# Fall Fishing



## brfisherman17 (Jan 21, 2011)

In the past few weeks, I've been catching all kinds of fish. I went to the Provo River, Salem Pond, Maple Lake, Utah Lake, and Mantua Reservoir. I've had more success than I hoped for! 

Lower Provo: I caught several brown trout one day on a spinner and flies. The next, I find myself hooked into Walleye, Bass, and Pike on creature baits and flukes from the float tube. It was unpredicatable, and ya gotta love that!

Salem Pond: I hit the pond early a couple of mornings and in the middle of the day at other times. Fishing from float tube, I could not keep the Bass away! one of the days I found a hole where I caught 5 on my first 5 casts! On the other days, I caught at least 2 per outing. Big ones surprised me including a few 2-3lbs and my biggest Bass to date that weighed in at 6lbs! Caught on topwater, spinnerbaits, creaturebaits, and jerkbaits.

Maple Lake: I arrived at 10:30AM and stayed until 3:00PM. I was the only person fishing the entire day! Had the lake to myself. I caught close to 20 trout on spinners and dry flies. Mostly planters, but some were quite large. I stuck 4 Brook Trout as well. Awesome day, fished from the shore all the way around the lake.

Utah Lake: VERY shallow and not much action. Caught 30 or so White Bass at the state park, and a 25" Channel Cat on a bass jig strangely enough.

Mantua: Fished it for a few hours from shore and got a few hits on topwater frogs. Landed 2 decent Bass on a spinnerbait, and a big Perch on a dropshotted finesse worm.

It was awesome to get out to these waters and enjoy the beautiful colors or fall. Hopefully I can get out a few more times before the weather gets too bad. >>O

Here's my "Fall Fishing 2014" video


----------



## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

Wow, that's quite a pike for the Provo river. Is this the first one you've caught there?

On a random side note, I find it interesting that if you catch a pike in Utah Lake, you legally must keep it, but if you catch it in the Provo river, you have the option to let it go. That regulation might need to be examined and revised in the future.

Good job on the video.


----------



## brfisherman17 (Jan 21, 2011)

Yep, first Pike ever. It was quite a surprise catching it on a creaturebait when I was fishing for Bass.


----------



## Dunkem (May 8, 2012)

Nice video,thanks for posting.8)


----------



## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Sweet catches on the river! I can't get those LMB to cooperate with me on my lunch breaks, so it's nice to see someone getting the love.

Nice pike too.

See any turtles there? There are a couple of pretty big ones near my spots.


----------



## brfisherman17 (Jan 21, 2011)

Yeah, I see a lot of turtles. Most of them are just common pet turtles, but one of my buddies found a bigger one in the mud and caught it. The DWR identified it as a snapping turtle. Strange.


----------



## spencerD (Jan 14, 2014)

brfisherman17 said:


> Yeah, I see a lot of turtles. Most of them are just common pet turtles, but one of my buddies found a bigger one in the mud and caught it. The DWR identified it as a snapping turtle. Strange.


I used to live in St. George, and there was a little pond not too far from my house home to a bunch of smallmouth and bluegill. I was chucking flies for the little bluegill one day when I saw a giant snapping turtle start chasing my bluegill around!

One thing led to another, and the snapping turtle ended up grabbing the bluegill in its mouth. I hauled it pretty close to shore (on a 3wt fly rod, mind you) before it got upset. The turtle chomped hard, bit the bluegill in half, and swam off.



















It was a crazy afternoon of fishing.


----------



## stevo1 (Sep 13, 2007)

Are there any native river turtles in Utah , or are they all "planters"?


----------



## The Naturalist (Oct 13, 2007)

All planters.


----------



## Bhuij (Oct 23, 2014)

Wow, sounds like you have had quite the fall fishing season!

I love Maple Lake, it's one of my favorite lakes to catch stockers. I didn't even know they had brookies in there at all, but I have probably caught 100 rainbows all the times I've been up there in the last year or two, all stockers and all delicious with butter  Strangely enough, for me the fishing on that lake is pretty all-or-nothing. I'm either hauling in 12-inch rainbows on every other cast, or not getting a single bite for hours. Generally I have the best luck fishing off the bottom in the middle of the day using a Carolina rig and floating PowerBait. And I have never so much as gotten a bite fishing in the evening on various spinners, flies, jigs, or spoons. I always just figured the trout in that lake were lazy stockers that never had to chase their food and were used to the doughy consistency  More than once I've found myself wondering if the "hatchery food" colored PowerBait you can find at WalMart would be a good performer on that lake... seems almost unsporting haha.

Out of curiosity, are you fishing pretty close to the lake on the lower Provo when you're getting bass and pike and stuff? I'd love to hit something besides brookies and browns on the lower Provo, and especially get some practice with my jigging technique


----------



## brfisherman17 (Jan 21, 2011)

I caught all of those really close to the lake. Creaturebaits, spinnerbaits, and jerkbaits were the culprits. They wouldn't take a jig.


----------

