Memorial Day at Yuba

First of all, I'd like to thank our soldiers, past and present, for their service.  If you see someone in uniform, please shake their hand and offer a "Thank You" for the sacrifice they've made.  My report may be a day after the official holiday, but it's never too late for gratitude.

Now for the fishing!

Yesterday I grabbed the kids and took to the road with intentions of piercing some lips.  The destination was somewhat unknown, but I let my son James decide while at a gas station in Scipio.  The options I gave were to fish the nearby Yuba Reservoir for species other than trout, or to head to the Fish Lake Plateau for some hike-in fun.

Road fatigue probably had something to do with his response, opting for Yuba, which has recently started bouncing back from a bust cycle, where carp have been the main catch for the past few years.  Recent reports of people catching actual sport fish had my hopes high and we made great time getting to the lake.

Not wanting to pay the day use fee at the state park, we pulled over near the spillway and fished near the bridge.  Most of the people that had been fishing reported slow catching, but one person I recognized from a local forum had caught some pike and carp, throwing spoons.

Getting busy, I threw a Krocodile lure in a fire tiger pattern in all directions while soaking a minnow.  James threw a Gulp! minnow, since he's had some luck with it, plus it won't snag too easily on the bottom.

Time ticked by without anything to show for it, but I noticed some line slowly getting pulled from my minnow rod.  Bingo, I thought, but somehow missed the hook set.  I was really hoping for a walleye, but I'll never know what might have been.

Some people left from a spot that I was eyeballing and that allowed me to cast from under the bridge, out into the lake, bringing it back into the bottleneck of the spillway.  Experimenting with different retrievals, I finally got a good hit from allowing the lure to sink down to the sandy bottom, then reeling in slowly, pausing occasionally to let it sink again.

A juvenile northern pike was the reward for my patience, my second ever.

A short while later, using the same retrieval, my spoon somehow snagged a carp in the side.  The resulting fight had me pretty sure that I had something nice on the other end, so seeing a foul-hooked carp come to the surface was kind of a bummer.

Shortly after that, a nicer pike grabbed the spoon, but its sharp teeth snipped the line before I even had a chance to fight it.

Switching to the closest thing in my tackle box, a chrome/orange Kastmaster would have to do.  It actually outperformed the Krocodile and had quite a few hits and a couple of similar pike wiggled their way off the hook before I could get any photos, some before I could even get my hand around them.

Finally, I got this little guy right at my feet, noticing a flash behind my lure, then dancing it around until I watched the snakey little guy take another swipe.

James had since given up on working his Gulp! and it was clear that our time at Yuba was soon to be over.  Not wanting to let the bait dry out and harden (they're really hard to get off the hook when they dry out), I tossed that out as far as I could and let it soak for a few minutes.

Right before leaving, I slowly brought in the Gulp! and got another small pike.

It was pretty fun to catch pike again and it's great to see Yuba bouncing back.  Though we were done with Yuba, there was still another spot that I wanted to try, just outside the route home.

A few miles to the east of the town of Levan, a small lake lies on Chicken Creek and it's been on my hit list for a few years.  Someone had told me about a pond near Levan a long time ago and I've just never gotten around to looking into it.  Thanks to some pre-trip planning on Google Maps, I knew where to go.

Pulling up to the lake, we were all alone on Memorial Day, something I didn't think would be possible.

The water was a bit discolored, but showed promise with plenty of cover at the water's edge, a lot of dead trees, and a couple of visible brown trout cruising about.

What a neat little find!

Try as I might though, the little browns in the pond were only feeding on tiny surface bugs that I didn't have any good imitations for.  No action on the trusty Blue Fox, Gulp!, redside shiner, marabou jig, or even a night crawler!

It's no wonder we were alone, as the lake wasn't giving up its tiny treasures for us.

Moving downstream a little, I came to a great little waterfall with a nice hole below it.

