# Patience Pays Off!!!



## mjschijf (Oct 1, 2007)

I've been wanting to get up to one of the high elevation lakes for a couple of weeks now, and I decided that today was a great day to head up to a place I have visited a couple of times but never fished before: Yankee Meadow Reservoir. I got out of my chemistry class at around 2:00, packed up, stopped for lunch at Costa Vida (delicious :lol: ), and made a quick stop at Ace Hardware for some flies and jigs. I might also add that I've never fished with jigs for trout before, nevertheless the 3 pack of Trout Traps Stingers were calling my name for some reason. They are little tube jigs with a small rubber worm pertruding out out the middle. Looked interesting, so I figured why not...

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Yankee Meadow is a beautiful little lake located at an elevation of about 8600 feet. I arrived there at around 4:00 I would guess. When I stepped out of my car, I was immediately greeted by a fairly strong wind that was pretty **** cold as well. It definitely didn't make for an easy day casting out either.

For the first hour and a half to two hours I was there, I had used several different flies with a bubble, a Jakes lure, and a Blue Fox, with only one small Rainbow to show for it (caught on the Blue Fox). 








Sorry about the awful pic with my thumb covering the head. Unfortunately I was also limited to my cell phone camera (again) so sorry about the poor quality.

After I had used the lures and flies mentioned above with limited success, I decided to tie on a baby Rainbow Trout Rapala. I had never really put this lure to good use, but I know some of you guys have had success with it so I thought I'd give it a try. Sure enough, after about 15 minutes I had a decent little Rainbow on that put up a pretty good fight.









I'll definitely be using that lure more in the future. However, the bite again went dead for the next half hour. It was cold the wind was howling, and I had ventured quite a long ways from my car so I decided I'd start to head back. I decided to check out the pretty little stream that runs into the lake. I tried to cast the Blue Fox a few times, but it was really narrow and shallow and wasn't very fishable.









Here is another picture of the area. If you look closely you can see some snow on the mountain in the upper right. 








There's supposed to be way more snow coming tomorrow, so I'm glad I got out there when I did.

Anyway, this report is far from over. Just letting you all know. :lol:

After I was done checking out that little stream, I noticed the wind had died a little bit. I didn't feel nearly as cold once the wind died, and even though the sun was already starting to go down over the hill behind the lake, the day didn't seem complete yet. I definitely still felt like I had some fishing left in me, so I walked towards my car and passed the boat ramp and headed to the opposite side of the lake from where I was just an hour earlier. I went about 50 yards up the shore from a guy who had just gotten there a few minutes earlier.

After I casted the Blue Fox a few times with no success, I realized I hadn't tried out my new trout jigs yet!!! O|* Yeah, I'm dumb. I wasn't sure how much success they'd bring, but it was certainly worth a try. Two or three casts after I switched to the jigs, I was completely zoned out, paying attention to everything EXCEPT the pole in my hand, when all of a sudden I saw the line go tight and felt a pretty strong pull. I knew I had something pretty nice on. It fought hard, and when I got it to shore, I was very impressed with what I saw.








An AWESOME colored fat Brookie that I'm estimating to be about 14 inches. I have never caught a trout with such beautiful colors. The picture doesn't do that fish justice. I had a hard time releasing it because I was so mesmerized by it's color. :lol: It had a ton of bright red on it, which my hand is partially covering in the photo.

Two casts later with the jig, I had another fish on:








Another Brookie. Not nearly as colorful as the first one, but still more colorful than the picture shows.

At this point I kind of felt bad for the guy that was fishing down the shore who wasn't catching anything. I walked over to him and gave him one of my jigs and told him I had just caught two nice Brookies on it. He seemed like a nice guy and he was appreciative. He told me that when he fly fishes out there he usually has good success but he has a hard time fly fishing when it's windy. I'm not sure what he was using before I gave him the jig. Anyway, I wished him luck and returned to my spot.

It was getting pretty dark and I saw fish jumping near the shore but for the next little while I had no luck. I really wanted to catch one more though, and sure enough after about a 20 minute dry spell I had another fish on. It might have been the nicest fish of the three Brookies, but it was so dark that the picture I took is terrible. I tried lightening the color a little bit, but it's still really bad.








