Tour of Utah and Arizona Part 4: Miscellaneous Misadventures

[Natural Lefty]

This is the final report on my wife's and my trip, with all the miscellaneous stuff and the stuff that didn't turn out so well.

Rather than giving a day-by-day account, I will list the highlights/lowlights as follows.

My wife and I:

Went to the Skywalk Platform over the Grand Canyon on the Hualapai Reservation in AZ. The view was great but it was pretty much a $75 minimum touristy rip-off, plus getting there involved driving over 9 miles of washboard-type dirt road, buying tickets and being herded into a bus to the Skywalk area and to a restaurant, and being sold lots of trinkets. The Hualapai look very purebred still, for the most part, quite genuine, and seem like nice people. They tend to be very large people, presumably the result of millenia of living with meager and unpredictable food sources. Still, you can see pretty much the same thing by going to the National Park, for a lot less money and trouble. The whole Skywalk concept was actually the idea of a Chinese guy, and my wife being Chinese, heard about it from her friends that everybody is suppposed to go there, sort of like a rite of passage. About half the tourists there were Chinese. The experience itself is sort of scary but apparently quite safe. It is highly regulated, so they don't let people bring cameras, purses, backbacks, etc. onto the Skywalk, and you have to wear slippers so your feet don't damage the transparent plastic floor;

Went to Temple Square in Salt Lake City, again at my wife's behest, where one can have one's picture taken by pretty young Mormon gals, most of them foreign converts, then have them attempt to turn you into a Mormon;

Gave ice tea, french fries and $5 to an apparently homeless man at a McDonald's in Phoenix on the way back. He was sitting there the entire time, not eating but not really asking for anything. However, we picked up on his vibes and helped him before leaving. He was very grateful;

Got caught in a bunch of massive thunderstorms one day in Utah. First, it stopped my fishing at a little lake we found by the road almost before it started, then it stopped us due to dangerous driving conditions, plus the beauty of the whole thing, at a summit (9,655 feet according to the sign), where we waited out the storm, then did a little Skywalking style photo and sightseeing session. Later that same day, we found a reservoir with surprisingly clear water (Nine-Mile Reservoir) and public access despite being private. Eunice asked me to drive to the end of the dirt road, which was a mistake. After a while, and Eunice catching a 10-11 inch Rainbow, the torrential rains came again and we wound up in the car laughing. Worse, the place was surrounded with that infernal red clay that is found throughout most of Utah. We wound up with red mud all over our fishing equipment, car, shoes and pants up to our ankles;

Tried to go up the Mirror Lake Highway in the Uinta Mountains to go fishing. It's probably the closest thing they have in Utah to a Sierras type place. There were a bunch of signs saying that the road was closed; however, the road wasn't closed and a bunch of people were driving up there. Eventually, there was tons of snow by the road but the road itself had been snowplowed. When we got to the first lakes, they were mostly frozen over and the water was so high that there were pine trees in the water. There were also runoff streams all over the place, but nothing looked fishable, so we played in the snow and had a photo session, then we but a bunch of snow in a couple of ice cream containers and ate/drank it later -- delicious stuff;

I usually like steam fishing, but in Utah, nearly all of the streams were raging, muddy torrents due to record or near record level snowfalls this winter and spring. Oh well! In contrast, streams were nearly nonexistant in Arizona.

As for the more mediocre fishing:

We went to Navajo Lake, which treated me well 3 years ago. This time, the water was way high (several feet over a dike in the lake), it was super windy, the water near shore was muddy (the red stuff again), and all I caught were 2 Utah Chubs on worms. The guy next to me, also from CA, thought they were "Lake Trout" which he had been catching. I hated to burst his bubble, but did anyway. Navajo Lake is a 300 acre, natural volcanic lake, with strangely 2 underground outlets, one of which comes up in Duck Creek Pond;

Duck Creek Pond, where I caught a nice pink-meated Brookie in 2008, must have been heavily stocked with hatchery Rainbows. I caught a couple of them and could have caught more had I stayed longer. I saw big spring where the water from Navajo Lake bubbles up in Duck Creek Pond, which was really neat, but there were no fish there;

Paragonah Lake, which has so many wild Rainbows that the limit was raised from 4 to 8 there, was actually pretty good. I went over near the inlet, and caught one a little over 12 inches and one a little under in about an hour. However, Eunice didn't want to make the 5-10 minute hike to the inlet, so we left. Also, the lake was pretty murky, although not muddy. I saw a bunch of trout still spawning in the creek, but it was off limits to fishing. The road there was a 7 mile dirt road, which was in okay condition, but it was really narrow;