My first toss resulted in a hard hit from something a bit bigger than I'd been seeing at the lake, but somehow it didn't stay on.  Eventually, I had to settle for a small one, but at least it was a trout in my hand.

We left the lake, but stopped at a few spots along the creek's path down the canyon.  The canyon itself was pretty neat with a lot of exposed rock faces and nicely shaded primitive camping and picnic areas by the creek.

The creek is very technical and it was difficult to sneak up on the fish before they would dart off, leaving tiny wakes in the shallow waters.  It wasn't until I found some backed up areas where I got into a mess of tiny browns and a couple of rainbows.

The rainbows flipped off the hook before their photo shoot, but they appeared a bit fatter than the browns of equal length.  Some of the younger browns appeared to have a decent chance of growing to good size, but the majority were skinny little snakes.

It was still fun to hit a wild fishery and get some action though.

Here's one that didn't look stunted...yet.

It was a great day!  Catching pike again was a blast, exploring new areas is always excellent, and finding solitude on a big time recreation holiday can't be beat!

Happy Fishing, Humans.

Strawberry Chubfest & Currant Creek Reservoir

Still enjoying the long break from work, there have been many quick outings to the Provo River and other local spots, with some success for smaller browns and white bass, but my big day trip on Monday left me longing to hold a big trout again.

If I go more than a couple of weeks without a 20 inch fish, I start getting the shakes, my veins throb, and my mind starts to go.  The symptoms were severe enough that I felt the need to pick my boy up from school yesterday and head out to Strawberry Reservoir, hoping to trap some minnows in a spot I've been hunching on and possibly catch some pig trout in the process.

Well, the spot turned out to be full of mature chubs, which had no interest in Ritz crackers or trying to fit into my trap.  They were very aggressive to attack just about anything I was throwing for trout though.  Several were caught on lures, biting and chasing every cast, but usually unable to get their small mouths around the hook.

Using a worm was super effective for them too.  One nightcrawler, used over and over, was able to pull in about 15 of them before it was mush.  The only thing I caught trout on was a minnow, which two smaller rainbows found.  

Though they were small, my second was quite colorful and had all its fins intact, a rarity for stocked waters.

Considering the fast action for the unwanted chubs (all released after skipping off a rock), I thought this would be a great time for my boy to work on his casting.

Being only 6 years old, his desire to do anything besides reel in for me hasn't been very great until just recently.  Much to my delight, he's been wanting to cast on his own a little bit more, each time we get out.

So with his worm/bubble rig ready to go, he sent his cast a short distance out and instantly had a hook up.  Here's a quick video of him reeling in his very first solo fish, a Utah chub.



Good for him!

After that, it was obvious that the minnow trap wasn't getting any love, so we decide to try trapping some at Currant Creek Reservoir, while we still had some sunlight left.

Arriving at the dam with about an hour of light left, we hurried out to a good spot where I've had success from recently and started casting.  The Gulp! minnow was getting hammered by the tiger trout which were out in force, regulating the shiner population along the dam.

Quite a few were landed and I stopped taking pics of them, since they were mostly the same size.

James wanted to get in on the fun, so I handed the rod off to him.   After some quick coaching as to how to retrieve the Gulp!, he tossed out a sorry little cast of maybe 10 feet.  Hoping he wouldn't lose my gear, but satisfied that he'd stay busy for a few minutes, I turned to check the minnow trap

Within seconds, I was very surprised (but thrilled) to hear some heavy splashing behind me.  Holy crap, he somehow hooked into a thug male tiger, over 20" in length.  The colorful beast was full of fight and really gave James a workout.

I watched intently and shouted encouragement while he battled it for about 30 seconds, even getting it unwrapped from a submerged log.  Then I started rolling some video where the rest played out.



Tough break, but that's fishing.  It was really hard not to just grab the rod and handle the hard part, but this was his fish and I felt it was important that he did all the work on the retrieve.  Landing it would be nearly impossible for him, so I was ready to assist there, just as a guide would be ready with a net for a client.

