Justin's Fishing Blog

Fall Trip 2011

2011-10-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

HENRY'S LAKE

Idaho

This years fall trip took us up into Idaho and Montana to fish at 3 different locations. We drove to Rigby, Idaho Tuesday arriving late at night and crashed at Jarrons In-Laws house for the night. The next morning we got up bright and early and drove another hour and a half to Island Park to fish at Henry's Lake for the next two days.

Fishing the first day at Henry's was ridiculous. We paddled over to the spot we wanted to fish and anchored down just before 9am. The next two hours of fishing was insane with literally a fish on with every single cast. What they wanted? Anything olive in color. We caught them off of the still water nymph and bug both olive with orange tails, and also an egg sucking simi seal bugger. The afternoon wasn't anything like the morning was but was still good fishing. We had to work a bit for the fish we caught but the bite was on all day.

This trip also produced a few nice Brookies! For brook trout these are nice fish. Definitely the biggest I have caught to date.

Jarron caught the first brook of the day.

Justin with is first brook trout

2nd Brookie

Mainly we caught a lot of Yellowstone cutts mixed in with a few fat Hybrids and the occasional brook trout. You always knew when you had a hybrid on because they fought a lot harder than the Cutts.

The second day we paddled out to our same spot and apparently word got out because there were about 8 other boats in the same area. We arrived about the same time as the previous day hoping for the same experience; however the water was dirty and we had to work hard for the fish we caught.

We moved a little further away from all the boats and the fish started biting again. It wasn't quite as good and the morning before but the fishing was still crazy for the next hour or so with a fish on almost every cast.

This is a great lake to fish because the average size fish is a big fish and there is always the chance to catch a huge trophy.

Above is Jarron with a nice fat hybrid.

Towards the end of our first day out, Jarron landed this Pig of a hybrid below. For some reason neither of us had a tape measure on us so none of our fish where measured.

SITZ RANCH
Montana

Thursday evening we left Henry's and headed North towards Sitz Ranch. Late that night we pulled into a town that was close to the Ranch and camped by a local lake. The night was dark and spooky and the town was even spookier. I kept expecting to hear the sounds of banjos playing in the distance, needless to say I slept with my .45 ready to go under my pillow and Jarron slept with his .40.
Sitz Ranch, or The Sitz as we called it, consists of 3 smaller lakes around 15 acres and one medium sized lake just over 100 acres.

The fish fight HARD here for their size and are nice and fat, but for a private trophy lake the fish could use a few more inches of growth.

Below is another nice brook that I caught from one of the smaller lakes. I took several pictures of this fish since it had nice color to it and a dark black jaw; however after I let it go I noticed that there was a splash of water on the lens and below was the best non blurry picture that I got.

The KRAKEN

At the Sitz one of the ranch hands told us how to get to the biggest of the 4 lakes, since we were a bit lost for awhile, and told us that when we got there we would want to fish by an old gold dredge and told us, "don't worry, you'll see it".

This thing was a monster and kind of spooky to get close to. In the pic below you can see Jarron battling some fish by what we named the Kraken.

This big lake they told us was hard to figure out, but Jarron tied on a olive still water bug with the orange tail and absolutely slayed them.

CLARK CANYON RESV.

Montana

After fishing the Sitz all day Friday, we packed up everything and hit the road again traveling towards Dillan, Montana. We got to Clark Canyon late after stopping off at another town on the way for dinner. By this time we were sick of making dinner and putting up the tent in the dark, just to go right to bed and wake up early the next morning. Clark Canyon Resv. is a shallow reservoir with big brown trout that were moving in towards the shore to spawn. We caught a few nice browns right off the bat, and worked hard for a few more the rest of the morning. By noon that day the wind picked up hard and blew us off the lake.