We went to another really strange lake, called Willard Bay near Ogden. The wierd thing is that it's really a part of the Great Salt Lake, a bay across which a dike was built. It was dewatered, then refilled with freshwater from the Ogden River so that it is now freshwater, and a bit higher than the Great Salt Lake. We were hoping for Walleyes or Wipers there, but all we caught were nine average size Bluegills. We did hear that Crappies were biting on the pier on the other side of the cove where we were fishing, but didn't go there. The place was very popular, with many boat and shore fisherpeople;

We headed toward Flaming Gorge Reservoir, but the road we took never really went near it. We wound up fishing a little lake called Moose Pond which was way above the reservoir and to the west, at probably about 8,000 feet. The water was muddy there although the place looked nice. I caught 3 smallish stockers (2 on jigs, 1 on worms) and Eunice caught 1 (on worms). The rest of that day was spent driving. There were interesting signs all over that area, such as "ancient Squid lived here," "Petrified forest here," or "Dinosaurs roamed here." There was even a university research truck from Texas, so there is definitely lots of ancient geological stuff around there of great interest. Unfortunately, all the oil companies are interested in there is extracting oil, which is jaking up the hotel prices in the area since they are putting the workers up in area hotels M-F;

Tried the Middle Fork of Provo River below Jordanelle Reservoir for nothing but snags. I didn't see any special regulations for that area, but it was super popular with flyfishers, and we even saw one of them catch a small (about 7 inch) trout, a Rainbow I think. I did find some interesting ponds, cast a few jigs, flies and worms into them, and caught the prettiest 2 little chubs or chub-type fish I had ever seen. They had gold horizontal stripes and red patches behind their pectoral fins. I promptly put them back but tried to memorize their appearance. I couldn't identify them on the internet though;

Later that day, we went to Park City, the rich people's area, and I spotted a pond with tons of surface activity. I figured they had a bunch of beautiful trout in their ponds, but as it turned out, they were Utah Chubs, again. I caught 5 small ones on a bobber/fly rig in about 1/2 hour. At least they were biting;

Finally, we, or rather I, tried a muddy lake called Electric Lake for Cutthroat. This is the lake where they gather the eggs for the hatchery, but the public can fish there. It is approximately in the center of Utah. Well, it was rainy, windy, muddy both on shore and in the water, so Eunice didn't feel like fishing. I hooked one nice 12-13 inch Cutthroat near a muddy inlet, but it got stuck on a rocky snag near shore that I couldn't see because the water visibility was so poor. How frustrating!

Here's one other thing that happened. As we drove east from Ogden, we went through much of southern Wyoming. We stopped at Evanston, WY, and wound up at the visitor center, which just happened to have a herd of Buffalo grazing just on the other side of the fence, complete with mothers suckling calves, and mother and calf Buffalo rubbing their heads affectionately with each other and on a large rock. I guess that's about as good a symbol of "The West" as there is, even if they are domesticated Buffalo with numbered tags on their ears. We did another photo session of the Buffalo there.

[TheAsianGuy]

Excellent reports! Looks like we have to look for alternative enjoyment when we head over to the Grand Canyon areas later.

[Natural Lefty]

Yes, AsianGuy, there actually is good fishing in AZ. I think we would have had more good results if the clouds hadn't dumped their load on us last Sunday.

If you are in the Grand Canyon area, I heard Lee's Ferry for big wild trout (artificials only, I think and probably really hot weather right now), Oak Creek in the Sedona area (with special regs in some parts) and some lakes around Flagstaff (eg., Kinnickinnick Lake, Mary Lakes except Mary Lakes are polluted with mercury as far as eating the fish) are all good.

Where we went was the White Mountains in the eastern part of AZ which has the most high country but the whole Mogollen Rim is a high plateau.

[old pudd fisher]

Thanks for part 4 'Natural Lefty' my wife and I injoyed it. The part about the Skywalk Platform kind of gave us second thoughts about visiting it. But it all sounds like you guys had a blast, have a nice summer.

[Natural Lefty]

Your wife too? That's good to know, Pudd Fisher. If you look in the background of the last photo (which was really the first photo), you can see the platform with people on it. It might be worth it to go, but be forewarned about what is in store for you.

By the way, my wife was the fishing star this time, partly by design, partly by luck, and partly because she has a great fishing touch once she gets going. Anyway, I figure if she agrees to go on a fishing vacation with me, I should do my best to let her be successful.

[Troutman65]

I have read all four of your reports. They were great . Very cool fishing vacation. Thanks for taking the time to share with your reports