Fish Creek Cove Research Paper

Up early, the surface of the water was like glass, I unloaded the fly rod and headed back to the water with the dogs. Knowing that the prolific Utah Chub was a major food source in the reservoir, I tied a bunch of white and gold streamers in the weeks leading up to departure. I tied one on and made a couple casts, still targeting stumps and their roots. Just as the fly neared shore, a cutthroat shot out from under the stump and grabbed my fly. Unfortunately, it was a short lived flight as the fish shook its head and gained its freedom.

The reservoir's water is so clear, near shore anything cruising is visible. I saw a couple cutthroat cruising near shore and shortly thereafter a musky, about the size of the one I caught the night before, was cruising the shoreline looking for a meal. Very neat to see! Another of the
resident aquatic life was slowly crawling from the shore looking for deeper water, a large crayfish, I named Pinchy. No wonder the fish get big in this reservoir, the food sources are plentiful!

With the dogs again wet, it was time to make our way to the next destination, the Escalante area.
Thankfully, since we were sleeping in the Jeep, it didn't take much time to breakdown camp and be on our way. Driving south on UT-72, the winding road and scenery were beautiful, eventually opening to the alfalfa fields and pastures of Loa.

Our first stop for the day would be to a panel I had recently read about, the Fish Creek Cove Panel. While the panel has some visible vandalism, it's still very nice with large headless elk in a procession, dual color shields, hunters bearing bows. Nobody was at the parking lot when we arrived, so the dogs and I wandered the area, looking at the amazing images.

There were a couple of geocaches near the the panel, so we hiked the surrounding terrain, looking for them. We found the first, after a bit of searching, I chuckled when I finally noticed it. As we were heading to where I thought the other cache was, a group of people arrived at the panel. The dogs were wound up at the surprise appearance of strangers, so I decided to save the second cache for another time and hightailed it back to the
Jeep.

I've hit all kinds of weather traveling over Boulder Mountain: fog, bright sunshine, hail (on a motorcycle) and this time heavy snow. I hoped this wasn't a sign of how the rest of the day would end up. Part way across the mountain, I drove down into Lower Bowns Reservoir to take a look, the snow stopping as I left UT-12. Last year, we didn't have any luck at this reservoir so I didn't break out the rods, just driving through the campground and heading back up.