# An Otter Creek Weekend



## threshershark (Sep 7, 2007)

Once again the weekend arrived, and of necessity the urge to put fly to water. Matador and I headed South to test the waters at Otter, suspecting turnover would be wrapping up. We found surface temperatures of 44° and lots of the ever-present wind.

Now the Matador sometimes accuses me of leaving out some important details, so let me begin by saying that the Butch Cassidy's Hideout is pretty much the center of the universe in Circleville, sporting a 1-pizza oven capable of going to 14" sizes.










If you order the "Circleville Classic Breakfast" for $7.99, the menu states that the dish comes with a side of bone-in ham. Included to show scale is a full-size dinner plate and extra large steak knife:










On the way up through Kingston, we pretty much saw what you get if you mess with the bull:










Now, some have tried to convince me that Minersville has larger rainbows than Otter. That lake certainly produces some nice length, but IMO they just don't put up much of a fight. In addition, I haven't seen anywhere near the girth at Minersville. Certainly, you can't argue with 'bows like Otter's:









































































By the end of the trip 116 rainbows paid a visit to our nets and we had some serious windburn to show for it.


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## .45 (Sep 21, 2007)

Awesome report Thresh..!!!   

Big breakfast, big longhorns (?) and big fish....are you sure you weren't in Texas ?? :mrgreen: 

I can't believe how fat those Otter Creek fish are....is any one of them under 4 pounds ? ..Beautiful pictures and an excellent report....Thanks...


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## Nor-tah (Dec 16, 2007)

Now that is a rainbow!! Wow man did you get a tape on him? That is one of the biggest bows I've seen in Utah. Good job! What is the bead head fly in the pic? Were they all caught on the smaller nymphs?


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## Greenguy88 (Sep 7, 2007)

Wow!!! Great looking fish! Im very jealous, that first one looks like he was a hog. Good job and thanks for sharing with us.


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## rapalahunter (Oct 13, 2007)

HOLY CRAP!!! :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: 

Nice Rainbows!


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Looks like a great day. Glad you conquered despite the windy conditions.

Hopefully the bite is still on at the end of the month. :wink:


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## RnF (Sep 25, 2007)

Very nice fish indeed. Those are some hogs. Great job!


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## walk light look long (Mar 30, 2008)

great looking fish, This reservoir is truly one of the best in Utah for catching consistently nice bows. cant wait for spring break.


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## orvis1 (Sep 7, 2007)

I will be there again in 2 weeks, and you are making that time go by very slowly I add. Big bows, big ham steaks, and great friends what more could you ask for in a weekend? Thanks for sharing the pics of those monster bows, I always enjoy your high quality fish porn!


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## proutdoors (Sep 24, 2007)

Nice pics thresh. The one of the Watusi's is cool, but it is the cows with calves you need to be more wary of. We had a few cows that when they had calves would come after you from 1/2 mile away. Fairly aggressive breed.

I drive by Otter Creek dozens of times a year, and I have yet to wet a fly there. Looks like I am missing out on some good clean fun.


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## threshershark (Sep 7, 2007)

Thanks everyone! Orvis, 2 weeks should be about perfect timing. I will be in California otherwise I would probably be back down there that weekend too.

Pro -- definitely hit "the OC" when you get a chance, it should fish really well for the next month or so. If you go give me a shout and I'll fill you in on some good patterns. Those Watusi bulls had the evil eye. Pat McManus says there are only 2 kinds: SMC (slow mean cow) and FMC (fast mean cow). These looked like FMCs.

Piute was looking nice too. Very clear water right now, more so than Otter. I haven't fished that lake before but on our way home we dropped 'toons in there and picked up some fatties on an exploratory venture for a few hours. Made me want to get to know the lake better.


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## .45 (Sep 21, 2007)

Yahoo !!! Thresh outa town in two weeks....the place will be ours... *\-\* *\-\*

In fact *Pro* , anytime you want, let me know, and I'll let you ride around on a pontoon for awhile.....as long as thresh is sharing some info.... 

