Fishing heats up as temperatures cool down

The mornings are cooler. Cooler than they were just weeks ago. That's the first sign that fishing is improving.

Colors. That's the second sign. Mountainsides are a color wheel of shades and tones. A month ago, they were, for the most part, green.

The third sign is the annoying bugs are gone. Cooler days have driven off those aggravating gnats, mosquitoes and flies.

Yet another sign of improved fishing can be seen on the shorelines and riverbanks. They are far less crowded. For some reason, when fishing starts to improve in the fall, anglers' interests turn to other things, like hunting, football and school.

The best indication that fall has arrived and fishing is improving shows up on the end of the line, where thin lips have locked onto a Woolley Bugger or a fat, juicy nightcrawler.

Because of the unseasonably warm temperatures, however, fall has been delayed. Some say by as much as two weeks.

Water temperatures simply are not as cold as they should be. But, with cooler weather in the forecast, it shouldn't take long to get back into the fall mode.

"It's been so warm," said Alan Ward, project leader for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources at Strawberry Reservoir, "we're just now getting into fall fishing. Conditions are improving. From reports we're getting, fishing is picking up."

The same is true with the high Uinta lakes.

There are a couple of reasons for good fall fishing. One is that with cooler water, fish move closer to the surface and are therefore easier to reach with a fly and bubble or chunk of nightcrawler.

This is also a time when larger fish are caught. Shallows in the summer are usually too warm for big fish to cruise for food, so they stay in deeper water. In the fall, they come in routinely to feed where food is more abundant.

The one key element to this formula for good fishing, however, isn't what lake to visit or what lure to use, but simply the act of getting out of the house, fishing rod and reel in hand, and enjoying the last few weeks of open water.

It is true, too, that fish are less finicky about what they take. Instinct tells them to feast now, for famine is evident if they don't. So, instead of playing with their food and making small, half-hearted bites, they hit with hungry determination.