"The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope." John Buchan

Sunday, June 15, 2014

June 10th Deer Creek Island Bay

As part of our annual Park City family vacation Alex, Jason and I took a trip over to Deer Creek on Tuesday (June 10th) to see how we could do.

Our first mistake (with a few perks) was to hope to launch at Charleston.  The water level was down enough that you had a 50 yard mud flat walk just to get to the river channel and even then that was only a foot or less of water from what we could see.  There were a lot of tire tracks that suggested others had tried previously to drive out but I was not willing to get stuck so we headed back to go to Island Bay to try there.  On the walk back we found a box of flies and a spinner in fair enough shape so Alex added them to his stock.

When we got to Island Bay things looked much better.  We did confirm that the spot along the fence near the island that we had parked at before and walked our tubes down from was marked no parking and no longer usable.  So we paid our fee and went into the park proper.  We parked at the end of the park near the island and carried our tubes to the water.  That turned out to be further then we would have liked, but we got the job done.

Water temps were nearly 65 degrees when we launched and that had us questioning the waders.  Though for Alex this was his first trip in his new pair of waders so he was happy to test drive them.  I would say we didn't get on the water till just before 8am.  While we were getting started we did see a lot of fish breaking the surface int he shallows near the island.  Many had a "trout" look to them enough that we headed out to see if we could entice any.

Jason took point near the island and Alex and I worked a bit further north along the island.  I was casting and retrieving some spinners as well as running some jigs down along the bottom keep my options open.  My jig pole on the bottom had a little bump on it so I picked it up to feel for something more.  Got a nice hook set when I felt some resistance and brought up the first fish of the day which turned out to be a Walleye about 16-17" long, my first DC Walleye.

A bit later I changed out my second line with a bubble and woolly bugger (white with gold accent) and a crappie nib.  Just after casting it out and as I went to pick up the the spinner pole when the bubble/bugger pole went for a really nice bend.  After a nice fight I pulled in a rainbow that was about 17" long.  Not quite a starvation grade fish, but a lot better then the expected planter size I had "planned" on.

I had a number of bumps on the jigs that I kept near the bottom in depths from about 18' to 30'.  I did manage one more hook up on a small mouth that was probably close to 8-9" long so I put him back to get bigger.  After that all the other bumps I had I failed to get to in time or simply wiffed...  Jason pulled in a slightly bigger but very skinny small mouth that he also put back to get bigger.

Then Jason had something on his line that was peeling out line and forced a silly grin on his face... :)  I'm not sure I know what lure he was using but it might have been a meps like spinner that was firetiger colored.  He ended up landing a nice rainbow the same size as the one I had already pulled in earlier.

Alex had moved around a lot but had not had any action until we were just about to head in and he had a nice strike that he missed the hook set on.  He reported that the day was still very fun to have been out and that his new waders were very nice to use.  That should open the door for us to take him up to Washington Lake on a later trip where even in the warmth of summer you need waders to keep warm enough in the high lake water.

I failed to take the camera and didn't want to try to do pics with the cell phone so I ended up with nothing to show for this trip...  We took our 3 fish, walleye and 2 trout, back with us and cooked them up and shared them with the families back in Park City.  Everyone said they were good.  :)