Yeah...awful. **** cell phone cameras. It was another Brookie with awesome color, and I think it was the biggest one I caught.

I decided to call it a day at that point. I packed it in and headed to the car. I passed the guy who I had given the jig to on the way, and sure enough he had a fish on right as I got to him. YAY for random Yankee Meadow guy!!! -()/- It was another pretty nice Brookie. Glad I could help a fellow out. He thanked me again, and asked me if I wanted my jig back, but of course I wanted him to keep it. Hopefully he caught some more.

So the **** Trout Traps Stingers saved the day. Who would've thought they'd be Brookie magnets? Randomly selected too. I think I might go buy some more of those things tomorrow. I can't help but wonder how many Brookies I would have caught if I used those things all day, instead of just the last 45 minutes I was there. Or maybe the fishing had just picked up when the sun went down. Who knows... :? In any case, now I know what to use for next time. One other random thing, I think luck was on my side today as well. All three of the Brookies that I caught got loose AFTER I got them to shore. I didn't actually have to take the jig out of any of their mouths. Needless to say, I think I'm pretty fortunate that none of them shook the hook loose while they were still in the water.

It was an awesome day. I'm really glad I decided to stick with things and not leave before trying the jigs. It was definitely one of my best ever trout outings. Those Brookies are really, really, really fun to catch. I'm starting to think this trout fishing stuff is pretty cool after all. 8)


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## REPETER (Oct 3, 2007)

Great report, sounds like a sweet trip. I think I know what jigs you're talking about (I have probably talked myself out of buying them multiple times.) Post a pic up of the jigs so we can see them if you don't mind. What a lucky trip for you and that random Yankee. :mrgreen:


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## mjschijf (Oct 1, 2007)

You've got it, Repeter! I couldn't find them online, so I did it myself.

The package:









The jig:









Hope you can see those clearly enough.


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## REPETER (Oct 3, 2007)

Thanks! interesting-I don't remember ever seeing those, I'll keep my eyes open for them from now on.  Oh and nice looking Brookies, beautiful!


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## Ifish (Aug 22, 2008)

Nice work! Slowly converting you to Trout fishing...patience pays off! The pics aren't bad for a camera phone all things considered. I have heard some good things about Yankee Meadow. This makes me want to get down there to check it out even more. Thanks.


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## FLYFSHR (Apr 16, 2008)

nice fish mjschijf especially the last one


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## Nueces (Jul 22, 2008)

Looks like a great trip. Thanks for sharing.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Yeah!

I knew we'd have a trout report coming from you soon enough. It was worth the drive, wasn't it?

Bass are plenty fun to catch and they live in gorgeous places too. There's just something extra special about the mountain trout waters though.

Glad you got to feel some of the love.

Ace Hardware carries fishing gear? Good to know. 

Good job selecting the random jigs too. It's nice that they worked out for you.


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## mjschijf (Oct 1, 2007)

Yep...Ace has fishing gear. The one in Cedar City doesn't have a great selection of stuff...I think the one in St. George is better. It's a decent place to get fishing stuff when there's not a place like Sportsman's Warehouse around. 

I was actually going to get some black Maribou Jigs, but I couldn't find any so I went with the other ones. I'm glad they didn't disappoint.


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## Nor-tah (Dec 16, 2007)

Nice brooks! If I have learned one thing this year about fishing it is that jigs=brook trout!! Gotta love it. I have caught about twice as many brook trout as all other species combined this year and everyone of them has come on some sort of marabou jig or white tube jigs. Cool MJ, sweet report.


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## BrookTroutKid (Oct 10, 2007)

hey Ive got a funny story to tell you about that stream. Where you are standing I was floating over several feet of water in my float tube this spring . Here I have a picture that explains everything. I caught a 17 inch brookie right off shore and that was a ways up there.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

:lol: 

Nice artwork, BTK.


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## mjschijf (Oct 1, 2007)

Thanks for the story, BTK. That's awesome.


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