Our plan was to fish all day Saturday, but these fishing trips are serious trips. We fish from sunrise to sunset, travel a couple of hours after getting off the lake just to set up camp, make dinner, sleep, wake up and put everything away before the sun pops up again. So, by Saturday after the wind blew us off the lake we called it a day and made the long trip back home.

Boulder Mountains

2011-08-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

This last week Aug 16-20th my whole family (brothers, parents, ect.) went up to the Boulder Mountains to camp. I planned this trip from a tip that some guy gave me about 2 years ago on his "honey hole". I promised him I would not disclose the names of the lakes to everyone so we will just refer to these lakes at the boulder lakes, which there are many. However, if you know where the state record brook trout came from you will know exactly where I am!

This time of year is a little late/hot to really have good success with big state record brook trout, so we went to a couple of lakes that had Tigers and Splake.

Above is Cameron with the biggest fish of the trip. This guy was 20 inches and fat. He hit a copper spoon that had red dots on it.

As you know, I love to go to my local tiger lake to fish for Tiger trout, but these Tigers had way cooler spot patterns and were fat. This lake was full of scuds so naturally I fished my still water nymph followed by a prego scud. MONEY!

Rain storm on ? lake

My dad, brother Cam, and boy Jace came on this fishing excursion which of course required a bit of hiking.

I love the pic of this fish below. He is not very long at all but these guys do eat!

Grandaddy Lake Basin

2011-08-25T18:59:00.000-07:00

The last week of July I met my Dad and older brother Micah to start off a 3 day backpacking trip. We have been planning this for awhile now and had a course with all of the lakes that I wanted to fish. Thursday, July 28th I met the guys early in the morning and we drove up the canyon towards the trailhead; however we did not quite make it. There was a big barrier closing the dirt road and right next to the barrier was a sign that read, Grandview Trailhead 6 miles. Well, after a lot of discussion, searching the map, and a few unsaid profanities, we threw our packs on and hiked up this dirt road to the trail head. Little did we know that the road up to the trailhead was uphill the whole way with an elevation change from just under 8000 ft to just over 10,000 ft in 6 miles. 4 hours later we finally hit the trailhead and I thought for sure my dad was going to die. At the trailhead we ate lunch and rested for an hour before we hit the trail again. From the trailhead to the first lake, which is granddaddy lake, is 4 mile with the first 3 up hill again and another 1000 ft elevation gain. After a very long day with 9 miles straight up and 1 mile back down to 10,000 ish elevation we finally found a place to call home for the next few days.

Now the story of this stupid deer in the picture above. This deer and 2 of his buddies, every late afternoon would come into OUR camp and circle us all night long. These guys were fearless and would not run off even though we yelled and even resorted to throwing rock on occasion, they just kept circling. As soon as night came and we went into our tent, they decided to walk right through our camp and would knock over everything they possibly could. It was extremely difficult to sleep with big animals circling you tent all night. One of them even knocked over my spinning rod and stepped on it breaking it in a few pieces. Darn good thing I kept my fly rod in its case!

Grandaddy Lake

Betsy Lake

We camped next to Betsy Lake which is real close to Grandaddy lake. Betsy lake has some nice Cutts in it but they were fairly stubborn on what they wanted to eat.

View of the Grandaddy Basin

Well, day two we woke up somewhat refreshed and headed out with day packs to hike in to a bunch of lakes. Over all we saw lakes: Grandaddy, betsy, lost, rainbow, govn dern, pine island, lily pad, fish hatchery, mohawk and a few others that were smaller and thus not named. Below are a few of my favorite lakes.

Lost Lake

Governor Dern Lake
Pine Island Lake
(this one had about 5-6 pine tree covered islands)

On this day trip we hiked a 10 mile loop, fished a few of the lakes and one sweet stream. The majority of the fish caught were brookies on a new cicada pattern that I have been testing out and having great success on some of the local higher lakes. Below, if you look closely, is actually dinner. Lake Betsy held some actually big fish that would sip midges every night. I coaxed a few up to sip one of my midges and a couple even ate my cicada.

