Starvation Reservoir is an awesome fishery located in northeastern Utah. It’s well known as one of Utah’s premier walleye fisheries, but it also is home to some nice trout and some smallmouth bass. I had the opportunity to spend the weekend there with some friends recently and we caught a bunch of trout, walleye and bass. In this article I’ll go over the details of our trip including what we used, where we fished, and some tips and tricks we learned along the way.
Starvation Reservoir Conditions
- Day 1 – 6:00 pm – 10:30pm
- Day 2 – 6:30am – 2:30pm
- Date: 5/7-8/17
- Weather: Partly cloudy with some rain
- Water Clarity: 2-8 feet visibility
- Wind: Mild wind
Where We Stayed
We ended up renting one of the small cabins at Fred Hayes State Park at Starvation Reservoir. We have rented this same cabin a few times before and have really enjoyed spending time there. Near the cabin their are some nice facilities and it also has a great view of the reservoir. You can find more info about these cabins on the DNR’s website.
Starvation Fishing Report
Day 1
We ended up pulling in around 5:00 PM, we immediately dropped off our stuff at the cabin and then launched the boat around 5:30 PM. From there we headed straight across the lake and fished a spot that we call the sunken island. Which is basically and area north of pulley bend where that has a mini island that is marked by buoys on lower water years. We caught some big rainbows and some small walleye here. We fished around this spot for most of the night as well as the point just west and ended up catching over 25 fish. Including some nice rainbows and walleye.
Day 2
The second day we split into two groups: one group was on a pontoon boat and the other was on my small bass boat. The pontoon boat group was fishing with mostly PowerBait, tubes, and small crankbaits. They were targeting mostly trout and walleye. There were 3 people in my group and we were after mostly bass, but ended up catching a lot of trout and walleye. We fished with jerkbaits, crankbaits and some soft plastics. It was pretty early in the year so the bass weren’t too active, but we were able to catch some nice smallmouth bass and some good size rainbows. We had more time to fish the second day but, the bite seemed to be a little slower. A storm was rolling in so I wondered if that through off the bite a bit. Overall we had a success full day out on the water and caught around 30 fish between the two groups.
Where we fished
During our two day adventure we were able to cover a lot of water and fish different areas between the two groups. Here are the areas where we had the most success:
Point North of Pully Bend
The point that is directly north of the boat ramp is always one of our go to spots for us and it ended up producing this time around. We caught some nice smallmouth bass and rainbow trout fishing a jerkbait. This is a good spot that holds fish throughout the year. We fish the point as well as the cove. There is a good drop-off around this area, the fish seem to orient in different areas on this spot depending on the conditions, but you can find them here throughout the year.
Pulley Bend
This spot has been one of the better spots for us in recent years. However, it didn’t quite give us the results we were used too, but we still caught some decent fish here. This is a good spot for rainbows and you can even catch an occasional brown. We had some success fishing with PowerBait here and caught a nice Brown on a jerkbait on the east side of the dam.
Coves by Rabbit Gulch
The two coves just west of the Rabit Gulch campgrounds ended up producing some nice smallmouth bass. We didn’t catch a lot of them but the ones we did had some nice size to them. We caught some on a tube but most of them were on a jerkbait. The pontoon group fish in rabbit gulch with some fair success and were able to catch a some smaller rainbows.
How we did
Overall we had a successful trip and caught some nice rainbow trout, walleye and smallmouth bass. Here is how we did with each species:
Trout
We caught over 40+ rainbow trout and a nice brown trout during our two day adventure. The largest rainbow trout that we caught was just over 5 pounds with most of the trout being in the 2-3 lb range. The brown that we caught on a jerkbait was around 20 inches.
Walleye
We caught several small walleye fishing a jerkbait. But the biggest fish of the trip was a walleye caught on a small crankbait that weight over 7 pounds. We didn’t primarily focus on catching walleye but it was fun too see them pulled up every now and then.
Bass
We didn’t catch a ton of smallmouth bass either. But it wasn’t for a lack of effort. I believe we ended up catching 5 smallmouths. However, the ones that we did catch did have some nice size to them for a Starvation smallie and were around 2lbs.
Starvation Fishing Video
Here is a video of some of the highlights we had during our trip:
Fishing baits we used
Here are the baits we used to catch fish at Starvation Reservoir on our trip, and how we did with each one.
JerkBaits
Jerkbaits were a solid performed for us through out the trip. We caught browns, rainbows and some walleye all with a jerkbait.
Crankbaits
We didn’t’ have a ton of success fishing cranbaits but we did manage to catch a nice walleye on a white crankbait which ended up being the biggest fish of the trip.
PowerBait
We had a lot of success catching rainbow using PowerBait. We tried of few different colors, below are the colors that we used and how we did with each one.
Green Garlic PowerBait – This bait was lights out for us and has quickly become one of my favorite PowerBait colors. We caught over 25 fish with the green garlic. This bait gets it done.
Rainbow Garlic PowerBait – The rainbow garlic PowerBait is another one of our go to colors. We caught around 12 nice sized rainbows on this color.
Chartreuse PowerBait – We also had some success with the chartreuse color and ended up catching some nice size rainbows on it.
Final Thoughts
Starvation Reservoir is a great reservoir that provides anglers with some awesome fishing opportunities. This was an all-round great weekend fishing trip. We had a great time, with some great friends catching some nice Starvation Reservoir fish.
I hope this information is valuable to you in some way or another. Best of luck out there.
Tight lines!
