Huntington Tigers and Lunch Break Browns

It's been a pretty good week for fishing.  The lunch break spots have been treating me right on most visits and I even got a chance to visit with a really good friend, whom I hadn't seen for a couple of years.

Lunch Break:

While I wait for the next weekend to arrive, the only way my fishing itch can be scratched is by fishing the remains of a farm creek that flows near my place of employment.  To be honest, I can't say that I know its name, but its murky waters hold some great browns, an occasional rainbow, and a slew of non salmonid species.

Here are a few pics from the last week:

Weekend Trip:

When the weekend finally came, my plans of going solo had happily been altered so that I could fish with an old friend of mine (Steve), and his girlfriend.  Neither of them had been fishing much and I knew I could help them out, at least by showing them some great country.

We departed and set our course for the Energy Loop area, near the tops of Fairview and Huntington Canyons.  Our first stop was Huntington Reservoir, where I hoped to get these two into some feisty tiger trout.

Shannon, Steve's girlfriend, was the first of us to score and a 14 inch tiger got the shore tap.

My first catch came shortly after, but after releasing it, I realized that I'd failed to grab a photo.  It wasn't much to brag about, but all tigers exhibiting male characteristics are fun to look at.

Speaking of which, my next one was actually pretty nice for this lake's average:

So was his buddy.

They really get colored up in the fall as their bodies undergo a false spawn.

Here, Steve does the dirty work for another of Shannon's catches:  She ended up catching three, I believe, and poor Stevo got the skunk.

They were both pleased to see this pretty little fold of Utah's many landscapes though.

At over 9,000ft, it's a great place to spend some hours.

Wanting Steve to get something going for himself, I thought the next best option would be the dam at Electric Lake, just down the road.  We'd spent so much time at Huntington that I was somewhat worried that we would run out of daylight.  There was also a pretty good storm brewing and it looked like we would get wet.

Wet, we got.  Just as it started to sprinkle, Steve said, "Okay, now I'm going to catch a fish".  Just like that, he caught a pretty male cutthroat that put up a good fight, giving him something to smile about.

Good job, Steve.

Right after that, it really started pouring for a few minutes, then trickled off to a gentle sprinkle again.

It was kind of neat to be able to watch a sunset while getting lightly rained on.  Personally, I thought the cold rain felt good.

We thought it fitting that Steve was the only one of us to catch at Electric, since he'd been skunked at our last spot.  The remaining daylight faded quickly and we took our cue to leave, all of us satisfied with a great day together.  We vowed to do it again soon.


Bonus Lunch Break:

As usual, the beginning of the work week initiated my yearning for the weekend to come.  The only cure for this, of course, is more lunch break brown fishing!

Monday provided a couple of small scrappers and a foul-hooked carp that slipped away, but I had once again left my camera at home.

The camera came with me today and I was glad to bring this thug out from under the freeway:

Casting into that little tunnel is actually pretty hard.  Normally, I spook whatever fish lie in wait while I splash around, trying to get some distance under there.  Today just happened to work out.

Who knows what the rest of the week will hold?

Happy Fishing, Humans.