Fishing at Rockport Reservoir, Utah

I just got back from a great weekend with my Boy Scout troop. It was a blast. We found one of the first-come-first-served tent sites just on the other side of the dam on the north end of the lake. This was called the Riverbend Campgrounds. There is a spot for reserved group sites and then those for first comers. It was a great weekend trip. I caught my first real big fish of my life. It was a 1 lb. and 13 1/2 inch Largemouth Bass. It was beautiful.

We arrived yesterday (8/1/2008) at about 4:45 PM and set-up camp. The tents, the coolers, and laid everything out. Then we sought after the river. After dawning our swimsuits we got in the river (Weber River) and after about 30 seconds hopped out and found that our feet were burning up. It was so cold that we could stand being in there for very long.

After a while, we realized that wading and walking around in the river was best done with our reef-walkers. The rocks were not sharp, but slippery and caused the cold to deepen in the feet. Once we had those on, it was nice. Some actually dunked their heads, my assistant went for the gusto and dipped himself in completely in the middle of the river. He’s always crazy daring like that.

I quickly got out my fishing tackle and began searching for a good fishing spot. We went out on to a little marsh island that had obviously become attainable since the drop in the river. It made for getting out to the middle of the river much easier. Up the stream, down the stream. Nothing was biting, except the cold to our toes. No luck, new plan.

I crossed the river at the top of the river, under the causeway from the dam. I saw some fish surfacing close to this spot when I first arrived and wanted to get over there. But as I said before, the river was freezing and I was reluctant to go across it because I was afraid I’d get halfway, have to slow down because of the increase in volume of the river, and then not be able to go all the way, or then have to come back and my legs would be like popsicles by then.

Unfortunately, no one else caught any fish the whole trip. I cleaned the fish that night and taught the scouts how to do it. For some this was their first fishing trip and first time seeing and touching a live fish from the river. They were thrilled.

We played games around the camp-fire. A fun game called Psychiatrist. The kids always love playing that one cause it’s fun and simple. We played for about an hour.

We went to bed, some of us laying out under the stars. It was definately one of the clearest nights I have seen for as long as I can remember. The stars were numberous, the Milky Way cloudy, and the constelations were definite.

Morning came a lot sooner than I thought. That means I slept through the night soundly on the hard ground. That hardly happens, so I didn’t complain that it was morning. I got up and started preparing to go to the lake for our morning fishing trip. I awoke the scouts, broke camp, and started off.

We stopped at the first inlet we came to so we could get down to the lake and have a long day fishing. All to often do we will spend time trying to find the perfect spot and realize that we can only spend very little time at the spot. Feeling like the day’s been wasted. Not this time, we got out quick, fished, swam, fished, ate, fished.

That’s about how fast and furious that morning was. Not much to tell. It was warm, sunny, breezy … oh and I caught another Largemouth Bass. This one was no more than 7 inches, so I analyzed the fish to see that it wasn’t stressed, no “deep-hooking”, or bleeding and released him.

We started off for home about 11:15 AM and almost everyone slept on the way home. Didn’t I tell you it was a great trip.