Norway Flats.......

Sucked ass! with another day off i figured i would track down some new higher elevation lakes. i mapped out 2 different lakes that were on either side of a trail, all i had to do was drive up this crappy road that had so many big rocks on it that for most of the drive my speed didn't even register on the speedometer, get to the trailhead and make the short hike in. by my map it was pretty cut and dry. well my guess is i hiked in about a mile and half and did not see either one of these lakes. i did come to a big meadow that had a small pond in it with frequent risers. i meandered on over to see a bunch of 8-9" fish, so i rigged up my #3 with a small parachute adams and proceeded to catch a handful of cutties. i continued along the trail till it didn't look much like a man made trail anymore and i wasn't sure what was man-made, game or cow trails. so instead of taking a chance of getting really lost i found the original trail i was on and started heading back to the jeep to see if i could find either of the 2 lakes i was looking for. no such luck so i am filing this excursion in the no need to return file.

Autumn Splendor

I love this time of year. the weather is just starting to cool down and the colors in the woods are just amazing with the oranges, reds and browns lining the mountain sides. It had been awhile since me and pat had gotten out together so it was nice to do so, fish new waters and get into quite a few fish. myself and pat caught cutts, bows and tigers and supposedly there are brookies in there but we did not manage any. the res. was about 1/2 the size as when it is full so it made covering the water a lot easier and quicker. the weather cooperated for the most part and we even contemplated hitting another small lake in the area but another storm rolled in so we decided to pull chalks and call it a day. the big fish of the day belonged to pat, a tiger that was estimated around 18". again thanks to pat for driving, so i could nap, and thanks for an enjoyable day

Of bulls and browns

so i get today off and my roommate does the same as he hasn't been fishing in quite sometime, he's a pansy when it comes to driving more then a 1/2 hr. for little ole trout, but he says cause it has been so long he will tolerate the drive. we head to my favorite piece of utah water mainly cause i wanted to try the private section which is now legal to fish, with stipulations. we drive up as far as we can and fish our way up the 2 more miles to get into private waters. we pick up a couple of fish along the way and ended up hitting about 2 miles of the private section and as it turns out it was not what i had envisioned. for those that know where i went, it wasn't worth the extra walking. it fished the same as the public waters and since the public water doesn't get a lot of traffic i found it to be the better option. nice to get out though.

Beautiful day on the North Slope

well, once again me and the misses chose to hit china lake one more time before giving it a break. we also figured on the way out we would throw a bugger through bridger lake. last saturday i got skunked but today was my day and michelle took home the goose egg. i caught plenty of brookies in the 10-12 inch range but they all seemed to be of the skinny version which we hadn't seen the last couple of outings. i brought with us some veggies and what not with the intent on a shoreline lunch consisting of trout. i kept the biggest brook i caught since it would feed the both of us and 1/2 way around the lake we got a campfire going and had some brunch. china was generous again and after we fished our way around it we got back in the jeep and drove the couple miles to bridger lake. bridger is considerably smaller with lily pads thick along the shoreline which makes for tough casting from shore. caught one small rainbow in the short section that we could fish from shore. since we didn't spend much time there we back tracked a little to west march lake and in the 2 hrs. we fished it i caught one rainbow and lost several others.

Michelle's First Brookies

The future in-laws were coming into town today so could'nt make it a full day fishing affair. got to the lake around 8:30 am , off at 1:30 pm. michelle had never really seen a brookie before let alone caught one. within the first hour she caught the only two that we brought home for the grill. her second fish measured just over 16", which is a tank for the uinta mts. it was her biggest fish and the biggest brook i had seen in person. olive woolley bugger was the ticket and then when we fished the other side of the lake, a brown woolley bugger was it. all in all a really nice day, lots of fish hooked but only 2 to hand.

North of the slope

I was able to conjure a day off today since i worked this past saturday so i decided i would head out by 6am and fish some new waters.the plan was to hit the smith's fork river on the north slope and maybe depending on fishing cruise further west and hit the black's fork. made the drive past evanston and dropped down back into utah. on the way i came acrossed a nice looking stream (gilbert creek) stopped at a couple of good looking holes but no fish to be seen. i opted to fish the west fork of the smith's fork first but had trouble finding any good looking water as it was really low. the few good holes that i found produced nada, i did manage to at least see 2 fish in the 10" range anyway. got back in the jeep and backtracked a few miles to check out the east fork of the same river. it was much bigger and flip flopped between meadowie spring creek looking to typical mountain stream with riffles and pockets. only 1 small brookie taken. next to the meadows was G-34 lake and as i neared it i saw 2 moose standing knee deep eating the vegetation that lie beneath the surface. they meandered off and i rigged up one of my rods with a woolley bugger. again, only 1 small brookie to hand. well with the fishing so far being crap i consulted the Uinta Lakes West map and saw that china lake held brookies, cutts and grayling. one of my goals this summer was to catch my first grayling and since i was close to the lake i figured i would search it out and see if i could fulfill my quest. china lake is not a really big lake but it is no pond either and the fact that the water level was pretty low made it even smaller. my first cast landed me a nice little brookie of about 12 inches and thought, this is gonna be killer. i worked my way around to the very backside of the lake without so much as a strike. first cast fish must of been a curse, kind of like getting abirdie on the first hole (golf), it's the kiss of death.when i got to the backside i finally started to get into fish but since i don't fish lakes much i haven't gotten a feel for the proper hook set yet. i tend to raise the rod tip up right away which has resulted in a lot of missed fish for me. once i talked myself into pulling my strip hand back when a fish hit then i started landing the fish. at the far end of the lake is where i caught my first grayling, a nice fish the looked about 13", i was more then pleased. i then started working my way down the other side of the lake where i landed, in my eyes, a couple of really nice brooks and a couple more smaller grayling. i really enjoyed thelake and would like to head back to it armed with more then just a floating line and 4 streamers. the road that i was on merged with mirror lake highway so i headed west and checked a small section of the east fork black's fork to see if i could pull anything out of there. fished it for an hour and took 1 small brookie and 2 little cutts. 7:30 and it was time for the long ride home. by the way that road was by far the worst i have ever driven on. i'm surprised my jeep didn't fall apart.