Utah HB 187 defeated! Back from the Dead

Thanks to all the grassroots work from the angling public at large. This largely anti-fishing bill has been defeated thanks to the efforts of the community, and a lot of time and sacrifice from a few key members of our community!

Update: As of this afternoon (March 4th) the bill has been "reconsidered" and is circled. Looks like the fight is not yet over.

Pleasant Surprises

Has been a couple of weeks full of small but pleasant suspires.

Received an email from Cheech last week. Looks like others have tested the cat's puke frumpy grumpy and decided that it produces fish. It is a candidate for inclusion in the 2009 catalog of a major fly company. Guess I wasn't insane on the color choices.

For Valentine's Day I surpised my wife with dinner. I made moqueca de camarao a traditional shrimp stew from NE Brazil. It features; shrimp, coconut milk, green peppers, tomatoes, onions and cillantro. It turned out very well and the wife liked it so much she asked for it again on Sunday night.

Moqueca de Camarao al la Kevin

This just goes to prove that I have other skills besides for fly fishing. I am a great chef. I have skills.

You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.

I have been working a lot, with a lot of late hours and decided I needed a break today so I headed out for some spring creek goodness. As I opened the door I was greeted by a Icicle Stalagmite. It is almost touching the ground. I can't remember what the call them when stalagmites and stalagtights join. Anyone?



I ventured out to NoTellum Spring Creek in hopes of finding some of the mammoth rainbow trout that start to appear in this stretch in late February/early March. I went into the hole that produced a 27 inch 7lb lunker for me last February.

First cast, first fish; a good portent! And surprisingly enough it was a nice brown, the first brown I have caught in 5+ years of hitting this creek annually. I usually see lots of rainbows with the odd cutt or hybrid. This fish fought like a rainbow, lots of high leaping and tailwalking.



It was about 18 inches and fat. I picked a few smaller sized rainbows, but did not hook up with nor see any of the great big fish. Maybe next week......

URGENT! ACTION REQUIRED!

If you are a Utah resident, regularly fish in Utah, or plan on fishing in Utah please: contact your local representatives, the Governor's Office, and the state tourism board and express your opposition to a piece of proposed legislation; HB187 which would severely impact the public's right to use Utah's waterways.

See http://utahwaterguardians.wordpress.com for more info.

Black Canyon of the Bear

I wish I could post some pictures of this area, as it is rather scenic, and of the fish..... but I can't. It wasn't until we pulled into the power plant parking lot that I remembered that my camera was still sitting on top of the refrigerator (out of my 3 year old's reach), at home 2 hours away, not doing me one lick of good.

The day started out cold. It was 5 degrees when we left Rigby, but the weather forecast called for temps around 40 both up around Mackay and down around Grace. John and I debated about where to go and decided upon the Canyon as he had never been there before. It turned out to be an OK decision, unless someone sends me a report about how the Big Lost was off the hook. Then I will be full of regrets.

It had warmed up substantially by the time we reached the river access. We geared up and hit the river. In the second hole I tried a got two big slashes at my strike indicator, but nothing on my nymphs, so I tied on a frumpy grumpy. It produced a couple of looks in the next hole but no strikes.

Anyone who has fished this stretch knows how this river fishes hole by hole, as it is series of ledge drops with deep holes interspersed between the drops. Wading is generally easy at low flows but can be hazardous to the inattentive as there are numerous small deep pits perfect for a one legger.

The next hour really did nothing for us as we worked our way up the river, switching flies often. Both nymphs and dries. Until the midge hatch really started to come off at around 1 pm. The hatch was thick and the bugs were all over the surface and the fish finally started to pay attention. John must have burned the lips of a pair of risers 10 times each. I watched him for a bit then wondered about 50 yards upstream where I found a seam with at least 4 fish actively feeding.

I had a couple of missed hook ups on dries (my own fault as I was to fast on the hookset), and then switched to an unweighted chironomid nymph fished just a few inches under the surface, without an indicator. As the water was very clear I could watch the fish to see when they were striking the nymph. I picked up 3 nice rainbows out of the hole by the time John wondered up. He had given up in frustration after repeatedly burning fish lips on a dry fly. I missed a couple of more on the nymph and then we moved up.

