IDAHO Fall Trip

This year for our annual fall fishing trip we headed back up towards Island Park, ID.  Jarron, Ben and I met up in Rigby where we stayed with Jarrons in-laws Sunday night.  That night Jarrons father-in-law cooked up an awesome venison dinner for us.  Monday morning we took off early to fish Sheridan Lake.  Every year since we fished Guild we have tried a new private lake, and Sheridan was suppose to be that awesome private lake.  We got to Sheridan around 8 and were fishing by 8:30 and started hooking in to a bunch of fish that ranged from 12 to 16 inches.  After fishing all morning and nothing to big we decided to fish the river on their property that was suppose to be good also.

 We got to the creek that was not very big and we were already a little skeptical since the lake had flopped.  One of the guys from Sheridan told us their were big fish in this creek well over 20 inches.  We got to the first hole and looked in the water and could not believe what we were seeing.  The hole was stacked with fish and a few nice ones too.  Later we headed towards another hole, which the guy told us their were 200 fish in this one hole.  Well, the pic below is the 200 fish hole, and from where Jarron is at to the top of the picture was stacked with fish, probably close to 200, I don't know.

 In the picture below you can see all of the fish stacked up, which is how it looked throughout this hole.  Although we did not catch any real pigs in the creek, it definitely made up for the lake.

After fishing the creek most of the afternoon we headed back to the lake to see if it would redeem itself.  Crusing around in the boat I could see a couple of nice fish and we even caught a few bigger fish, but not private lake sized fish.

That night we packed up and drove to Henrys Lake where we set up camp and planned on fishing the next couple of days.  Tuesday morning the weather was crappy, rainny, and worst of all windy!  We put out on the lake anyways, hoping to catch a huge hybrid rainbow and some nice cutts.  We did catch a few smaller cutts, but the fishing was tough and the water was murky with the visibility being about 1 foot.  After fighting the wind most of the day we decided to give up and grabbed a late lunch.  During lunch we looked at the weather report for the next day and decided to pack up and leave Henrys.  Ben had to be to work the next day so he headed straight home and Jarron and I went back to his in-laws for a nice bed to sleep in.  The next morning we got up and headed towards a lake I had been wanting to fish for awhile.

 After only one wrong turn we finally made it to our destination.  Fish were jumping all over the place so we started to throw our normal assortment of big buggers with no avail.  After seeing some midges come off the water we both switched up to smaller stuff, and one of us even used a bobber, or sorry and "indicator".  Finally we started to catch fish, but they were all around 12 inches.  I had begun to think that we were cursed on this trip and would not catch anything real nice.  In a last ditch effort we cruised towards the north end of the lake, and with one of my first casts up towards some reeds sticking out of the water, finally saw the water explode and felt a good tug on the end of my rod.  The rest of the morning and afternoon we hooked into nicer fish with the occasional bout of smaller fish mixed in.

 We stuck to smaller stuff all day mainly throwing callibaetis nymphs, prince nymphs, stillwater nymphs and even a halfback nymph.  We pumped some bellies and found some olive and orange scuds mixed in with midges.

 On several occasion we both hooked into fish at the same time.

 At one time we both caught fish that were nearly the exact same length

 In the afternoon there was a good hour where the fish turned it up a notch.  I hooked into a fish that nearly took me into my "backing" ha ha.  We had thought that I foul hooked him, but when I finally got him near the boat the fly was right in his mouth.  Then Jarron hooked into a fish that again we thought had to be fouled, but again was in the mouth.  We spent the next hour catching nice big fish that fought real hard.  Even the smaller big fish fought harder than they did before.  After the hour was up we caught nothing but small fish for just about the rest of the time, with an occasional lunker mixed in.

September Trips

Over Labor day weekend, the Carter family had their annual camping trip up by Flamming Gorge.

While we were up that way, we also did our annual "Bro's no Ho's" float down the Green. 

We dropped the drift boat off at the Dam and it started to rain hard.  By the time Trent and Todd got back from little hole the rain had stopped, but we had a good couple of inches of water we had to bail out of the boat.  Luckily it didn't rain again the entire trip until we pulled in to little hole.

 Trent chucked a brown trout rapala all day and caught a lot of fish.  One of his last fish was the nice fat rainbow in the picture below.

 Todd caught a couple of fish underneath using a black PT nymph.  His last fish of the day took him for a ride and was a nice healthy brown in the pic below.

 Jones Hole

 Saturday (9/22/12), my wife actually told me to go fish for the day!  Since I had some time to burn all by myself, I went to Jones Hole around lunch time and hit Calder in the evening.

 Finally a break at Jones!  My past couple of trips to Jones has been hard fishing with not very many fish.  This trip however, I had the creek to myself and the fishing was ridiculous.  I started with a brown ant that caught a few fish but started to sink, so I went to tie on something else.  I noticed I had very little tippet and left my extra tippet in the car.  So, I picked out a nice tan hopper and tied it straight on to my leader, which apparently worked out much better on a small creek with trees everywhere.  Once the Hopper was tied on, BAM, fish on all day long.

 I only hiked in about 1.5 miles and was surprised at home many browns I caught. 

