Salt Lake City Fishing: Clear Skies, Active Fish - Early & Late Bite is Prime

This is Artificial Lure with your Salt Lake City area fishing report. We don’t worry about tides on the Wasatch Front, so the big movers today are **weather, water temps, and light**. The National Weather Service is calling for a clear, warm late‑spring day around the valley, light winds in the morning building to a breeze this afternoon. Cooler overnight temps mean fish will be most active early and late. Sunrise is right around 5:55 a.m., sunset close to 9:00 p.m., giving you a long window to work the low‑light bite. Along the **Jordan River** through Salt Lake and Murray, anglers this week have been picking up **channel catfish, common carp, and the odd walleye and smallmouth**. Night crawlers on a slip‑sinker rig or cut bait for cats has been the ticket; carp guys are doing well on simple dough balls and corn. Cast small swimbaits or chartreuse curly‑tail jigs in the deeper bends and under bridges for that surprise walleye when the sun’s just coming up or about to drop. Up at **Jordanelle Reservoir**, local reports have been solid for **smallmouth bass, rainbow trout, and a few kokanee**. Bass are hanging around rock piles and points in 10–20 feet. A green pumpkin tube jig, 3‑inch shad‑style swimbait, or a Ned rig in natural colors has been money. Trollers running small spoons and wedding‑ring spinners behind dodgers, tipped with a bit of night crawler, are seeing steady rainbows with the occasional koke when they find cooler, deeper water. Closer to town, **Deer Creek** has produced good numbers of **rainbow trout and walleye**, especially for boats pulling worm harnesses and silver or gold spoons slow and low. Shore anglers are doing fine soaking PowerBait in chartreuse or rainbow colors, or tossing 1/4‑ounce Kastmasters and Jake’s Spin‑a‑Lures. For the fly crowd, **Lower Provo River** is still one of the hottest tickets within striking distance of Salt Lake. Recent chatter from local fly shops says steady action on **browns and rainbows** with midges and small mayfly nymphs under an indicator. In the evenings, swing soft hackles or throw a size 16–18 caddis dry when the light drops and you see noses poking up. A couple of **hot spots** I’d circle for today: - The **rocky points on Jordanelle’s main lake** for smallmouth. Work that dawn bite with tubes and small swimbaits. - The **Jordan River near 4800 South and down through Murray**, focusing on deeper bends for channel cats after sunset with cut bait or stink bait. Best general **lures** right now: - 2–3 inch soft‑plastic swimbaits in shad or perch colors - Green pumpkin tubes and Ned rigs - Silver and gold spoons, small spinners, and Jake’s in brass/black Best **bait**: night crawlers, cut bait for cats, corn or dough for carp, and standard trout offerings like PowerBait and salmon eggs in the reservoirs. That’s your Wasatch Front fishing rundown from Artificial Lure. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a report. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn