Grayling in Utah's Uintahs - September 9, 2021

The dog days of summer in the lower valleys put the river trout to sleep. Yes you can still catch them but early morning and evening are better fishing when the water and air temperature are lower.

So what is a fisherman to do? Head into the mountains. Utah has a lot of great high mountain fishing: Uintah Mtns, Boulder Mtns, Skyline Drive, and more.

That is exactly what we did; we headed to the Uintah mountains of northern Utah and Artic Grayling was our target. My brother-in-law, Mike Bamgartner, fished these mountains all the time. His dad used to take him there as a boy. Now Mike goes almost every week. Me, Lindsay, I had never caught a grayling before, so when Mike told me he and his boys had caught almost 100 in one day, I was in!

Mike worked during the week, but he got off early one Thursday and away we went. We drove over and hour to the dirt road, and then drove some super gnarly roads for another hour, and then bushwacked to a lake that had no trail. It was worth it because the grayling were going crazy, rising to bugs on the surface as the sun dropped behind the rocky crag above us.

Mike schooled us as he caught around a dozen grayling. I only caught 3 but had at least 50 takes on my dry flies. I had a lot to learn, and we only fished for a couple hours but it was well worth the effort! I had another species of fish I had never caught before and spent a great afternoon with family.