CALDER

 After a good afternoon on Jones, I stopped off at Calders, put the boat in and rowed over towards the inlet.  Once I got to the inlet side of the lake, I noticed a fish  rising on occasion.  I tied on a olive/burnt org stillwater bug and trailed a black/peacock callibaetis nymph behind it.  My first cast was towards the area where he was rising.  As my fly was sinking just a bit, I felt my line take off.  I set the hook and this big old rainbow came flying out of the water 3 times.  When I finally got him close to the boat, he made one last run deep into the weeds right under me and "pop" there went my fly.  He took the nymph, so I tied another one on.

 My next 3 fish however took the stillwater bug.  Overall for the evening it was 60:40 with the stillwater bug winning.  My fishing luck carried over from Jones Hole and I had an awesome evening on calder boating a fish about every five minutes.

 Most of my fish where in the 16 to 18 inch range, but ALL were nice and fat.

 My biggest fish of the evening was a 21 incher

 As the sun was setting over the mountain, I heard an Elk bugle not to far from where I was at.  A few minutes later I heard a weird grunting noise.  I turned towards the noise, thinking it was the elk I had heard and was shocked to see a moose family.

 So, I rowed over a bit closer to get a better peak.  I watched them for about 15 mins, but soon all the fish jumping around me enticed me to cast again.  A couple more fish to the boat and I called it a night!

Calder

Today Zack, Tyson and I took a quick little trip up to Calder Resv.  We have been fishing quite a bit this year as a family, but I have been lazy to post on this blog.  You can see some of our other fishing trips on my family blog at tjwatkinsfamily.blogspot.com

 We fished for a couple of hours and only got 2 fish.  The lake was super mossy and pretty warm.  Both were caught on the olive/orange stillwater bug.  The fish below was a nice 18 incher but looks huge in the hands of a 5 year old.

 On our way home we saw a ton of deer

 and some tasty birds too!

Spartan Training

 I have signed up for a Spartan Race that is in two weeks and have not been running as much as I should be, so today I decided to get in some training time, with a good rest/fishing break in the middle.  I drove up to Chepeta Lake which is in the top picture and sits about 10,500 ft and thought I would jog up to the top peak, which is in the bottom picture,and just over 12,000 ft elevation.  I mentioned that I "thought" I would jog, which actually only happened in very short intervals due to the lack of precious oxygen.

The Divide

Spirit Lake

The vista on this peak was awesome.  This peak divides the north and south slopes of the Uintahs, and at the top I could see all the way to Flaming Gorge.

Walkup Lake

 After hiking to the great divide I dropped back down into walkup lake which sits at 11,114 elevation.  I found this lake last year and it has been a real fun lake to fish for brook trout.  The fishing is real fast with literally a fish on every cast, but catching small brookies every cast is only fun for so long.

 On the way back down to the car, I jumped this big old buck.  He was a typical 4 point with nice velvet antlers.  I could not get close enough to him to get a decent picture with the camera I had.

 There are several lakes within a mile or so from chepeta, which I wasn't planning on fishing; however when I dropped into wigwam lake fish were jumping all over the place so I had to cast in a couple of times.

wigwam brook

Chepeta Lake

Spring Trips

I apologize for the set up of this blog. "They" switched the format on me so this blog is really confusing.  This blog consist of 3 different trip.  2 Saturdays ago we had decided to float the Green River as a family; however Jace, Zack and I headed up early to Calder to get a couple of hours in there.  We started off trolling and Jace caught one off a spinner (below).  After that it was fairly slow, until I got close to the boat ramp to dock the boat.  I cast my fly right up onto the bank and caught the fish above.  As I was docking my boat I told two guys, who just pulled up, to fish off the bank by the boat ramp.  One of the guys landed 2 nice fish as I was getting everything ready to go. 

Jace with his fish.  Most of the fish I caught were on a grey AP emerger.

One night after work Zack, Tyson and I headed up to Calder to fish for a few hours.  I had been dying to get back up since I knew the fish were in close to the bank.  After busting off on a fish and a few different misses, we rowed over to the inlet where the fish were stacked up on the bank.  About the last 30 mins to an hour of sunlight, fish were going nuts splashing around 1 to 2 feet off the bank.  My first few casts onto the bank caught some fish until I finally snagged a rock.  Rod number two came out with the same results a few minutes later.  As we rowed up to the bank and got out I could see hundreds of fish right off the bank and none of them seemed to be too afraid of me.

Tyson and Zack

Jace with the first catch of the evening.  When we got to the Green this day, I went straight to a hole I always fish and next thing I knew Jace was trying to fish in my spot  I kicked him out and he went down river a bit and his first cast into his new spot produced a nice brown.  He caught it with a copper spinner with a white body.

Zack with a rainbow that he reeled in.

We spent most of the evening fishing behind this big rock in the picture.  There was a killer mayfly hatch coming off and fish were slurping up flies all over the place.

Most of the fish were caught on a grey parachute adams and a mayfly cripple pattern.

Zack with another rainbow

Tiff with the first fish of the day on our family float trip.  We trailed a black callibaetis nymph behind a ginger woolley bugger.

I rowed most of the day while tiff and the boys fished.  We pulled over for lunch and I finally got to fish.  Jace caught several fish on a brown trout rapala

Jace and Zack

Tyson

Final stretch of the Green.  Tyson feel asleep in Tiffs arms so we plowed through the last couple of miles. I promise most post after this one wont be as confusing!