What an exciting moment!  Heartbreaking, but enough to give him a taste of why we anglers do what we do.  He'll be back for more now!  He really made his old man proud for handling it as well as he did, as if I wasn't already proud to have him there with me.

A little more practice and those "Father and Son" trips I dream about will be a reality...

With that in the past, the sun was melting into the horizon and I felt the need to capitalize on the insane sunset bite that we'd been experiencing.

A quick grab from the minnow trap provided a nice fat shiner and it was gobbled up as soon as it hit the water.  The fish on the other end was very nice, but it won the battle in a rare case of breaking me off at the knot.

Another minnow provided yet another quick grab, but I failed to set the hook.  This repeated itself one more time before finally getting something to stay on, a 21 inch tiger trout.  Nice catch from Currant Creek, my second largest to date.

James, being such a big boy now, demanded that I let him work the camera for me and took the next three photos.

It was a great evening and my nerves can settle now, having caught something of size again.  The kids had a great time and were all smiles as we boarded my mobile fishing office and departed for home.

Thanks for reading and Happy Fishing, Humans!

Boulder Mountain Day Trip?

With my wife on a two week trip to her home country, Peru, I cashed in my paid time off at work (and then some) to stay at home with the kids.  My Mother, being a wonderful and charitable soul, offered to watch the kids for a night, then throughout the day on Monday.

Originally, my plans were to head south and hit one of my favorite cutthroat lakes, which also has some decent brookies in it.  The day before my trip, I got a phone call stating that my buddy Keala was in town (school in Iowa) and he was getting fishy a little farther to the south, that same day.

Ultimately, the plan was to take a day trip to Boulder Mountain for spawning Colorado River cutthroat trout at a lake I've been wanting to hit for about 4 years now.  Scott (another local forum member) met me at my house at 3:00am and we were on it.

Three hours and some change later, the sunrise welcomed us to fish country.

My Sentra made it to the trail head without trouble,although I think all the washboard dirt roads I've taken it on have started to take their toll.  My exhaust pipe separated from the manifold, leaving my little 4-banger sounding like a cabbage shooter.  Easy fix, but not the time or place for that.

The trail went by quickly and we were glad to see the group we were meeting already fishing.  Unfortunately, our trip was about a week or two early to catch the height of the spawn.  Most of the fish congregate in one main area for this and the action is phenomenal, supposedly.

Our group reported some catches, but very little activity and mostly smaller fish.  Scott and I joined the fight and worked diligently, trying to figure out what these fish wanted.  It was pretty rough and only every once in awhile, a fish would bite something.

Most of the catches were somewhat far from where I was, so I didn't get many photos, but Keala got a pretty good one that warranted a pic.  Nice fish.

Beautiful lake though.

We fished for several hours and felt defeated, even though everyone had caught some fish.  Everyone but myself, at that point.  My efforts had only brought one strike to my attention, which I missed.

The bushes were a major issue as well, tightly packed near the shoreline and loaded with tiny thorns that just begged for an errant back cast.  A full hour of my day may have been spent mashing through that spiny thicket, trying to get my gear unstuck.

Finally, I was able to catch a fish, but it was kind of a slap in the face.  The tiny FEMALE cutthroat saved me from a total skunk, but being such, lacked the deep crimson underside of their male counterparts.  Those males were the whole reason for the trip.

So the fishing was pretty bad, but the scenery and company was splendid.  Scott and I needed to leave early enough to be home at reasonable times, so we took off around 2:00, right after Keoni, Keala, Koa, and Sai, who took their family camping adventure to other parts of the region.  Hopefully they did well.

Scott and I left ourselves a little bit of leeway to quickly try some other spots nearby.  Our first stop was a quick perch and brown trout session at Mill Meadow, where we found small fish, but quite a few of them.  The fast catching at first was a welcome change and we stayed there until the bites faded off.

