Crittenden Reservoir 4-16-2010

I was told that the best way to fish Crittenden this time of year was to “bong fish”. Okay, so after a little research I found out that bonging is basically bobber fishing. The idea is to suspend your bait at the depth you believe the fish to be at below a strike indicator (bobber). The bait for this trip would be chironomid larva and pupa, think non biting mosquitoes. These pictures off the web show what the larva and pupa looks like.















So I went to the vise and tied up some chironomid larva and pupa patterns from recipes found on the web. The second picture shows the flies that worked best.













Crittenden reservoir is west and then north of Wendover Nevada. It’s approximately 200 miles from Bountiful, and about a 4-hour drive. I left Bountiful at 5:30 am, went and picked Rick up in Kearns, and was back on the road at 6:15 am. We stopped at the Tooele exit and picked up some breakfast to go from McDonalds. Our next stop was in Wendover for gas, and then on to Crittenden. The last 18-miles is a very dusty dirt road, but fairly smooth. We arrived around 10:00 am, unpacked our stuff, talked to the caretaker and we were on the water by 10:30 am.




















Rick caught the first and the last fish of the day on a copper crystal killer, all the rest were caught using choronimid larva and pupa fly patterns. These fish were a blast to catch, and very strong.



















The last fish I caught was a very light colored ornery old male I could see him from the shore chasing any fish that got close to him. So I cast a fly in front of him and he slammed it and took off parallel to the shoreline. My reel was screaming as he pulled line off it. Every time I got him in close he would make another run. After watching for awhile Rick said “do you want me to bring over the net”. As you can see in the pictures this guy was a little beat up from doing battle with the other fish.














I pumped the throat of the second fish I caught, and found that it had been eating chironomid larva and pupa, some damsel nymphs, a scud, and a leech. The third picture shows a chironomid adult that had almost escaped its pupal shuck before being eaten.














Here are some pictures of the actual bugs and the fly imitations. By the time I took these pictures the color of the larva had faded. The two big flies in the second picture are the ones I used, the small one in the middle (size 18 or 20) would have been closer to the right size, but I don't know how well it would have stuck and held a big fish.














This was a fun trip and we plan on doing it again when the water warms up a little (50-55 deg) and the fish get more active. The water temperature this trip fluctuated between 43-47 deg. We fished from 10:30 am to 6:30 pm. On the way home we stopped in Wendover for dinner at burger king, and to replace a fuse that had blown that ran the dash and tail lights. After dropping Rick off in Kearns I headed for home and pulled into the driveway at 12:05 am.