Summer Family Trail Ride

Mid-June we got together as a family in the Heber Valley and had our mini-family reunion. We stayed at the Canyons Resort and had a blast swimming and relaxing. Friday of that week we rented UTV's from my good friend Adam at Uinta Recreation and took them for a ride. We went up through Little Deer Creek and the backside of Alta and American Fork Canyon. The main trail is designated as trail 1. It turns into trail 37 and goes up to a nice turnaround spot. This year after taking our family photos we took the left-hand fork toward AF canyon and traveled it for a couple miles and then turnaround. Time constraints kept u moving. We made it to the turn-off to Little Deer Creek and went through the aspen groves and a few puddles before reaching the big puddle. At the big puddle, we all took our turns going thru it some faster than others. Rogan of course hit it the hardest and returned for a second trip through it. It was a blast the kids had a ball. After the big puddle, we made our way back to the pick zone and then went to Chick's Cafe for lunch.

Saturday we spent the morning bowling as a family and again just had a good time. We went to the Junction Diner afterward and got pizza and then went to Granny's for shakes! That evening we spent at the pool and just relaxed. It was a great gathering with lots of memories made.

Trail Rides and White Bass bites

We have been getting on the trail as much as we can lately. This time we took Rubi out on the Lake Fork Trail. It was once one of my favorite places to fish and the canyon was beautiful. Now it looks like a war zone after the devastating fires of a couple years ago. The run-off of the spring season destroyed the small stream in the canyon that held beautiful brook trout. This was again a recon trip to see how the restoration was coming but still not that great. It was a nice ride, we beat the crowds by getting up early and hitting the trail. I will be going back up after the run-off ends and trying the stream to see if they have come back.

The white bass in Utah Lake are running and stacking up in the rivers. This is a great time of year. Every cast you at least get a hit. This is a good time to introduce young and new anglers to fishing. The bite is fast and fun. For being small fish they fight like monsters, especially on ultralight gear. Green curly tails have been the ticket, but also small silver spinners are working.

Fishing Starvation Reservoir - Day of the Big Bows 2021-05-14

Friday, May 14th we ventured out to Starvation. We started off at 5:30 am and were on the water by 7:00 am. We had lines by 7:30 and fished until 3:00pm. Parker and Jim were with me on the Fish Steeler. We started trolling in the Rabbit Gulch area. Within a few minutes, Parker was hooked up. He had his downrigger on the back and set lines at 20 and 10 feet. the 10ft lure caught the first of the day. It was a nice-sized rainbow. The catching wasn't super fast but it was consistent in the one hole so we continued to pass through the lane and ended the day with 9 rainbows and a bonus brown trout.

The hot lures were pop gear and worm. They were hitting red. I managed one on a rainbow pop gear and Parker got a couple with pink flasher and squid. We tried rapalas, spinners, spoons, pop gear was the only consistent catcher.

The fish were nice-sized and fun to fight on the retrieval. By 11:00 the wind came in but we missed the rain. The wind gusted up to 20 mph and stayed at around 15 mph. We fished until the trolling motor battery died on us. We decided that was enough time and the bite had stopped as well.

Fishing, Trail rides and more fishing.

#fishing #kokanee #canamoffroad #trailrides #trout #rainbowtrout

The past couple of weeks we have been on the water a couple times and made our first trail ride into the mountains.

We ventured back onto Jordanelle with Troy's boat this time. His is a Thunder jet as well, it's 24 feet long. He has it set up very well for trolling Kokanee Salmon. We started the day earlier at 7am and were fishing by 7:30. We ran the same lines as the week before and had basically the same results. We got a few Kokanee and a lot of rainbow trout. The day was long and slow for the bite. We did manage over 20 fish over 10 hours of fishing. With the weather warming, it should pick up soon.

Sally and I went for our first trail ride of the season. We hit a favorite canyon of mine and checked out the creek in it. It was destroyed in the run-off from the fires a couple years ago and it is still recovering. I don't know that it will ever have the brown trout like it did. We took a new trail after looking over the creek. This time we took FR 613 and we took it as far as we could until the snowdrifts stopped us. This trail is an easy trail with water crossings and some off-camber sections. It took us thru all the area has to offer, sagebrush, oak brush, aspen, and finally into the pine forest. Found a new little creek along the way couldn't see any fish in it though. We reached the deep snowdrifts and turned around. It was a nice start to the trail season.

Last week we loaded up in Danny's boat the Koke1. This was the season kickoff for Strawberry Kokanee fishing. Danny and Troy were beyond excited to get the season going. We launched and fished on the Soldier Creek side of the lake. We found that there were quite a few boats on the water when we got there at 9am. Danny immediately went into his tried and true lanes and we quickly hooked up with fish. Rainbow trout but we were catching fish. We had multiple hits and misses and hookups and long distant releases. It got a little frustrating, but we persevered and kept catching fish. We finally found a couple Kokanee Salmon, and the attitudes changed quickly. Danny hooked into a nice 2 pounder and boated it after a long fight. We fished into the late afternoon and caught over 20 fish again. The bite was slow and light, but as the weather warms up and the water temperature increases the fish will start hitting harder and more frequently.