# Payson Lakes (Big East)



## Flyfishn247 (Oct 2, 2007)

Here is a report from my last two outings to Payson Lakes, though one is a little late. The other is from yesterday. No pictures from the first outing, but I took a few from yesterday.

Father's Day:

The wife, my 2 daughters (ages 4 and 6), and I hit Payson Lakes the evening of Father's Day. I rigged up some stadium seats on the back of my pontoon for the kids. Though it kinda worked, my pontoon was popping a wheely the whole time. I didn't get to fish too much as I was helping the kids the whole time, but the fishing was pretty good. I rigged their Barbie poles with a medium split shot above a swivel and 3 feet of leader. I put on a smaller worm hook and threaded on half a night crawler. Then I would cast out both poles, kick a bit to let some line out, and just slow trolled the worms around the lake. Both of the kids caught 3 a piece and had a ton of bites they missed. My oldest caught two of the nicest Brook Trout I have seen come out of that lake, each about 13 inches. Neither one of them could stay in the seats long and kept splashing and jumping in the water so both were soaked about an hour into it. They got cold so I took them to the truck. I only caught two, but I had my rod in the water maybe 10 minutes. I caught mine on a size 10 brown damsel nymph. My wife said she couldn't count how many hits and fish she lost, but she got 8 to the boat in about 2 1/2 hours. She was using a green damsel nymph, small bead head brown leech, and another sparkle brown leech. She caught a 16" rainbow which was the big fish of the day (really nice for Payson Lakes). I let her keep fishing while me and the kids drove around looking for deer. We saw about a dozen deer, two bucks, a little spike and what looked to be a nice 3 pt.

June 28:

The wife and I hit Payson Lakes (Big East) yesterday in our float tubes. The kids had a sleepover at there cousins freeing us up for a day. We were thinking of Scofield or Strawberry, but I thought Scofield would be closed because of the Seely Fire and we got a little bit of a slow start to consider Strawberry. We got to the lake right before 11:00 and were on the water by 11:15. The fishing wasn't as fast paced as other times we have been there, but is was consistent. We fished until about 16:15. I ended up catching 32 and the wife boated 10. We both hooked and lost a bunch of fish and missed a lot of hits. The wind wasn't too bad and the partly cloudy skies made it nice. About 14:00 the smoke from the fires rolled in and turned the sky a brownish gray and it rained ash on us the rest of the time. It was like we were in Pompey. 26 of my fish were caught on a brown flashback damsel nymph. The others were caught on an olive damsel nymph and a dark, multicolored simi seal leech. The wife caught hers on the same leech, a brown simi seal leech, and a bead head brown leech. She wasn't having the same luck as I on the brown damsel, she was also having a hard time keeping the fish hooked. Considering what time we got on the water, I consider it a good day. My biggest fish was a 14" rainbow, I caught a few holdovers in the 12-14" range, though most were recent planters in the 8-10" range. I caught a couple decent brooks too.

Looking north toward Mt. Loafer before the smoke and ash rolled in:










The wife getting going, she has had a chest cold for the last week, but that wasn't about to stop her from going fishing:










Choices, choices, so many choices...










Big fish of the day, one of the holdover rainbows, not bad for this lake:










Some of the brook trout caught today, the one had great colors on it:


























The sky after the smoke and ash came in:


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## TOgden (Sep 10, 2007)

Thanks for the great report. I plan on fishing there in a couple of weeks and your information will be a lot of help. I've never been up there before and I always try to get to at least five new waters in the state every year. I will be fly fishing and tubing also and there are not many places in the state where you can still pick up a brookie or two.


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## tye dye twins (Mar 8, 2011)

Nice. I wish I had that type of day the one time I went there, last year. Loafer is on on my "to climb list". So if you need to unload flies........well I think you can see where I am going with that!


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## Flyfishn247 (Oct 2, 2007)

tye dye twins said:


> So if you need to unload flies........well I think you can see where I am going with that!


I actually need to break out my kit and tie more up. There are some empty slots in my boxes from losing a few and giving some to my wife and brother. I am starting to run short on some patterns. You need to start tying TDT, before long you will have the same problem as I, too many flies to know what to do with...


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