Weber River by Park City, Utah

Fly Fishing the West
Vol. 3, Issue 1
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Weber River north of Park City, Utah

Tyson, Alan, Ben and I left Salt Lake City at 5:15 am traveling north on Interstate I-15, then east on Interstate I-84 passed Park City to Coalville, Utah. Out of Coalville we took Harbor (?) Road west crossing the freeway to Fisherman Access points along the Weber River (indicating the river to be a "Blue-ribbon Fishery" with a limit of 2 trout/day. (The river flows south to north, parallel to the freeway, through this high mountain valley of farms and rural homes.) The temperature leaving Salt Lake City was 64 F and dropped to about 45 F at Coalville. The stream is not large and is wade-able with occasional deep runs. We headed downstream from the second fisherman's access point by a field next to the river (of campers attending the 'Brooks Family Reunion', which I read on a tee shirt).

About 7:30 am Alan had a good fish on fishing with a dry fly as a strike indicator trailing a small midge pattern about 2 feet below. Tyson and I moved further downstream about 120 yards passed a lot of flat, shallow water to a bend in the river near a cow pasture. Here was a run of about 30 yards of water on the west bank from 4-6 feet deep. I fished for 30 minutes (Tyson method nymphing) with no luck. I then switched to a size 14 black ant (on the bottom) and caught an 11" and 13" MOUNTAIN WHITEFISH. I switched to a size 22 midge pattern (used on the San Juan River in New Mexico) and caught 3 more WHITEFISH of similar size. Tyson came up from downstream and fished the rapids just above the deeper part of the run and caught 5 more WHITEFISH and a beautiful 12" (what we think is) 'BONNEVILLE' CUTTHROAT (tan in color with few spots) casting to the opposite bank. He was fishing the bottom with a size 16 sow bug and a size 12 'silver spider' a foot above the sow bug. (Tyson tied both of these flies. The silver spider has a thin silver body with hackle along the length of the hook shaft.) Alan and Ben did not have any luck fishing dry flies on top although there were what appeared to be Caddis flies everywhere. We left about 11:30 am and arrived back in Salt Lake City about 12:30 pm on what turned out to be a warm summer day.

Other Miscellaneous Information/Observations:

1. The weather was sunny, but cool in the morning as we were at an estimated elevation of `6,200 feet. The day warmed up pretty fast. There were no mosquitoes to speak of.
2. Walking along the stream consisted of mostly of tall grass. We noted that clumps of grass next to the stream edge were chalk full of caddis or similar flies. When you brushed against a clump of grass, hundreds of flies would ascend out of it.
3. Checking under rocks in the stream revealed small stick-looking caddis shells (empty), time crawling midges, and a sow bug.
4. This was an interesting fishing experience because the Weber River is known to have large brown and cutthroat trout in it. The challenge (at least for us on this day) was to figure out how to entice the trout to take a fly before the whitefish would. We really didn't figure that out.
5. Non-resident Utah fishing license for 2009 is $12, $32, or $70 for a 1-day, 7-day or 1-year license, respectively. The annual license is good for the 365 days subsequent to the day it is purchased.