Dove Creek Ranch

Yesterday Garrett and I decided to fish this private ranch called dove creek. They have a website that I stumbled upon a few weeks ago at www.trophytroutschool.com. This is a small pond that is stocked full of trophy rainbows and tiger trout. We fished for a few hours and hooked a few however we were only able to land one, which is the picture above. The rainbow above was caught on a pregnant scud, and we had bites on chironomids and various dries including an ant that Garrett threw out and I even had one eat my indicator while fishing chironomids. The water was not very deep this time of year and the fish were really spooky. There were definitely some pigs in this pond which made it very hard to call it quits. The good and bad part of this trip was that you could see just about every fish that you were casting to and they were all big fish. I am a sucker for sight fishing, which is probably why I will go back and give this pond another try.

Fall Fishing Trip

This past week Jarron and I went on a fishing trip that we have been planning for about 6 months. This trip was geared towards catching BIG fish and we fished hard every day from sunrise to sunset. We started this trip in Wyoming at a private ranch called "Guild Ranch", then we went to the Hams Fork in Wyoming, next we headed back to Utah to fish Calder, Tiger Lake, and Strawberry. My fishing trip ended on Thursday; however Jarron is fishing Sheep Creek lake today and headed back to Strawberry on Saturday.

Before I go on with my blog, I would do a huge injustice to "the man" Denny Rickards, if I did not mention his name. He is a fly fishing genius when it comes to fishing still waters and just about all of the fish caught in lakes were on his flies.

GUILD RANCH

If we could do our trip over again we would have fished Guild Ranch last. I would not say that our trip was ruined by fishing Guild first, but theses were the fatest fish I have ever seen in my life. The rest of the trip went like this, "how big is that fish?", "oh he's decent, only 20 inches or so, but not Guild big".

The fish above is probably the fattest fish that I have caught in my life. He was 23 inches long

and a true pig. The fish below is easily the nicest fish I have ever seen in my life. This one was a tiger trout and has a beautiful dorsal hump and hooked jaw. This fish below that Jarron caught is a true football!

Another nice fish with a hooked jaw!

This fish had the spot pattern on his eyes with lots of spots all over his body.

I caught and landed this duck, heck of a fight. I casted way above where this duck was; however he swam over my flies as I was stripping them in. I saw him look down at my flies and I guess he thought they were real bugs because he dove under to eat them and wham... duck on!

Hams Fork

On our way to the Hams just outside of Kemmerer we ran into a herd of sheep. Jarron was is the white car in front and was honking his horn at these sheep but they would not move out of his way.

This river was really good for us in the morning and we caught quite a few fish mainly using small nymphs under a grasshopper. I am not going to even try to tell you how big these fish were because it has been a long week with lots of big fish, so I don't remember. Some of the bigger fish were 20 to 21 inches long.

Calder

We drove straight to Calder from the Hams and got there about 9:30 tuesday night, set up our tent and finally got to eat dinner. When you fish hard all day you usually forget about eating. Calder almost always produces nice fish that fight hard. Jarron hooked into a monster fish that took him into some weeds and ended up busting his sage fly rod into two.

This fish below was foul hooked right into his eye.

Who wants to see my face anyways!

Tiger Lake

Thursday morning we got up and drove over to Tiger Lake. The fishing was tough here because apparently according to some guy with a fish finder the fish were sitting on the bottom about 20 ft down. I switched over to a full sinking line with a big heavy fly and picked up two fish back to back.

This Tiger was 23 inches long, but fairly skinny. I don't know if catching this fish was divine intervention or not, you look at the picture and tell me.

Nice little tiger with cool spot pattern.

Strawberry

Fishing at Tiger Lake was super slow so we cruised over to Strawberry where we caught a bunch of fish. Usually we catch a few nicer fish at strawberry that are around 22 inches or bigger however the fish seemed smaller and thin. Below are pics of my two biggest fish and Jarron caught some nicer ones just over 20 inches.

High Mountain Fun

Since July was wet here in Utah, we got as much high mountain fishing in as we could in Aug.
Below was fishing Pole Creek lake for stocked rainbows. We fished the inlet and caught a bunch on a tan foam ant pattern.
Warning Graphic! At camp this huge chipmunk kept getting into our food, so we pulled out the old BB gun and put an end to that problem.

We followed the creek out of pole creek about 3/4 of a mile and fished this meadow area for little cutts and a few rainbows that sneak out of the lake.

After catching a bunch of little cutts, a 10 to 12 inch rainbow feels like a monster on the stream.

Below is a typical cutt throat from the stream with beautiful spots.

A lot of times we wander around the mountains to find new areas. One day after wake boarding on the Gorge with my friend Chad, we found a cool little stream that is up by spirit lake. Of course nothing big in here, but these are always fun to fish for small cutts.

One night we took the family and Jace's friend Jordan to a small stocked lake called the moose ponds. This lake is right off the road as you are going around flamming gorge.

The fishing is crazy here, with a fish on just about every cast. There are stocked rainbow here that avg around 8-10 inches.

Tiffany and the new guy (Tyson)

Below is Hacking Lake. Every once in a while a lake will skunk us, which this lake did. I am told that brooks and rainbows live here, but I would not know.

Yesterday I went to go fish Paul Lake, which is suppose to have fat brook trout according to one of my patients and a book that I read. After wandering around for a mile trying to find the trail, I gave up hope and decided I would try the Kibah lakes. Someone else told me about good fishing for brook trout in these kibah lakes. When I finally got to the "trail head" I did not see any trail.

By this time I am pissed; however fortunately for me I ran into some local vernalites whom pointed the way. Below is a picture of where you start or where the trail ends. One of the guys pointed up to the bald rock face mountains and told me that the lakes sit up in that basin just over the pine top mountains. He also told me that they were headed there and I could tag along.

There is no trail to these lakes and once you get over the pine ridge you have a nasty boulder field to cross.

Below is Kevin Dickson, who was one of the football coaches here in Vernal, and a friendly guide to the lakes for me.

Fat brook with a fat albert in his mouth. These fish were not picky at all. I fished ants, hoppers, humpys, royal wolffs, and a scud and caught several fish with each fly. Coach dickson used a flat silver lure with red dotts, and blake the other guy used a bubble and a royal coachman.

This is the first first view of the lake after the boulder field. There are 4 lakes that sit in this basin and three have fish. According the the book they had one of the lakes have fat brooks. This lake had a bunch of brookies that ranged from 6-13 inches.

Blake and Kevin with some of the fish they decided to take home and fry. When he gutted them they were chuck full of eggs and some were getting the orange bellies that come when they spawn.

Now that I have caught a lot of little fish, fall is just around the corner and it is time to start catching pigs again!