After that, we really needed to get going.  Given our detour to Mill Meadow, staying on Hwy 25 and wrapping around Fish Lake was the best option for us...except for all the tempting holes on the Fremont River along the way.

Just upstream from Mill Meadow, the river was screaming for us to pull over and we finally did for some excellent fishing in a great setting.  The fish were all pretty small, but it was a blast to toss a spinner into any hole and get several swipes and usually a hook up.  We could have spent all day on that river, which was little more than a small stream at that point.

Vowing not to stop anymore, we hit the highway again and only made it a few miles before seeing Zedd's Meadow.  It just looked too good to pass up.

As nice as that gentle meander looked, it showed no signs of life.  Nothing happening in the undercut banks, nothing in the eddies, nothing in the tunnel under the road!  Same river as the fast fishing a few miles downstream.  Go fig.

No big deal.  We had our fun and redeemed ourselves for the awful fishing on Boulder Mountain.  From there on out, it was more important for us to ignore the fishy spots we were passing left and right.  As hard as it was, we buzzed right by them and made good time getting back.

The only other stop was for a much needed Blizzard at the Dairy Queen (it's been years for me) in Scipio, at the truck stop.  While exiting the lot, I had to grab a quick shot of something that always makes me chuckle when I pass through.

Amazingly, our 410 mile day trip required just under a full tank of gas in my Sentra (about $40) and we made it back to my house just after 7:00pm.  What a day!

Happy Fishing, Humans.

Currant Creek Reservoir and Streams

This week, my plan was to get up to Currant Creek Reservoir nice and early, get out on my tube for the first time this year, then to explore some beaver dams upstream.

The weather was great, but somehow my morning started a couple of hours later than I had set the alarm for.  How does this happen, I wondered?

Well it turns out that my wife sleeps closer to the alarm than I do (by design, so I have to actually get up to turn it off), and in her sleepy daze, must have just shut it off, leaving me to snore.  A nice gesture, yes, but not exactly welcome when I'm trying to get to the water before the sunlight does.

At least I learned what the real gremlin in my alarm clock was.  Whatchagonnado?

Knowing I had already missed any chance of watching the sunrise from shore (the sun was shiny brightly already), I was in no big rush to get where I was going.  The creek looked rather inviting on the way in and I felt the need to pull over for a quick brown trout before finishing my drive.

So eventually, I made it to the lake and got the tube inflated, all the junk down to the shoreline, and ready to shove off.  My only issue was the steady breeze that had just barely rolled in.  It was the time of day I hoped to already have floated for an hour or more.  Wind or no wind, I was getting my tube wet.

The water was choppy and it was difficult to kick against the wind, keeping myself from running aground on the dam.  Soon enough, I found my rhythm and my fins started biting the water well enough to keep me steadily moving.

On my fly rod, I laughingly tied on a big olive dungeon pattern.  The large, articulated streamer pattern was more likely to spook fish than catch them, but I really just wanted to give it a try.  History has shown that some larger fish live in the lake.

Within 5 minutes of getting wet, I had a bend in the rod and a 15 inch rainbow thrashing around on the other end.  15?  That's it?  Sure, it was nice to hook up with something, especially on the huge chunk of meat I was flinging, but I hoped the mouth that grabbed it would be in the 20" class.  I had to laugh at the appetite of that little guy.

Reestablishing my gratitude to be on the water, I kept after it, kicking the length of the dam before needing a shore break.  The lake seemed almost deserted and a couple of smallish rainbows were the only action so far.

After some time had passed, it was evident that I needed to get to the other side of the lake, then up into some beaver ponds.

While kicking my way back, I drifted a night crawler on one side while working a Gulp! minnow, actively.  It wasn't long and I had something on the worm rod.  While tending to that (dink bow), the Gulp! rod got hit.  That was missed, but soon hit again, bringing in another small rainbow.

It was obvious that the worm rod wouldn't be necessary anymore, so I strapped it and continued to work the plastic and nail one rainbow after another.  It was pretty fun to have the sudden mess of action, even if they were all small rainbows.