Saturday morning we got up and put our packs back onto our sore shoulders and hiked the 10 miles out. It took us 7 hours to hike the 10 miles in, but with 9 miles downhill it took us 3 hours and 45 mins to hike out.

The Wife Says I Fish TOO Much

2011-05-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

After 2 months of several fishing trips and not a lot of big fish and sometimes no fish, I finally catch a break. Today we went to Tiger Lake and fished for 2 hours. I was able to land 4 fish: 3 Tigers and 1 nice Cutt. This cutt below took a black wooley bugger with a slow hand twist retrieve. This was my favorite fish of the day due to overall fatness, coloration and size (21 inches).

Below is a terrible picture of my largest fish of the day. This Tiger was a legit 24+ inch trout. All of the Tiger trout ate the still water nymph that I trailed from a black wooley bugger. I kept a steady slow hand twist retrieve all day since it was working.

First fish of the day just over 20".

Smallest fish of the day, just shy of 19".

Last night we went up to the Gorge at night to sleep over with the intentions of fishing up around that area the next morning. Jace, Zack and I slept in the back of the minivan and at 2:00 am I was awakened to snow falling of the trees and hitting our vehicle. I sat up and could not see anything since there was snow all over the windows. I opened the door to peek outside and saw a good 6 inches of snow and it showed no signs of stopping. SO, I climbed out of bed and started up the minivan and worked my way out to the highway. It was just after 4:00 am when we finally pulled up the driveway to our home.

Below is the sunset at Matt-Warner. Friday after work, Jay (U of U intern at work) and I went up with the drift boat to fish Calder. Well after being blown around for an hour and no fish caught we decided to head over to Matt Warner to fish from the bank. Jay fishes a copper blue fox spinner that destroys fish everywhere he goes. His spinner lived up to its name and he ended up catching around a dozen rainbows. I caught one fairly nice cuttbow off a black wooley bugger before giving up to watch Jay catch fish.

A few weeks ago Zack and I went up to fish the Gorge for some spawners. We did not see any off of the banks but ended up catching a few off of a copper colored egg sucking bugger. After fishing the Gorge, Zack wanted to keep fishing (at least I have one boy who loves to fish). We drove over to greens lake with no luck and then headed over to the moose ponds where we caught a few puny rainbows.

Zack fishing at Greens Lake.

April 16th was the death of my camera. This is the 4th camera that I have killed in 5 years. I took my brother and 2 of his friends down the Green and they caught a ton of fish using a brown trout rapala. We floated the river in about 3-4 hours since it was fairly high water. With a lot of time left over we headed to sheep creek bay on the Gorge to see if we could get into any rainbows. Well, they ended up catching 4-5 rainbows chucking power bait and so the curse began. After a full day of pictures, I put my camera on the rear bumper of the truck while I squared away a few things on the drift boat. Anyways, I forgot about my camera until we pulled into Vernal. As soon as I got home and my brother and his friends left, I jumped into my car in hopes to find my camera in the parking lot. Well, The parking lot was full of camera stealing thief's when we left and I assume somebody is enjoying my nice waterproof camera.

Spring Green Trip

2011-04-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

On March 31st-April 1st Jarron, Alex and I took a two day trip on the Green. The weather was nice and warm; however the wind blew hard. It was pretty tough fishing that first day on the river but we did manage a few fish to the boat. All of the fish caught on Thursday were underneath using wolley buggers, zebra midges, and a black RS-2. The wind was so horrible by the time we got off the river that we wussed out on our "camping trip" and ended up staying the night at Flaming Gorge Resort. Friday morning the wind was not too bad so we set the drift boat out on the Gorge trying to target some big spawning rainbows. After about 20 mins of good weather and no fish caught the wind decided to pick up again HARD and blew us right off the lake. After that we drove down to little hole to try our luck on the river again. Jarron ended up doing well with a micro mayfly nymph without a bead head. Around 1:30 the wind died down a bit a finally a good blue wing hatch came off. With the hatch in full swing I did good with a mayfly cripple pattern and the mole fly. Below are a few of the fish caught during the trip.

