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!

Fall Trip 2011

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.