The creeks were calling me and I decided that some small stream cutthroat were in order.

The black Vibrax was just what they needed.

Some of them were showing great color.

The creek was pleasant and kept me busy, unhooking a lot of beautiful fish.  Very nice indeed, although I accidentally left my hat next to a beaver pond.  Doh!

With the sun closing in on the horizon, one last go at the lake was needed.  The large minnows I was using hadn't gotten any play so far, but I finally had a couple of takers.  The first two takes dropped it before I could set the hook and the last one ended up in my hand.  Pretty small for the size of minnow it ripped.

So no big fish this week, but it was a really nice day and I enjoyed getting out.  Having my first float of the year was long overdue and that felt great.  The creek was full of eye candy and the wildlife didn't flinch as I rolled back down the hill.

Happy Fishing, Humans.

Reefed!

It's been awhile since I've posted, but I've been staying busy!  The warmer weather locally has triggered a lot of activity at Utah Lake and I've spent quite a few of my lunch breaks trying my hand at the warm water species.  

A few times, after taking my wife to work, the kids and I have stopped in for a short time, hoping to get something out of that big pond down the road.  Time and time again though, I find myself shaking my head, getting served.

I'm sure my time is coming there, but I'll likely need to dedicate a little more time than 20 minute bursts.  The scenery isn't too bad though.  It's actually pretty relaxing to kick back on a lonely beach, listening to the birds and waves...the occasional carp violently splashing in the shallows.

The kids really enjoy getting dirty too, so we all win, regardless of the multiple skunkings.

Did I mention that they like to get DIRTY?

In a beautiful place with my kids, nothing else really matters anyway.

Last weekend, my buddy Keoni and I planned to get back into some brookie holes we're privy to.  The whole thing was jeopardized when I somehow failed to rise at the agreed time, but we made decent time, once moving.

The drive was long and we anticipated a bit of a hike to get where we needed to go.  We were right.

Although we were able to get past a gate that we thought would be closed, a snow drift stopped us about a quarter mile in.  That was expected, since last year the road wasn't open until very late in the year.

As we strolled along, we took turns fishing a couple of holes on a creek we were following and Keoni scored a pretty little brookie.

We marched on for 3 miles or so and eventually came to our lake, despite my delay, getting stuck in the slop at a silted-in beaver pond.  

In disbelief, we looked on at a frozen lake.  All but a tiny window of open water about 25 feet out was covered in re-freeze.

Not to be dissuaded, we fished that window for quite awhile, hoping the thin layer of ice would melt away quickly.  It took a long time, but finally opened up.

Several hours passed and Keoni finally caught a small brookie while I was exploring the other side.  I had seen a few, but none that were very impressive so far.  

When I got back to Keoni, I cast a jig toward the receding edge and it popped through the ice, then sank a few feet before I saw a flash and set the hook.  A small brookie flailed through the ice and back down before getting off the hook.

Another fish swooped in and bit my jig a little later, but I missed that one too.  It was a bit of a downer to spend so much time with nothing, then finally get a strike and miss twice in a row.  Oh well, that's fishing sometimes.  It was an honor to get the skunk in such nice surroundings.  

Opting to cut our losses, we hiked out to one of my own little secrets out there.  A big beaver pond with hefty brook trout sounded like something we both needed pretty badly by then.

Along the way, Keoni started catching little brookies in a tiny stream with his Tenkara rod.  Having never tried Tenkara, he was quick to hand it off and let me at it.  It was just the ticket for the skittish little residents.

Keoni grabbed my camera and snapped some pics.

He also got a shot of the stream.

It was great to finally shed the skunk from my shoulders, but our pond wasn't getting any closer, so we cut out of there, excited for what was to come...

...Or so we thought.  It seems that sometime since July of last year, the beaver dam had breached, leaving my special place nothing more than a muddy, barren flat, devoid of life.

