On the Duchesne River throwing loops!

Today my good friend and colleague, Rex Brimhall and I went on a trip that has been planned for 3 years. The Duchesne River is a hidden gem. Mainly because the most part of it is behind private property lines. Rex has a key to the gate!!

We started our trip at 5 am, the property is a little over an hour away from the valley and we wanted to get on the water as soon as the sun broke the horizon. We traveled up through Heber stopping and picking up breakfast, just a quick drive through at the Mickey D's in town and kept motoring. Traveling through Francis and over Wolf Creek Pass into the Duchesne River drainage. We passed one of my most favorite areas in Utah to fish, we’ll keep that for another trip. We pulled into the property right on time, just enough sunlight to see our gear and get tied up.

Rex was throwing some #2 silver blades that had treated him well in the past on this stretch of the river. I wanted to throw some loops, it has been a couple seasons since I have fished streams and rivers with my fly rod. I used my 4 wt., 6' St Croix for today. I pre-loaded the line with 6x leader and started off with a streamer sized royal coachman. After tying off and getting in my hip waders I was off on my hike. Rex stepped right down to the river where we parked and casting quickly, he hooked up a small brook trout on his spinner and we knew it was going to be a good day. I hiked downstream about a half mile and got in the water. Staying with my pattern of changing out every 30 cast with a fly, if it is not producing something. I changed out to a smaller renegade pattern and not many cast after changing I had my own little brook trout online. It felt great to feel the hit on the light gear. My pole bent and the short fight was on. It was a small one but still a fish on a fly! I forgot what it felt like to catch fish on a fly, exhilarating! I fished on, working my way back to the truck and getting a couple more hits enough to keep the renegade on. I soon met up with Rex as he was working his way downstream, he had brought in a couple more small brook trout nothing to keep. We fished together for a while in that small stretch of the river. He dropped into a hole I just left and got a couple hits in and hooked up a nice keeper rainbow trout. He was happy that he got a decent sized fish to keep.

The fishing wasn't red hot at this point the river was down and the pockets weren't as deep as expected. I kept moving up stream and Rex continued downstream. The renegade had run its course and I tied on an adams, thinking they were looking for something smaller fished through a couple more holes and didn't get as much as flash. I was close to the truck by now so I slowed my progress down considerably. I tied on a size 10 royal coachman and started working it through ripples and holes. The first cast I had a nice sized brown follow it right up to me, then it seen me and darted. I knew that wasn't good but I kept fishing it trying to coax it to hit again. No luck, so I moved upstream a little further into a nice stretch of ripple and flat water. Then it started to sprinkle, the clouds were dark all morning and they started to unload. Not to heavy but enough to get the fish to rise, which is just what the doctor ordered. By this time Rex had met back up with me and fished passed me and back up to the truck where he started. I stayed in the stretch and started to have action. It was great, I caught 6 fish in a matter of minutes. Rainbow and browns kept a couple decent sized ones and returned the others. It had been so long since I had as much fun catching fish, feeling the hit and drag of my fly pole. I fished for about a half hour in this stretch and the last fish broke my fly off. Not having another in my vest I went to the truck, Rex met me and we talked about our morning.

We decided to put in another hour but this time on the stretch of river his property is on. We drove up the road about a quarter of a mile and pulled into a nice area with outbuildings and a couple trailers. The river ran through his property and had a number of nice holes. By this time my shoulder had stiffened up so I threaded my ultra-light pole and threw some #1 spinners though these sections. I got a couple more fish, a nice little brown trout couldn't resist the silver and I had a few more hits along the way upstream. Rex knew where the honey holes were on this stretch and went directly to them and I went down stream and worked back toward him. We met up half way and traded holes I had a nice hit but couldn't entice the fish to hit again, Rex was running the bigger silver spinner so he went in to try and catch the fish he had a couple hits but couldn't get it to hook up, he had caught a couple upstream in the other holes.

We had a great day, not being in the office dealing with issues we didn't create but having to fix. It was great to get away and relax! We headed for home and I shared stories about the area we were going through. This area was my Father-in-law stopping ground. He had cut the majority of the roads while growing up and working in the west end of the Uintas. We passed the memorial for the WWII fighter plane that crashed in the hillside. We continued through Woodland and I showed him the property that my wife's family still owns on the Provo. We stopped for lunch and made it home by 3 pm. We will make it out again hopefully soon. It was a great day!!

Heber Valley Fly Fishing Festival!

Yesterday I woke up at 4:30 to go out hook up the boat and go fish! It was a torrential downpour for Utah standards, went back to bed yep you can say I am a fair weather fisher. Woke up at my normal time around 6 am and looked out the front window to see a great covering of snow on Mt. Timpanogos! Ah yes, winter is around the corner and with all luck in place it will be a stellar ski and ice season in Utah!! It has been a while since a good powder season has been here. Fishing took a back seat to the weather, but not thinking about it and the adventures that can be had.