Dove Creek Ranch

2010-12-28T18:40:00.000-08:00

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

2010-10-15T07:49:00.001-07:00

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

2010-09-05T15:02:00.001-07:00

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!

Karma

2010-07-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

I got off work a little early today so I decided to head up on the mountain and do some fishing.
I started off at the Green tying on a cicada with a tan zebra midge as a dropper. The cicadas did not hatch this year but this fly still grabs the fishes attention. The first hole I came to I saw a couple of fish cruising around and ended up catching one up top, kind of. Well... it always takes a couple of fish when using a cicada to be patient enough to let the fish take such a big fly.

As you can see my dropper fly snagged the dorsal fin after yanking the cicada out of the fishes mouth. Quite a fight after that!

After my first fish "caught" this boy around 10 years old asked if I was catching fish. He told me that he has been up and down this river all day long with his dad and hasn't caught anything let alone seen a fish. Well, being the nice guy that I am I told him I would find him a fish. It just so happened that the next hole we walked to had 2 nice fish in it that were actively feeding. One was a rainbow in the 18-20 inch range. For the green this was probably the biggest fish I would see today; however I held back and let him cast out with his bubble and fly. I don't think he caught the fish since I took off shortly after, but he was happy just to see a fish.

I left that boy and ended up slaying the fish up top with my cicada. I ended up catching over a dozen fish in a couple of hours with nearly 75% of them on the cicada.

The wind picked up on the green so I decided to head over to a little lake nearby that is stocked with brookies. The weeds at this lake were too thick to fish from the shore but the scenery was awesome and I was able to watch a lot of deer, including a nice 3 point buck, come up to drink.

On my way home I was looking out in this field and thought I saw a black cow. When I looked again it was a big black bear. I watched this bear wander around for about 20 minutes. It was getting dark so my pics did not turn out well at all.

In the photo below the bear was about 35 yards away from me so I started to yell and clap at him to see if I could scare him off. He just looked at me and even took a few more steps closer. He did not seemed bothered by me at all. There was a campground about 150 yards away, so hopefully this bear stays alive.

Recent Trips

2010-07-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

July 15th at 11:59pm, Tyson Carter Watkins was born. This is our 3rd boy and he came just in time since I had a fishing trip planned on the 19th. A few months ago one of my old professors called me up wanting to float the green. He told me the last two weeks of July he had open and since Tiffany was due the 31st of July, we decided to go with the earlier dates. About a week ago at one of Tiffanys check ups, her doctor told her that she would have her baby within a week or two since she was already dialated to a 4. Well, we worked hard and got the baby out just in time for me to go on our trip.

I took Jim Ballard and his two boys up to Calder. I rowed them around in my drift boat while they trolled some wolley buggers. The hooked into quite a few fish but these were big fish and we only boated one fish. We fished Calder from 5:30 to about 8:00 then headed over to the green. On our way over to the green, Jim spotted this fawn stuck on the fence.

So, being the good samaritans that we are, we helped it off the fence. Once we got him off he screamed at us and ran straight into the fence again and again, so we just backed off and let him calm down. His back legs weren't working too well, so who knows what will happen. After that we floated the green. We caught a few small bows and had a good time going down the river.

Monday the 5th of July, my two boys and I hiked into middle rock to catch some big cutts. After packing my three year old in on my back, I was pissed to see what had happened. We hiked around to the far side like we always do to where you can get up on rocks and scout the lake for some big cruisers; however instead all we saw were white bellies. Apparently this lake winter killed and all the big fish were gone.

This lake was a small lake that had cutts up to 18 and 20 inches. We did see some fingerlings that had been planted in there so hopefully one day it will be good again.

