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Cherry Creek
Tooele/Juab Counties, Utah
Ryan Crockett
My sister Robin and her kids were in town from Florida, so I thought it would be fun to take her and my nephew Christopher out to do some Great Basin exploring. The original plan was to go to the Cherry Creek area Southwest of Eureka to so some metal detecting with Christopher. I had also heard a rumor that there were trout in Cherry Creek, so I threw the fishing poles in the car just in case.
We drove West from Eureka to Tintic Junction and continued over the train tracks on a dirt road which wound it's way to Cherry Creek. When we first saw signs of water we stopped to check it out and found that Cherry Creek was drier than a popcorn fart. It was only about a foot wide with just a trickle of water. We jumped back in the car thinking that fishing was out of the question.
Christopher with
his catch. "They got bigger ones in Florida." Maybe... but they
ain't trout.
When we came around the next bend there was a big surprise! A small reservoir that didn't appear in my atlas, or any other map I've looked at since, came in to view. We didn't know if it had fish, but it was worth a try. We had some nightcrawlers, but decided to use Mormon crickets instead, since there seemed to be no lack of them. On the second cast, I reeled in a 10 inch rainbow trout. After a few hours of fishing we had landed at least 15 fish. Christopher caught the winner at 16 inches (bigger fish could be seen in the water from the cliffs above).
We then decided to head further south to check out the mines and ruins that appeared on the map in the hills around Cherry Creek. We picked the first decent looking road a few miles south of the reservoir and wandered through the hills until we came across a rock cabin. We hiked around and found mines everywhere we looked.
There was enough around to explore for several days, but the heat was unbearable, so we decided to head further south in search of the Rockwell Ranch. We don't know if we found it, but we did find some of the biggest cottonwood trees I've ever seen lined up along a dried up reservoir. We hung out in the shade for another hour and then headed back to the reservoir for a few more casts before heading home.
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