A number of years ago (September 2010) Rick fished Leeds Creek during a visit to St. George, Utah. I'd been wanted to fish it for quite a while, but hadn't gotten around to it while visiting family in St. George, but I decided that I'd do it this trip.
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| Quail Creek in Red Cliff's area |
I tried yesterday to go to what I thought was Leeds Creek, but the area was wall to wall people playing in the creek and hardly a place to park. Not amenable to fishing, but I did hike a bit and enjoy the beautiful country. It wasn't until I got back to home base in St. George that I took a closer look at the map and discovered I was one watershed away from the Leeds Creek drainage. Tough to fish if you're in the wrong drainage I guess.
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| Leeds Creek, one watershed to the east |
So today, I resolved to go to the proper drainage basin and see if I could find some fish! Early on it was quite cool and in the canyon where I started there was no sun anywhere. In the second hole I saw a fish dart as I moved forward so that was encouraging. The water temp was around 40 degrees and leaves were just starting to break out on the trees surrounding the stream.
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| First small bonneville cutthroat |
As it got brighter and the sunlight began to creep down the walls of the canyon and get closer and closer to the creek at the bottom, visibility improved and I started to catch fish. I had tried four different fly combinations, but ultimately all the fish were caught on the Renegade.
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| Trout number two |
As the day got brighter the fish were more active. I think the cool water temps may have had them moving a bit slower. I'd like to come back when water temps are a little warmer and see if they are more aggressive and there are perhaps some insects around that may have them keyed into more of a feeding rhythm.
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| Nice spot distribution-and the sunshine shows the coloration better |
I spent a couple of hours and had sixteen fish to hand. A half-hour drive had me back into town and I was at my mother-in-law's in time for lunch. A nice way to spend the morning!
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| Stream looks lots better in the sunlight! |
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| Interesting lack of spots around the lateral parr marks on this specimen |
1 comment:
Yes! I love that little creek. After I saw that first picture, I was going to say that next time you should try it above where they take all the water out for irrigation...Glad to see you finally found the right creek and the pretty little Bonneville cutts. That sparse spotting is characteristic of the subspecies. We should try to all get the cutthroat slam on our trip this fall - http://www.utahcutthroatslam.org/
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