Sorry... A lot of fishing trips and no pics. I will make up for it shortly!

Fishing the Scud

2010-07-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took Trent, Todd, and the boys up to the secret lake, after making them all promise to never disclose the location of this lake. When we arrived, Trent took the boys out in the drift boat to chuck some rapalas, while Todd and I walked the banks trying to spot some tiger trout. After Todd tied on a scud I saw him quickly disappear down a cliff enbankment. I ran over to see what he was up to and when I got there I quickly saw why he would brave a cliff to fish. From the top I had an excellent view of this monster tiger trout that was cruising the bank about 5-8 ft under the surface. From where I was this fish looked about 30 inches long and around 10 lbs. Todds fly was not sinking to where the fish was so I chucked him my rod which had a pregnant flip scud with plenty of lead on top and was tied in a size 10. BIG FLY! When Todd casted the fly out in front of this pig, the fish quickly turned to confront this monster scud, but ended up just brushing up against it. The fish changed directions and Todd once again casted out in front. As the scud sank we could easily see the fish turn again to take this meal, however this time we saw its massive mouth open as it took his fly. Todd set the hook and the fish was on. I quickly scampered down the cliff with my net to help land this fish. Long story short, this pig busted off the line right when I had half of his body in the net. Unfortunately the top half was out of the net and he slowly swam away.

After that we walked over to the inlet which still had some cutts podded up from their spawn. We caught quite a few cutts on the pregnant scud while stripping it in with short strips. The weather turned bad which made sight fishing for the tigers impossible.

Jace ended up catching a cutt with a red snowcone midge hanging from a bobber. Jace was not able to hold the fish on his own so his cousins, Tanner and Carter, were more than happy to help.

Tanner and Carter casting their rods.

Camping-Memorial Weekend

2010-05-30T18:17:00.001-07:00

I have been trying to get up to Flaming Gorge for over a month now to fish for the spawning rainbows. One of my patients goes up 3-4 times a week and always lets me know how good it was. Finally this last week, he told me that I better get up there with in a day or two because the fishing has started to slow down. I took the boys up wednesday after work and got a flat tire on the dirt road down to the lake. I decided that I would fish a bit anyways before driving home 50 miles on my donut spare tire. I had my patients secret fly which is basically a ginger bugger with no hackle. My very first cast I landed the fish below. It was frustrating after that because you could see over 5lb rainbows everywhere within the first 10-20 feet of shore but none of the fish were interested. Next year remind me to go in April!
This last weekend I decided to go to currant creek for a camping trip. My dad and brother met us up there for a quick friday/saturday trip. Saturday morning we went to the lake to let the kids chuck some bait. When we got to our favorite spot, there were about 15 "out of towners" with their buckets filled with trout. Jace ended up catching a few smaller cutts, and I caught some smaller browns below the dam in the river. On the way home we made a little detour to our secret tiger lake and ended up catching about 20 cutthroats that where piled up in the little inlet.

This lake is a brood lake for the native bonneville cutthroats. They had some bright red coloration to their bellies since they are spawning.

Jace with his cutthroat from currant creek.

Tigers

2010-05-20T18:00:00.001-07:00

Today one of my old patients and I headed out to catch some big tiger trout. We fished all morning with no success, and then with the help of another fisherman we ran into, we figured out how to fish this lake. This lake is FULL of scuds and these tigers hang out on the bank and slurp theses scuds all day long. Fishing here was really fun because it is all sight fishing to big fish. The fly of the day was a tan scud with a orange bead in the body. Light olive scuds worked too but not like the other one.

The guy we ran into fishes this lake about every week and really had the fishing down to a science. He was the only person on this lake catching fish until he let me in on his secret and gave me a few flies! After that I caught about 6 nice tiger trout.

