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.