Energy Loop with my B-I-L

With the hills ablaze in fiery fall fashion, it was a perfect day to take someone from out of town fishing on the Wasatch Plateau.

My brother-in-law from the island of St. Vincent is in town for a little while and hasn't seen a whole lot of the US besides New Jersey and suburban Utah.

He'd taken a family trip with us to the Uintas a few years back and really loved it, so another fishing trip was planned and we were off.

The morning colors were popping nicely on the way up Fairview Canyon.

Our first stop was Huntington Reservoir and the action was slow, but we both made out with at least one decent tiger.  Mine was just a hair under 19".

It was the perfect time to be in the area though.  The elk were bugling in the hills and the scenery couldn't be beat.

Whitley, not accustomed to fishing with a rod and reel, struggled with the casting motion for a little while, but he started to get it.  My first setup for him to try was a minnow rig.

Once a few fish followed my lure in, Whitley had a great chance to sight-fish for a tiger that was 3 feet away, which gladly inhaled the minnow and gave him a crash course on how to work an aggressive fish with a rod and reel.

Here's a video of the catch:



I caught a couple of smaller ones as well, but it seemed like it was time to move, so we stopped at a stream for what should have been easy pickings for him.

Unfortunately, it was really hard for him to get a good cast off and the fish didn't want anything to do with him.

I couldn't resist.

Next stop was the dam at Electric Lake.  More incredible scenery, all around.

The fish didn't want much from Whitley there either, but a little movement called a few my way.

This one was really pretty.  I've missed the E-Lake cutthroat and it's nice to see some lately.

Same fish, different angle.

Whitley was content, watching as I used up my last minnow on a decent tiger.

We decided to call it quits on the fishing end of things, but neither of us were in any hurry, so I took an opportunity to show him more land that he's never seen before.

Just a quick drive down the canyon and we were in what I like to call the "melted rock garden".

The hillsides are loaded with eroded boulders and it's a bit of a playground for me.

Could this be love?

I ran into an old photo subject too.  New camera, new pics.

Under:

Above:

Crazy rocks.

Mushroom rock:

I could spend hours on that hillside, but I had to wrap it up and get our butts home.

Needless to say though, we had to make a couple of photo stops on the way back down Fairview Canyon.

The ambient light from the cloud cover was perfect and lit everything up vividly.  Whitley couldn't stop talking about how beautiful everything was.

The lower areas are dotted with mostly red and the upper areas are yellow-orange right now.  This is the time to get up there.  GO!

Whitley had a great time and so did I.  It's great to show off the places I love to spend time in.  Once he was safely delivered back to Spanish Fork, I thought I'd test my luck for a few minutes at the river, by the golf course.

What a fun day and a great chance to see the colors of autumn.

Happy Fishing, Humans.