Bro's No Ho's Trip

2010-05-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

This last Saturday Trent and Todd came up to visit for our yearly bro's no ho's fishing trip. This sacred fishing trip has become a long tradition for the brother-in-laws on the Carter side of the family, where we bro's go fishing and of course leave the... our beautiful wives home. This year Trent out fished everyone with his 6 hooked rapala that is now dubbed "old faithful".

Todd had a first class guided tour in the front of the drift boat and ended up catching half a dozen fish. Some of the flies that were productive on our trip where: the mole fly, different dry midge patterns, red wd-40, and a rainbow zonker. The majority of our fish where caught up top on dry flies. We never did see a real good may fly hatch but fish were sipping midges sporadically throughout the day.

I was the drift boat captain the whole trip and ran the rapids like a pro. Trent offered to row a few times to let me fish, but flash backs of being high centered on a rock the last trip Trent rowed kept popping into my head. Saturday was fairly windy which made it difficult to row and even harder to cast a fly line, but we all made it down alive and all caught some nice trout.

Calder

2010-04-27T18:58:00.001-07:00

This afternoon I took the boys up to calder to check it out. I had just heard that the roads were good to get up there and I have been looking forward to spring fishing on calder all winter long. When we got up there the wind was blowing hard, so I rowed and let Jace man the fly rod. He kept getting bumps on his rod which I thought were snags and then his rod went straight down. I thought he had snaged the bottom until I saw the line take off. It took everything I had not to grap the rod from his hands to land the fish. He struggled to keep the rod upright and a few times I really thought my rod was going into the lake along with my son. Well, he ended up landing this fatty that was just shy of 23 inches! Not fair...It took me most of my life to catch a fish that big!
When I first saw this fish, I really had to hold back so the profanities would not slip out. I did not want to be a bad example for my 6 and 2 year old boys. I tried to get him to hold this fish, but the best I got was for him to stand next to me.

Zack screamed like a girl when we flopped this fish into our boat.

After landing this fish we pushed back out into the lake and about 3 mins later Jace was hooked into another fish. This one not as long but still fat. After that we were sick of fighting the wind so we took off. I did not fish at all this trip; however I felt super satisfied watching Jace land that pig!

Both of these fish were caught on what I call the "calder" fly. I was trailing it behind a pretty sweet rainbow zonker that I tied up.

Past Trips

2010-04-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

Jarron just sent me some pictures of some of our past trips and a few of the fish he has caught, so I quess this post became more of a tribute to Jarron since I am only in one of the pictures.

The pics above and below are from a tiny creek that flows into deer creek resv. Rainbows are usually spring spawners; however in deer creek they have some bows that spawn in the fall. If you could ever feel dirty while fishing, this was considered one of those trips! Just imagine sitting in one hole on a small stream while catching big fish after big fish. We easily caught 50+ fish this trip and yes that is the stream behind Jarron!

The two pics below are of a rainbow that Jarron caught on Jones Hole. More big fish from small streams!

I had to put this pic in to prove that there really are fish in lake Lenore. This is the lake I went to fish up in Washington but got skunked because the spawn was over.

Green River

2010-04-24T20:04:00.001-07:00

Today I went up to the Green for a couple of hours after I got done with all of my yard work. Above is a 19 inch rainbow that was setting up to spawn. She was big, fat, and fought real hard. This one took an egg pattern. Below is a 18 inch brown that was actually my first fish of the day. He took a tan zebra midge dropped off a cicada.

I caught quite a few fish within about 2 hours. Flies that worked this trip were: tan zebra, egg, red wd-40, and I even had one take a cicada. Most of the fish were not looking at the cicada, but one came out of nowhere and hit the cicada hard!

The two pics below is last Saturday. I recently have purchased a drift boat, and the wife wanted me to go down the river a few time before I took family down. I quess she does not trust my captain skills quite yet. I took two guys from my ward down the river, and I let them each take a turn rowing. Both of them hit pillow rocks, which are under water rocks that will sink you if you hit them right. Both times we got high centered and were flipped around backwards.