My brother and I went to the Heber Valley Fly Fishing Festival, hosted by Four Seasons Fly Fishers at the River’s Edge Resort & Campground at the base of the Jordanelle Reservoir Dam. We made our way up there around noon. On our way we stopped for lunch in Heber at the Sidetrack Pub & Grub Cafe. This place was an instant hit! Great food and service locally owned and operated. All items are fresh and handmade. We made our way after feasting on a great lunch to the Festival. Put on and organized by Julie Zicha and Jason Zicha of Fall River Flyrods. This event is in its 5th year and continues to grow each year. We visited the various vendors at the show with special stops at Trav's Art and picked up this great print Travis Sylvester! Now I need to find a fitting frame for the great work he does! We stopped and talked with Brandon Collett of Contour action video cameras. Met up with some great folks and new friends. Dalton of Rising Fish a local shop making great accessories, picked up a nice pair of clippers from him, and BBQ tools. Cliff of Cliff Outdoors out of Casper Wyo., he make fly boxes that are great and Made In The USA. USAC was there and doing great things for the fishing community in the fight to keep public waters open and accessible to fishers. We met and talked with so many people I am sorry I can't remember everyone, you need to go next year!! Local talent was strong and they had things for all ages to do in workshops and demonstrations. Great Show Julie!

Please go to and support these local Utah companies!

DC evening X

We went out for an evening fish to DC. Parker pulling full time work at 2 different jobs at times that work with his school schedule. To say the least we haven't been out much lately. Parker was ready for some relaxation and fishing was the ticket. We left shop around 4 pm Wednesday night and made it on the water by 5 pm and was fishing after a short run to our favorite lane on the lake. We stopped and dropped the trolling the motor and was fishing. 

 Parker was the first in and then I had a line in shortly after. I had on a two tone JoD and within a couple minutes, before I could my second line in the water, had a hit! It was a good fighter and jumper so we knew we had a rainbow trout on line. He fought and jumped and made it fun to bring in. We netted him and were quite happy thinking this is going to be a stellar evening. Not so much! He was the only fish for the night and again we ran every combination of colors and depth we could think of. The water is heavy with algae right now and needs to turn over. With the weather pattern changing this week and snow in the mountains this may happen earlier than usual. Plus I think the number of recreaters we have been out with may play a role in the activity level of the fish. Usually we are in and out of the water but that is in the morning runs and before all the recreaters are on the water. We fished each of lanes for the evening and them the storm came in with a vengeance. Lightning started hitting the peaks and hills and we were off the lake very quickly after the first strike hit. The rainbow we caught was a nice 2 pounder and gave us two nice fillets. We cleaned it and got on the road just as the full front hit the lake and canyon. We were happy to be off the lake before the torrent of wind and rain hit.

Fishing with Friends

Nobody said fishing was easy, it looks easy and relaxing and most of the time it really is. Last night’s fishing trip was no exception. We took off from work and got to the lake around 5 and on the water. Rex and his son joined me on the Fish Steeler for an evening of fishing. We fished until night fall and loaded in the dark. We fished Dead Sheep Point, the Bermuda Triangle, and went up into the SoG and back again to the dock. We fished and relaxed and shared stories of the day’s work and world issues to pass time. We fished relatively hard, but really didn’t focus that hard on things because we just needed to escape and relax our minds after work. We had a few hits and a couple hook ups but without full focus on our task we didn’t put one in the boat. We wanted to and had one coming in and Oli was on the reel. We were running deep trying to find them in the heat of the summer water. To no avail we lost the one that we had hooked up the best. We changed colors and patterns regularly trying to find the right combination to entice a good fight from a rainbow trout. For a Wednesday night it was busy on the lake with a number of recreators on the lake with us. The evening was perfect though a slight breeze to put a ripple on the water. The wakes weren’t too bad only a couple really rocked us. Trying to land one for Oli was our main goal after a while but still our minds were not focused on the rainbows, more just relaxing. Rex and I are amping up and getting ready to open a new year at our respective schools each of which are two of the largest in the state. So tonight was a needed escape from everything coming down the pipe at us. Both of us are ex-coaches and defeat is not easy for us to accept but we finally gave in when we couldn’t see our lines in the water. We loaded and headed for home thinking of stopping at a local restaurant, but Oli gave up the fight and was out in 10 minutes on the road. We had a great evening fishing, catching on the other hand not so good, but the reason for going was satisfied. Not too often we get skunked on DC, but tonight wasn’t about catching so much as it was about being on the water.

