Diamond Fork River

[brianpark520]

Any tips on diamond fork for a spinning reel? Was gonna try some gulp minnows, but have never tried the river at all. Is higher up the river better or is it pretty much the same all the way through?

TIA
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[morcey2]

I fish it quite a bit, but I haven't been up there in the last two years. I've had good luck with gulp minnows on 1/16 oz jigheads. Spinners and small countdown rapalas work too. I've also had some success with small-ish husky jerks in some of the larger pools. There are some sculpins up there that get pretty big and the larger browns and cutts will eat them if they have the chance. I saw one sculpin that was over 5" long a few years ago. Brownish colored tube jigs between 2 and 4" long have also done well bounced along the bottom. Be ready to lose a few.

If you fly fish and are up there in the evening, skate an elk hair caddis across the tail of the pools and you'll get some pretty cool topwater action. I've had fish go 2-3' out of the water hitting them. Other flies that have worked for me are the standards: prince nymph, gold-ribbed hares ear, pheasant tail hanging below a good buoyant dry fly. If things are really slow, a ray charles (sowbug) is really good. Stoneflies and caddis hatches should be going on right now. A sparkle pupa fly fished so it is slowly rising to the surface has worked great both early in the morning and closer to sundown. The terrestrials "hatch" should be heating up. Hoppers and ants, especially hopper patterns that are plopped hard can be a lot of fun. Muddler minnows, marabou muddlers, woolhead sculpins have all worked as have zonker type streamers and even some extremely large and loud yellow and orange rabbit fur streamers.

Matt
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