Why sleep when you can fish.......

So at work we started 12 hr. shifts for the week and instead of sleeping in i took the short drive to a certain spot that i hadn't fished in awhile on the web. i love fishing weekdays when i can cause there is hardly anybody ever out. i rigged up a rod with a heavy sink line and steamer andsince the browns have started their spawn i rigged another with egg patterns. It was quite chilly this morning with frost on the ground and steam coming off the water. it looked quite nice but was to cold for me. anyway i fished a couple of holes andruns that had produced before with no luck until i came to a big deep hole that seems to attract the bait chuckers. this hole is to deep to nymph properly so i grabbed the streamer rod and started chucking. didn't take long before i was into my first fish. not much of a fighter so it was quickly into my net. took it on a streamer i had just tied up for a swap. as i continued my way up stream i started noticing reds and some of which were occupied with spawning browns. although i did not persue any fish that were on these reds i did harrass the fish by trying to do my best ninja routine and stock up on them to snap a pic. even coming from straight behind them they seem to know i was there so i could only get so far before they bolted into deeper water. the next run held two different reds with no fish on them, i thought maybe they could be around somewhere since i switched to my other rod equipped with a double egg set up and let em' fly. i was quickly into another fish but just as quickly my bottom egg came undone. tied another egg on and netted a real nice brown. snapped a few pics and off it swam. i ventured up into unchartered territory for me going further up river then i previously had. a lot of the water seemed more suitable for streamers so stashed the nymph rod in the bushes so i didn't have to carry it around if i wasn;t really going to use it much. i had a few more follows, a few more hits, a few more fish on (briefly) and landed a couple more fish. all in all it wasn't to bad of a day, a little slow but still fun.

Nice fish....shitty pics

I shot nich a text about fishing around 2ish this afternoon, i was really wanted to throw some streamers close to home since i was on phone stand by i couldn't be to far away from home in case i got the call to come to work. we decided to meet about 30 minutes from my house and fish a trib. the river was low, the casting brutally tough and the trout few and far between. there were quite a few stupid whitiefish in there though. nich took a couple of small trout fishing a pig sticker/egg combo. i had one smack my fat albert but i was slow on the set so no fishy for me. a couple of hours of that nonsence and we made the drive down the main river and fished from the red barn up. i was chucking streamers(did not touch a fish) and nich was again throwing the sticker/egg combo and came upon a long slow flat portion of the river that i did not anticipate seeing any fish in, but sure as shit we kicked up a couple of fish. i threw my streamer at them first to no avail so nich gave it a shot and a couple of casts later he was into a nice 19" brown. couple of casts later he netted another fish of equal size. nich offered to just take turns with his rod since nymphing was the ticket. i took over the rod and 2 casts later i landed my first fish of the day, a nice healthy brown. we switched turns a couple of times with me catching one more that proved to be the big boy of the outing, a nice kyped 22"er. that only disappointing thing was that i am not accustomed to taking pics with my camera in low light conditions and so pretty much all the pictures came out like ass (blurry). it is truly disappointing to me to have some real nice pic ops and have them come out like crap. man i'm bummed! sorry nich, i'll get it figured out.

Streamer Valhalla

Once again the stream that i really enjoy throwing streamers on gave me the finger. i had planned on hitting another uinta lake but was skeptical due to all the snow but still i should've gone. my roommate wanted to go fishing so i kept it close and a late start time for him, he has a hard time phathoming driving more then a 1/2 hr. for trout. 9am came along and as i should've expected he bailed out on me again. by that time it was to late to be heading to higher elevations so i kept it local. while on the river i met a guy who claimed to be kevin conatser, the guy who won the court case allowing of fisherman to fish private waters. he was slaying ducks today instead of fishing. i ventured into the private section of the web, further then i had before. it is nice to see some of the vegetation finally starting to let go of the bottom. it sure makes streamer fishing tough. it was slow as i said. i took to small cutties on a pig sticker, another small cutt on a marabou streamer, then a little further upstream on that same streamer i hooked, fought and lost a piggy of a brown. i got a good look at him as he jumped 3 times, but of course, as soon as i got my hands on my net the little bastard threw my hook at me. man it's heart breaking when the fishing is slow and you finally hook a really good fish just to lose him. i was able to redeem myself by landinga good brown that was a little smaller then the one i lost but still respectable. even though the fishing was slow, the scenery was really nice with the snow on the mountains.