We found a very large spring dumping into the river and peering deep into the depths I saw some truly enormous fish holding down deep. I switched to a red copper john and added some weight. John continued to search around and I fished these denizens of the deep. I quickly landed a few nice size rainbows, but none of the monsters that I saw in the depths. They were colored differently than the rainbows and truly were enormous so I had no real clue as to what they were until I hooked one. Wanting one of the big bruisers I switched over to a big glue egg cluster with a single egg dropper and a lot of weight above the cluster.

Turned out to be a pod of monster carp. Rocky Mountain Golden Bones in the Bear river..... who knew? I hooked and landed one of them in the 24-25 inch range, probably about 4 lbs. When he hooked up, I still not knowing what he was started calling for John who had disappeared from view. The carp tore line off my reel like a torpedo. Quite the fight on a 5 wt. John finally heard my calls and thinking that I was drowning or dying or something ran back to where I was only to see me with major bendo fighting a big dark shape. It wasn't until we netted it that we saw that it was a carp. And it was one of the littler carps in the pod.

My fighting with one of their brethren spooked the rest out of the hole. I did hook up briefly with one more decent rainbow who managed to spit the hook.

I have decided that when fishing with John, I fish and he sight sees. Or better, he fishes for a bit, gets bored if the action is not hot and so switches from fishing to viewing mode. Though he noted that he would have fished more but his toes were cold.

When we returned to the car the thermometer indicated 35 degrees. Not bad for a February in SE Idaho. Next time I go out I think I will hit NoTellum spring creek where last year in February I landed a 27" rainbow on a size 20 midge.

Fall Browns Redux

Following your intuition.

As I descended down the steps and across the bridge at Cress Creek the bugs were everywhere both midges and small BWOs. They danced upon the surface and there were some rising twinks taking the insects off of the top. I thought at the time that it was a good portent. If this had been a July day every riffle would have had five dozen fish rising enthusiastically in the choppy water, but as it is the weird season, that intermediate time between the end of the brown spawn yet early enough in the winter season that the fish aren't yet holding in the deep water, my life wasn't so easy.

Sometimes I think when I am out fishing I should follow my gut more rather than my head. After last weeks brown trip I decided that for this weeks outing, though it was good but not great, I was going to try to find a better spot, where the fish were stacked deep. And so following my head instead of my gut I spent three futile hours on a mile of river between the Cress Creek parking lot and the Railroad Bridge above Ririe. I pounded riffles, deep holes, slow froggy water, everything, looking for a pod of brown trout. I hiked, waded, bushwacked, climbed, and searched riffle and hole.

I have decided that when I am out solo fishing (my two companions for the trip today bailed at the last moment) and not catching anything, I can wax rather philosophic. It probably has something to do with a lot of free time and no one to converse with. I was remembering the halcyon days of last year where my fall Brown Trout outings were rewarding me me with 30 fish in under an hour and in the melancholy half light of a winter afternoon as I cast here and there pondering the meaning of life and where the fish were hiding, the fickle fishing gods decided to play a nice trick on me.

As I was turned directions in the riffle I was standing in and spit a roll cast out 180 degrees opposite from where I had been casting, my line would not roll nor neatly unfold. As I hadn't been looking at my indicator nor paying attention to my flies, of course I caught a fish. The deities of fishing took pity on me, but they are capricious and their charity was only a whitefish.

I fished the area till late afternoon and then decided to finally follow my gut. I hiked the mile back up to my car, loaded my gear and headed upstream. 4:20 pm saw me at the bottom of the hole where I had done fairly well last Friday. Considering that it gets dark around 5:00 pm I figure that in 40 minutes spent here, I did well.

A couple of months ago , I remember reading an editorial piece in one of the fly fishing rags about the impossibility of an 100 fish day. Anyone who affirms that this is impossible has never fished the right place at the right time. Like hitting the salmon fly, stone fly and PMD hatch on the SF just right, where hundreds of hungry Cutthroats are smacking just about everything that pass their way, allowing an angler to catch 30 fish easily in an hour, if presenting the right color and size of flies. A 100 fish day, could well have a possibility today, had I followed my gut.