Good call on the Watusi's *Pro...*...funny look'in longhorns to me.


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## STEVO (Sep 13, 2007)

Wow, Nice report , We were going to head down to Otter Creek on Sat morning, But ended up going somewhere else :x Wish now we would have gone to Otter Creek. Nice report & awesome fish!!!!


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## Packout (Nov 20, 2007)

Thresher-- What camera are you using? Those photos are extremely crisp with great color. Congrats on what looks to have been an incredible trip.


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## threshershark (Sep 7, 2007)

Packout said:


> Thresher-- What camera are you using?


Thanks Packout. For this kind of stuff I use a little Canon SD700 IS that fits in my chest pocket. I like Canon pocket cameras, they have a "vivid" color saturation setting that I like for outdoor shots.



.45 said:


> Yahoo !!! Thresh outa town in two weeks...


Yeah I'm going to find your avatar.


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## proutdoors (Sep 24, 2007)

thresher, good looking locating .45's avatar. Make sure if you do you take some quality up close pictures. :twisted: 

Thanks also for the offer of a few patterns to use. I plan on going down there the end of the month, so I may take BOTH you and .45 up on your offers. That way I can see how fast little fellars like .45 can run when a momma watusi mistakes him for a gremlin. :shock: My family has 40+ head of them beasts down in Sanpete on the farm. I have yet to see a SMC in the watusi herd.

.45, if I take you with, are you open to hitting the Sevier as well, or are you a still water guy only?


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## .45 (Sep 21, 2007)

LOL.....  ..... Us halflings can walk right under the Watusi's belly....  

Never have been a still water guy until last fall....river's are really what I like. I'd be honored to meet you down there. Yes, I'm open to fishing the river...I used to fish it alot in the 90's when I had money enough to run down there every other weekend.... :|


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## Guns and Flies (Nov 7, 2007)

Great lookin bows there Thresh, looks like you had a fun time pullin in some fish. You make me very JEALOUS! Thanks for sharing the pics.


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## catch&release (Nov 8, 2007)

Those are great photos, realy nice fish. I am going to be down there on Thursday of this week and will be fishing Otter Creek and Minnersville for about 5 days. Can anyone tell me the best area to start at in Otter Creek. I have fished Minnersville alot but only fished Otter Creek once about 6 yrs back and dont know much about it. Since you have fished it maybe you can give me a starting place. Thanks for your help and maybe we can hook up at the end of this week.


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## RnF (Sep 25, 2007)

threshershark said:


> Packout said:
> 
> 
> > Thresher-- What camera are you using?
> ...


Thanks for the tip. I will have to try that out with my Cannon camera. Just got it, so I am still learning the features on it. Your photos are always amaze me with the color, would love to have mine look like yours!


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## 2fishon (Jan 13, 2008)

Start fishing right at the boat ramp and go around the point. The whole shoreline in the bay by the dam is usually good fishing.


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## Jeremy28 (Dec 1, 2007)

The gas station/restaurant at otter used to have a bunch of pics clear from like 20 years ago of some of the big fish caught at otter. A lot of them were gigantic browns. Why do you think the lake doesn't produce huge fish like that anymore? Just fishing pressure?


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## threshershark (Sep 7, 2007)

I'll wait for someone like PBH to chime in since I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect it is because Otter has pretty heavy draw downs due to agricultural water needs. These requirements have grown over the years, and we also went through about 7 lean water years recently.

I'd say that due to the draw downs, the lake has a somewhat limited carrying capacity. The good news is that fish grow really fast from all the available nutrition. Since the rainbows are stocked, they are the predominant species.


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## Chaser (Sep 28, 2007)

Last time I fished OC, the rainbows that we caught weren't very long, maybe 12-16 inches, but they were FAT! Like little footballs. Of the ones we kept, all of them were chuck full of little snails. I don't know if this is still the case, but it seems like the snails have been a pretty good food source. My guess is that there are probably just a few too many fish to allow for some real giants.


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