Fishing Jordanelle Reservoir

Saturday 8.9.14 we fished Jordanelle Reservoir. We fished Jordanelle after it opened almost exclusively until the chub population took over the fishing. We fish it sparingly now. When we fished it previously we had two or three spots that always did us right. We started the morning out in one of those spots and got nothing after 4 passes and changing gear to see if one color would make a difference. We fished on the west bank of the Big Dutch Pete Hollow area running the bank from the marina to the dam. We had a couple hits on prism cow bells. I steered the boat close enough to the bank that Kelly could cast for small mouth. He would cast until we maneuvered far enough away from the bank he couldn't hit it any longer. Finally one of the hits turned into pay dirt and I landed a nice 3 lb. Rainbow Trout. We fished the bank another 3 passes getting nothing. Kelly continued casting when possible. We moved from there to the Rock Cliff area of the reservoir and started trolling the south bank where we had been successful before. Getting no hits, again changing colors and even moving to dodgers and other tackle. We crossed the channel to the north bank and hooked up a small rainbow trout before getting to the bank. At this point the recreaters had taken over the lake. We were within 30 ft. of the bank and one of them actually went in between us and the bank. Totally ridiculous how they blatantly disregard boating etiquette and law, they were traveling at speed with a tube in tow. Utah law states that you must stay 150 ft. away from another boat or slow to wakeless speed if you cannot. Yep that never happens. Okay, again off my rant and back to the fishing report. We stopped trolling and started fishing the banks about 11:00 am and looking for cover from the wakes in the main body of the reservoir. We found one nice cove that was uninhabited by other people and fished it for about an hour and got nothing. The rainbow trout that we had on board were the only fish we were taking home. As the saying goes a day fishing is better than any day at work still holds true even though the fishing wasn't red hot it was still a great day on the lake. The trip back to the marina was a scary proposition with the number of boats on the lakes we had to run the slalom course to navigate our way back to the dock. Be careful out there it is a jungle.

Utah Lake 8.2.14

I fished Utah Lake late last evening on a solo outing, had a cancellation for the morning run, so I did some things around the house and worked on my blogs and other accounts to clean them up.  I needed to get out of the house and relax, decide to run to UL for the evening hit and target some white bass or other small panfish in the lake.  Arrived at Provo harbor around 6 pm and started fishing.  I remembered quickly why I hate fishing from the bank on that lake, the bugs are horrible!!  They aren't so much the biting type just annoying and millions of them, they fly around you, land on you, get in your vehicle, you name if it is annoying they do it.  You stand right at waters edge the majority of them stay away for some reason, so I had my toes in the water all evening.  Started on the inside of the harbor and threw a small silver vibrax fanning the bank line east to west back and forth, fished for a good half hour watching the boats roll in and out of the harbor wishing I was on mine.  I must force myself to launch and load my boat on my own so I can go solo in it.  I hate making people wait for me at the ramp though.  Back to the fish, I crossed over the outside of the harbor dike and fished in that area for a while still nothing.  Moved down the dike a little ways and fished on the outside still, using the No. 2 vibrax and to my amazement I caught a carp!  A 6-7 lb carp but still a carp, on a vibrax spinner, crazy stuff on the light tackle I was using it was a fun fight but still a CARP!

I know some folks like catching and even target them for sport, but to me they are still and always will be trash fish.  I did my civic duty and threw it on the bank.  Utah Lake is inundated with carp, introduced by the pioneers, they have taken over the lake and made it so that the "June Sucker" was dying off.  The June Sucker is a marker fish for the health of the lake the better they are surviving the better the lake is doing, at least that is the story the DNR and Enviro's are telling us.  We are paying with our taxes and sportsman funds to help remove the carp from the lake, they have removed tons of them and are still netting tons each week. So I did my part and removed a few more Carp all the same size big fat pigs and rather ugly.  All caught on that vibrax spinner absolutely crazy, but still great fights on the light gear I was using.

I moved to the inside of the harbor and tried my luck for I was really targeting and still nothing.  I moved back down to the ramps and docks and changed up a few time from silver to gold spinners and spoons.  Talked with a fellow fisher he and his wife said it was extremely slow and he hadn't seen anything caught but one white bass on a spoon.  I fished on and moved around the marina targeting the rocks and floating docks.  Started to see large numbers of bait fish schooling around the area and fished into them thinking maybe they were being schooled up by prey fish, but still nothing continued to change lures and colors.  The bait fish come to find out were large schools of catfish fry.  Cool to watch them swim around in large schools.  The evening ended with me still only catching the few carp that I caught earlier.  A nice evening, no wind and once I got back into the marina the bugs were not present and by the time I left the bats were out feeding.  Thought seriously about changing my call handle to the "Carp Slayer" after catching these and the other one at Yuba a couple weeks ago on a spoon...LOL, not!