Me and the boat. My rowing skill were exceptional! Just call me the float boat captain.

Clay with his fish. The fishing was slow this day for everyone on the river. We each caught two. Flies that seemed to work were: olive scud, flash back pheasant tail, and black midge nymphs.

Washington Fishing Trip

2010-03-31T18:39:00.000-07:00

Last week I ventured up to Washington to catch some big fish. Every year when I was in PT school, my friend would go home for spring break and come back with pics of big cutts from a lake in Washington. I told him that as soon as we graduated, I would plan a trip up there to catch some of those fish. The lake I went up to fish is called Lenore, and as luck would have it we did not catch anything from this lake. This lake is about 4 miles long, but very skinny, and every spring the cutthroats in this lake pod up on one end of the lake to spawn. Unfortunately, it warmed up quickly in Washington this year, so we were too late for the spawn. However, we did have a back up plan which did produce some nice fish.
After being skunked from Lake Lenore, we headed over to Lake Lenice. Above is the first fish I landed. This fish was just shy of 22 inches. He took my "calder fly" which was the best fly of the day, until I broke off later that afternoon and did not have any extras.

Jarron caught this one right before we went home on a olive damsel fly with a burnt orange tail.

Above is a typical fat rainbow from Lenice. Overall we caught a lot of big and fat rainbows, with the smallest being around 17 inches. We did the best with all white buggers, and denny rickard seal buggers in olive with the burnt orange tail, and of course the "calder fly".

Our second day of fishing, we headed over to Rocky Ford which is a spring creek close to Lake Lenore. This river is slow and shallow, almost like fishing a lake, and if full of PIGs that you can see everywhere.

Above is Jarrons brother Rory with a huge rainbow that took a black bugger with no hackle that was dead drifted. This fish was probably around 7-9 lbs and was 24 inches long.

Typical rocky ford rainbow.

At Rocky Ford we did fairly well until the wind picked up to about 40 mph gusts. We caught most of our fish on a tan zebra midge and also a yarn egg pattern that Jarron named the Rocky Ford egg. We also caught some on olive scuds and black buggers.

Our third and final day of fishing we headed over to Amber lake which is just outside of Spokane.

Fishing here started fairly slow for us. We did end up catching some nice fat rainbows that averaged 16-18 inches. Here we used blood worms and red chironomids. Then one guy told me that the fish were stacked up in front of the boat dock spawning because it was the only place in the lake that had sand. After that I tied on Jarron's Rocky Ford egg and did really well.

Jones Hole

2010-01-17T12:32:00.001-08:00

Saturday I ventured out to Jones Hole for my first fishing trip of the new year. I hiked down to the bridge, which is about 2 miles, and fished my way back up stream. (Above is 2 weeks after this post. I went back and caught more rainbows purely on wine colored san juan worms...and I tried just about every color.)
I was told that San Juan worms work well along with some type of midge dropper like a Zebra midge. I worked my way up the stream about 150 ft with no luck. In a stream like this, if you aren't catching fish then your usually not using the right stuff. I switched flies a few times with no luck and kept pressing on until I came to the first nice hole. I could see some nice fish down deep, so I threw on a black wooley bugger. Fish would follow it and occasionally nip at it, but there were no solid strikes. Next I tied on the streamer thats on my green river post, and as soon as it dropped down in the water, I had a fish on. After landing my first fish I casted back out into the deep hole and saw something big flash from the deep, and then my line took off. I fought this fish for a little bit and got him close enough to see that he was BIG, but as soon as he saw me he turned his head snapping my line, and taking with him my only streamer that I had on me! I cursed a bit and checked all of my fly boxes twice to see if I had any others on me, but I did not. After that I went back to San Juan worms, this time putting on a different colored one with some good success.

What worked: Matuka streamer, san juan worms in wine and purple colors, and I did catch a few on a black wooley bugger.

