along that stretch for a couple hours and continued to catch fish by the bucket full. Kelly did hook up a nice Rainbow trout and got it to the boat but it quick released as I was putting the net in to land it. Kelly started fishing a big purple worm on a drop shot and started catching fish buy the dozens most of them were small and he could not keep them off the line. We fished until noon and the wind continued to blow and started to come from all directions and down the draws we were fishing and grew tired of fighting the boat to stay in a position to catch fish. Plus we were thinking of getting a nice big garlic burger in Heber, but they were not open so we ended up at the Heber City Cafe at the Heber Creeper station. A great choice for lunch, I had a Cajun Cheeseburger special order and it was great! The day ended with the ride home and telling stories. Until next time tight lines and keep smilin'.