Diamond Fork 3/28

[morcey2]

Had a few minutes to hit diamond fork today in the early afternoon. I saw a couple of people up there, but not as many as I thought would be up there.

No camera, so no pictures.

The water is a little bit milky, but much clearer than it usually is in this kind of weather. I fished almost exclusively with gulp minnows on jigheads. I caught 4 browns between 10" and 16" long. I had a really good sized cutt on, but it threw the hook just before I got it in the net.

I originally went up to do drag some nymphs along the bottom, but the wind was gusting too hard to be able to have any semblance of line control. After the 3rd back-cast that ended up piling itself on me because I timed it perfectly with a wind gust, I gave up on that one and grabbed the spinning rod.

There were a few small mayflies coming off when I left, I'm assuming they were BWOs. I also saw one very large mayfly that almost looked like a brown drake, but if that's the case, they're about 2 months early and I don't know if they live up diamond fork.

I'm hoping to get up there next week with the fly rod. I've always had good luck up there with big stonefly nymphs or medium sized (14-16) hares ear or prince nympns. I've tied up a bunch and need to put them to good use.

Anyway, that's my nonsensical rambling for the day.

Matt
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[gstott]

That could have been a March Brown mayfly. I've gotten into hatches of those up there and had really good days. There are drakes up there as well, both grey and green, but those are usually a bit later in the year. My best day ever on Diamond Fork was when drakes, golden stones and cicadas were all out at the same time. 127 fish and a lot of nice 18-20". I believe it was the first week of June. Of course that was about 15 years ago and that area is now just cutthroat.
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[Watershadow]

thanks matt, great post. I too like the hares ear for DF; have always done well with a size 16 with a gold beadhead. 2nd best for me, disco midge in green. of course, i'd much rather hit the hatches and have seen nice green drakes, much later of course. maybe you saw a super early one with all the warm weather. thanks again.
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[ProfessorChaos]

I was up there 2 weeks ago and had to switch to Rapalas for the same reason, wind. I also caught four. I kept a couple to eat and they were FULL of Stonefly Nymphs, big ones. I swear they looked like little crawfish. I didn't even know that was a thing. Those damn things were as long as my pinky finger. I'm glad you had a fun and caught some fish. It's nice to go hit that river every now and then to get away from some of the crowds.
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[morcey2]

I know that there are some salmonflies up there and their nymphs are huge. My guess is that's what they were eating. I've actually cheated and used them as bait before. [angelic] I've never been lucky enough to catch a salmonfly hatch, but I've had some fun on the Spanish Fork river between the mouth of the canyon and I-15 when the golden stoneflies are hatching. In about a month, the caddis will start hatching and that's always fun because you can skate an elk hair caddis across the surface of some of the pools and watch fish come all the way out of the water hitting them. That works anywhere from the ballparks in Spanish Fork all the way up Diamond Fork

Matt
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[zimaggie]

Thanks for the info. I don't live to far from there and have been trying to get up there and fish. May be able to get out Thursday morning
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[riverdog]

Size 10 tungsted prince nymphs are my go to fly on DF. The beauty of that off color water is that you only need to cast 6-15 ft as you work your way upstream as spooking fish isn't a concern. The key to hitting the salmonfly hatch is to show up as much as possible the first 10 days in June. Conveniently after the morning crowds have vacated the hatch will start up about 2-3 pm. Just drive the road between Hwy 89 and 3 Forks and it visible even at the furthest spot from the river. When you see it stop and go fish. If you forget your salmonfly dries and nymphs as I did once time you can still land a couple dozen fish an hour with the trusty size 10 prince. DF also has several stonefly hatches that sometimes overlap with the beginning of the salmonfly hatch. Even when you do all this this it's only about a 1 in 3 chance of hitting a prolific salmonfly hatch that year.
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