Overall I had a good time and caught a lot of nice rainbows. This is a fun small stream that always produces some big fish.

Winter Fishing

2009-12-10T15:04:00.000-08:00

The boss man at work keeps suggesting that we use our PTO days if we want to, to save on FTE's. I asked him what an FTE was and he didn't know, but said it was a suggestion from our CFO. A couple of days ago I noticed that April, our PTA, did not have any patients to see on Thursday, so being nice, I let her see all of my patients so I could go fishing.

I got up to "The River" around noon and quickly found out that the entire parking lot was empty. I have had plenty of days with the river all to myself, but seldom is the parking lot empty.

I was planning on fishing midges up top, but as soon as I got down to the river I saw that the Browns were still on their spawning beds. The fishing was excellent for both browns and rainbows.

Flies used in order of productivity:
1. egg
2. orange san juan worm
3. red wd-40
4. black seal bugger.

Overall, I fished nearly 2 hrs and caught a plethora of fish. Most of the rainbows were smaller compared to the browns. The temp. was COLD, which is why I only lasted 2 hours. I nearly froze my finger tips off, and my guides kept icing up all day long.

Streamers on the Green

2009-11-21T18:16:00.000-08:00

Nov 21, 2009- Today I ventured up to the Green to throw some streamers. The weather was supposed to be crappy, which it was, which means good streamer fishing on the Green. During the day I caught a few up on the surface with a midge pupa pattern. The fishing didn't really pick up until it started to snow around 3:00 pm. The FLY (aka Streamer)

This Brown, 21 inches, did NOT want his picture taken! I had my camera on a 10 second count, and every time the picture snapped the fish went flopping out of my hands. Above is the best I got after about 6 or 7 tries. Below is what happened with all the other tries.

Next time I'll try to smile more!

Fall Fishing

2009-11-08T13:48:00.000-08:00

When the water starts to get cold, the fish will move up into the shallows, which makes the fall season an excellent time to catch monster trout. This is a tiger trout I caught on saturday (11/7/09). This tiger is about the average size for this lake. They get BIG, which is why this lake must stay a secret.

Tiger Trout about 22 inches. This fish took a Denny Rickards seal bugger fly that I tied up in all black with maroon hackle in size 10.

Up on the mountain there are 3 lakes right in a row. One evening, when the family was visiting Salt Lake, I went up to calder to catch some football sized rainbows. Tiffany took our good camera, so I was left with the back up which takes fuzzy pictures.

At this lake I was able to catch 3 nice sized rainbows that were all over 21 inches and a half dozen smaller ones. These fish are as fat as they are long. These guys would not take the normal assorment of wooly buggers. I ended up catching them on a matuka fly variation with a yellow and brown tail, yellow/orange body, with a wrap of orange/brown hackle behind the hook of the eye. The majority of them were caught within 20 ft of the shoreline.

Obesity is a good thing, if you are a fish.

On Halloween, Jace and I went for a quick trip to the Green. While I was fishing he took out his airsoft gun and asked if he could shoot at some birds. Not really paying attention, I told him sure. I heard him take a shot and say, " huh, I think I missed, but he's not flying away." I turned around and he was shooting at an offsprey about 30 feet away from him. I then told him, " Uh... I don't think you want to shoot at that bird."

The fishing was good! They were sipping midges all day, but still could not resist my brown foam ant (winner of the day). I had a couple of fish take a variety of midge patterns (griffith gnat being the highest producer followed by a double midge pattern). The rainbow above took my mole fly, which is a mayfly imitation.

This was a boys trip to greens lake, which is close to flamming gorge. This is a private lake that is stocked with brooke trout.

These guys were spawning and had bright orange bellies. There were a few other people fishing with bait but nobody was catching anything. I tied on my olive damsel fly with a burnt orange tail and couldn't keep them off my hook. The fish weren't very big, but they have beautiful colors.