Gunnison Bend Reservoir

[BHuij]

I'm headed down there for the weekend, and I just realized I should ask for pointers.

I've done some reading, and heard everything from "fishing is slow, but there are a few catfish and carp" to "there are lots of white bass, bluegill, white crappie, LMB, and channel cats"

I'm going to target panfish, if indeed there are any.

Any tips for this reservoir or crappie fishing in general? I'll be going from shore/dock, I doubt we'll be getting out the boat or anything with the crappy weather we're expecting.
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[morcey2]

I grew up fishing GBR and the surrounding area. There are lots of fish in there, but being a primarily irrigation reservoir, it isn't managed for fish. I've always had good luck along the dam for everything from carp to walleye.

I haven't fished gunnison bend itself for quite a few years, but my usual method of fishing there was to catch a carp and fish with carp meat, either under a float or on the bottom. That almost always paid off with channel cats, white bass, or the occasional LMB. When I figured out what lures were at about 15, I was able to catch (almost) everything in there including Sacramento Perch. (just one). I had good luck with curly tail grubs in chartreuse, yellow, or white, rapalas, white or silver spinners, crappie jigs, and a floating frog. The best bait by far, for some reason, was called a lipstick jig. It's made by northland tackle and looks similar to a tube jig. I went through those like potato chips in lots of different colors.

With the weather this weekend, fishing might be a little slow. I'd plan on using two rods, one with bait and the other with some sort of more finesse lure, something like a light tube jig.

For the record, the only fish that I know is in there that I never caught there is a northern pike. What I know is in there:

Largemouth bass
Smallmouth bass (but mostly upstream of DMAD)
Black Crappie
White Crappie
Channel Cat
Bullhead (not sure which color)
Perch
Walleye
Sacramento Perch
Bluegill
Green Sunfish
Northern Pike
Cutthroat trout --
Brown Trout -- | Both caught in late november not long after the dam was repaired in the mid 80's.
White Bass
Sucker
and of course---
Carp.

In short, fish it like you would Utah Lake. [cool]

It's not a bad fishery and I've always considered the entire Sevier River system from Yuba to south of Deseret to be a very underrated fishery. If there was a way to manage both DMAD and Gunnison Bend so the water fluctuation wasn't so extreme, it would help immensely.

Matt
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[BHuij]

Fantastic info, thank you very much!

I did load up my tackle box with every soft plastic I could rustle up last night while packing. I have plenty of curly tail jigs and tubes with various sizes, weights, and colors of head. I figure I'll soak some crappie nibbles or gulp earthworms on one rod while dropshotting or trying something a little more active on the 2nd rod. Won't go in with crazy high hopes because the weather does look crappy (no pun intended) at least until Sunday, but hopefully I can at least ward off the skunk. Just renewed my fishing license for another year and I'm anxious to break it in!

Thanks again.

Anyone have tips on fishing for crappies and sunfish in the rain? haha
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[albinotrout]

Ok you've piqued my interest.
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[happybob91]

Hi there! I actually live in Millard County and fish there regularly! If crappie is what you're after, I would suggest fishing any weedy outlets around the lake using either a jig and worm combo, or gulp minnows. The neat thing is that there are actually white crappie here and nowhere else in the state. I have caught a few this year. As far as the actual reservoir goes, I have only fished it once, but did end up catching white bass using a variety of spinners. I plan on float tubing it in two weeks. Because it has cooled down here, I don't know how much luck you'll have. However, this fishery is so unpredictable, and anything can happen (Gunnison Bend and the Sevier river remind me of Cutler reservoir and the Bear river up in Logan). Let us know how you do.
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[albinotrout]

I was looking at a satellite image of the res and couldn't figure out where launch points would be. Where are some good areas to launch?
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[happybob91]

The only place to launch is the public shoreline where the park is. Most of the shoreline is owned by farmers
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[morcey2]

If you're launching a float tube or pontoon, you can probably launch it by the spilway, although I wouldn't recommend it. The beach, park, and boat launch are on the far west side of the reservoir. It gets really busy in the summer with the power squadron. The deepest water is along the dam on either side of Sherwood Shores, basically the south edge of the reservoir.

The northern bays are pretty shallow. In the middle of the summer, I used to wade around the bays looking for bass and panfish. I mostly just got carp, but the are pretty good sized.

Fishing there can vary wildly based on how successful the spawn was the year before. It looks like the DWR stocked about 6000 largemouth bass there last year and they stock "bullhead channel cat" every couple of years. Not sure what species that is, but they're in there. [:/] If the water level stays a high enough over a couple of years, the fishing there is awesome. My grandpa caught a white bass that was close to 6 lbs out of gunnison bend in the early 70's. It would have been a legitimate world record since the world record at the time was just over 5 lbs.

He said that it tasted really good.

I'm trying to track down a picture of it that I know exists but is squirreled away at one of my uncles' homes. It will get posted here when I find it although it might take a couple of years.

I'm hoping to spend a couple of days down there in the next couple of weeks fishing.

One of the odd parts of the fishing history of that area was the flooding of a large part of the west desert for a year or so after the DMAD dam broke in 1983. We would drive out west of Hinckley on highway 50 and fished right off the side of the road in the sagebrush and greasewoods for white bass and carp. The water was about 3 feet deep in most areas and there were tons of fish there. It wasn't Sevier Lake, but a ways north of there.

Matt
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[albinotrout]

Thanks for the info if all goes well I should be it that way in July. Never been there before so I might just have to stop on the way to Great Basin NP.
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[happybob91]

The river out in that west area can be awesome for largemouth bass. Last year about this time I caught and released a beautiful bass I would put at 5-6 lbs.
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[albinotrout]

So how did you do? I am looking at June 1 for a day trip down there.
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[PACMEN]

Problem is almost all of the good size LMB caught are taken home here.
Just my opinion.
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[BHuij]

I did crappy... haha. The first couple of days were overcast and a little rainy (although we didn't get the promised thunderstorm). My fiancee's grandfather owns all sorts of watercraft as he's a retired dentist (also one of the lucky few who gets to be part of the "82% of the shoreline is privately owned" statistic), but most of it still hasn't been de-winterized. We did find an old canoe and clean it out, so we tried running that around along the reedy shores. It's only the second time I've ever been there, but the water level was WAY higher than last July when we went there.

That being said, my deeper never reported anything more than 5 feet deep. We didn't go near the dam though; so I guess that was our problem. There were fish jumping up to get bugs today though, and we chased them around throwing just about everything we had to see if we could get them to bite. My fiancee got one bite but he got away. That was using chartreuse crappie nibbles on a hook a foot or so under a tiny bobber.

I tried that, plus chartreuese and black tubes, plus many different colors of curly tails, under a bobber, free swimming, and dropshotted, Berkley gulp! earthworms in white, and even a white gizzy bug with red flecks. No love. Ah well, it was beautiful out there, especially today. Only one other boat on the water, which is a big contrast from last time I was there. You couldn't go 8 feet in any direction without running into a boat or ski-doo.

I want to go back with live bait next time we make a trip down, probably in a few weeks. It's not a long drive and her grandparents spend a lot of weekends there when things warm up. I bet crickets would slay the crappie. Didn't see a hint of LMB or catfish, but I wasn't looking.

If anyone else goes down though, I want to hear how they do.
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[albinotrout]

Thanks for the report, it sounds like an intersting place.
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