I hit the bottom of the hole and saw a couple of wakes. My cast tight against the bank saw me into trout. At last. In the fading last hour of the evening, fishing by the light of the full moon I redeemed the day. It wasn't a fish every cast, like it was in the hole directly below me in the previous year, but it was better than the previous 3 hours of nothing but 2 whitefish.




When fishing solo and acting as the camera man and fisherman, composition suffers.

I continued to fish well after the sun had gone down, casting in the dimming twilight and by the light of the hazy cloud obscured full moon. Towards the end I was setting the hook by feel. There was a slight tick that I could sense as the big browns would feel the bight of the glow bug. I would set the hook and off they would charge. I finally decided to give up when I could barely discern my indicator upon the water.

New fangled "Flash" photography. Catching fish by moonlight.


They say tonight's full moon is going to be the largest appearing full moon in over 15 years. Too bad I will be traveling, or I would go to the same spot and fish.

Fall Browns

I have been out on the SF, then the Provo and the SF again since my last post. All in the hopes of finding lots of Brown Trout. The first two trips, while not utter skunks (I caught a couple each trip) were slow. As one of my goals for blogging is to take better pictures I am now carrying the camera more often, but I suffer from a malady. When I am into the fish I don't like to stop and take pictures. That and I keep proving to myself just how bad I am at framing up a photo.

Yesterday on the SF was pretty good. The first fish I caught I would have sworn was a brown. I saw flashes of a deep copper belly a few times before I brought him to hand, only to find the deep orange red slashes of a cutthroat. Deceptive fish. The colors on the fish (both the Cutts and the Browns) right now are amazing, but my only picture from the trip failed to capture the deep purple that was around the gill plates of the fish.

Glo Bug and Glue Bug, combo of the day.

After hunting around a bit (my favorite hole for this time of year was a no go as the water about 300 cfs lower this year than it was this time last year, or the bottom has moved, or both) I finally found a nice deep slow hole with lots of fish hiding in it (I had chased them out of skinny water and here they settled). I am learning that nothing is constant on the SF. After high water your favorite spot may be completely re-arranged as the water relocates the river bottom. The South Channel boat ramp at Twin Bridge is completely dewatered, and my early winter honeyhole from last year has less than 1/2 the water down it. The area for me that seems to experience the least change from year to year is right above Fall Creek, but even this area changes.

My catch ratio of trout to whitefish was about 3:1. The Browns weren't as big as I had hoped, but there were a couple in the 18 inch range and a few that fought quite hard. I need to find a new primo water for the next two weeks before the fish respond to the colder water temps and hunker down at the bottom of the deep slow holes.

I am considering making a trip to chase steelhead the 20th-21st of December, but as I have never chased steelheads before I am unsure if that is too late, and where to go. I finally have all the components of an 8 wt setup, and the water levels on the Salmon above Salmon are low. Guess I need to do some research.

My Christmas tree excursion this year was very successful, and some perusing of some other local's blogs has convinced me that I need to hike, snowshoe and ski more with my little ones so expect to see more family related content here. It will be outdoorsy but not necessarily only fishing related. That or I need to start a new blog for my other adventures. Hmmmmm.....

Didn't Happen This Year

Generally October-November provides a window of opportunity to catch very large, fat and sassy rainbows that run into the headwaters of a local waterway from the reservoir downstream. Last year saw my father and I into 25-27" fish, most weighing better than 5 lbs from mid October through mid November. This year, nothing of the kind. I tried the same tactics on the same stretch of river at the same time of the year 3 times this year and never found anything bigger than 20 inches. My only guess is that the reservoir was very high this year versus low over the past few years. I always thought it was the run of kokanees into the spawning gravel that brought the large fish into these waters, now I am thinking it is fish running from the heating temperatures in the lake late in the summer into the constant mild temperatures of the spring fed river.

What we were looking for:

Large, fat rainbows with maws big enough to swallow a duckling.
The big fish in this photo is most likely around 12 lbs.

What we found:

16-18 inch hard fighting rainbows but not the leviathans of our dreams.

Now I have a couple of more opportunities before the end of the season on this stretch, but I think I will pass. The SF is very low now and aggressive, randy browns in skinny water are calling to me. Last year the browns disappeared from the skinny water shortly after Thanksgivings so I need to get out while the getting is good.

My big rainbow run of late fall just didn't happen this year. Now I am sad.