cutties....nice change of pace

I was dragging ass this morning. hopped into bed at 10:30 trying to sleep but couldn't help but think about the up coming mornings fishing. i laid contemplating where to fish and before i new it it was 1:30am and i was still wide awake. not being able to sleep i decided to just stay up so i grabbed my map and scoped out lakes that supposedly just held cutts as that is what i've been after for quite sometime, healthy uinta lake cutts! i narrowed it down to two different areas but was going to wait till i got on the road to decide. it was now 3:30am and i was ready for bed, figures! since i was ready to fall asleep i chose to get on the road alittle early. an hour or so drive ended up taking me almost 3 hours with the several stops along side the road to try and get in a cat nap, that wasn't working to well. i made my choice on where to fish and headed for the pass lake trailhead to begin my journey hoping that one of the two cutt lakes actually had cutts in them. there is a lake along the way that i hit first, fished my way 1/2 way around the lake and lost 3 fish. as i continued up the trail i started looking around and couldn't see where a lake would be cause where the lake was supposed to be there was a really big ledge made out of boulders. i pulled out my map noticed that the map was showing both cutt lakes were on the other side of the ridge. SHIT! i was bound and determined to find these lakes so much to my disliking i followed the trail all the way up this mountain side. i am not in that kind of shape, it kicked my ass, but the scenery sure was nice. as i made my way over the ridge there was a little valley in the middle of the ridge with a small lake in it. i figured this had to be one of them. there were no signs of any sort to reassure me but i fished it anyways. it was a small lake so it didn't take long to work my way around it. a couple of missed hits andagain nothing to hand. this day was not starting off well at all. i continued along the trail hoping to see another lake where i thought the other should be. low and behold down the other side of the ridge sat a much bigger and deep looking lake. suddenly i thought my luck was going to change. i lost the trail as i started my decent so the whole way down i had to step and jump from big boulder to big boulder. the trip down to some time. by this time my thighs were burning from all the excercise and my broken foot was started to ache as well. made it to the lake and noticed a couple fish cruising the shallows at the edge of the drop off. first cast i missed another hit, man that was getting old, but a couple of casts later and i was releasing a respectable cutt. the skunk was off. i fished about 1/2 way around the lake and ended up releasing about a 1/2 dozen nice cutties. by this time i was tired as hell and getting hungry so at 3pm i started to make my way back to the jeep i continued on the trail which ended up being one big loop. i had told nich on the phone that the lake was full of 14" cutts, i think i was being a little generous, i'll call them 13". the weather was good to me again, it was nice to catch some cutts instead of brookies, the hike was brutal, at least for this out of shape pansy, but it was another enjoyable day high in the uinta's.

Murdock Basin

My quest continued today for some high uinta mountain cutthroat so i targeted an area where a trail ran between three lakes that from what i read fish well for brooks, cutts and one added rainbows to the mix. the one thing i have noticed so far when fishing uinta mnt. lakes is that if a lake is supposed to fish well for any species including brook trout then that is all i seem to catch. needless to say, in the three lakes i fished today all i caught were brookies. they were some nice brooks but i was hopeful for a good 14-15" sized cutt. i did catch a couple of brooks in that size range with most being 12-13". the weather cooperated for the most part, the sun was out, a little cool in the early afternoon and the wind was present for most of the day but did eventually subside. i figure if i keep searching i will find that lake that holds a good population of good sized and eager cutts.