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!!
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