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!

Karma

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

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

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.