That hurt to see, since my friend Holdsworth and I had such a good time last year, leaving many fish to grow larger for this season.

Yet another buzzkill for the day, but we were dedicated to having a good time and these were just minor setbacks.  Water flows downhill, so we followed it into a meadow and farther downstream to a tiny beaver pond before a long steep grade.

The pond looked fishless, but there was a small collection of grass along some rocks, forming a small area of cover.  Keoni spotted a fish and placed his cast well.  The fish took, but spat the hook, darting off under the flotsam.

That prompted us to investigate the grass line.  I dropped a jig through a small opening in the cover and it got a hit right away, but I MISSED IT!  AGAIN!  The repeated whiffing on solid strikes was getting ridiculous.

As the fish reacted to my setting attempt, about 12 others scattered out in all directions, quickly darting back to the cover immediately.  They were mostly pretty decent fish, but one was a dandy.  I even think I saw a rainbow or a cutthroat in there with the brookies.  That wasn't expected at all.

Lo and behold, they were spooked and we failed to get any to hand.  I even missed another bite.

Enough was enough and our thoughts moved toward water bodies along the route home and whether or not we'd have any sunlight left by the time we got to them.  The day was growing late and we still had a long walk back to the car.

Exhausted from the total beat-down we'd just received, we got back to the car and drove to Fish Lake, where we waded out on the cobble.  

It was my fist time fishing open water at the lake, only ice fishing it twice before.  My results were never proud, catching only one rainbow each time, previously.  The possibilities in Fish Lake are grand, so a 16 inch rainbow is nothing to shake a fin at.

Keoni had quite a few follows from some decent fish before catching a tiny splake that was good for a laugh.  I had a couple of tiny followers before I landed my last fish of the day, a small brown trout.  Quite the rarity for Fish Lake, so it was a welcome surprise.  

It was a good day, even with the discouraging happenings.  Keoni is great company and we kept each other laughing throughout.

This week, the family and I needed to get out and see some distant lands, new to us.  Much preparation the night before and an early rise gave us a good start on a serious drive.  New waters and vistas awaited us and when we saw this, we knew we were getting close.

Capitol Reef National Park lie below us, in all it's glory.

Half the reason we were down in that part of the state was to visit Capitol Reef, but only if we had enough time after fishing.  First stop was a short hike after a bubble blowing session to boost the kids' morale.

The hike was pretty easy and our first lake shimmered in front of us.  The steep hillsides plunged downward and this place was deep, especially for what looks to be a natural lake.

The fish were very picky and I had a hard time dialing in on what they wanted.  A couple of smaller tiger trout with full bellies came to hand before I got something to swallow a pretty big minnow.

The minnow I used was quite large, so I was pretty excited to see what was on the other end of my line.  When I pulled up my largest splake to date, I was quite pleased, although I expected larger.

Pretty good looking fish though.

Here's the video:



The wind picked up and the kids started moaning to leave, so we made our way out of there and down to another couple of lakes, the first of which is not stocked that I know of.

The first lake was loaded with tiny cutts that were eager to nip at my kastmaster.  Most of the time they wouldn't get hooked, but a lot of them did.  They were all about this size, but pretty with deep red slashes.

Then it was onward, to our next lake, where I had a really hard time getting anything going.  Gorgeous setting, and the many fish I saw looked pretty good, but they weren't playing.

Despite the slow fishing, we still enjoyed ourselves, had a picnic, and horsed around with the kids.

Only twice, was my jig followed and the only fish from this lake came from the trusty Vibrax.

It wasn't too big, but deeply colored and it filled my hand nicely.

We tried for awhile longer, but never got another bump.  Time to go.

One more stopped was required and I agreed to only 10 casts.  2 casts into it and I was connected.  The other 8 casts brought in three other rainbows of similar size.  Fun place, but just a quickie.

At that point, only one more visit needed to be made, Capitol Reef.  This is the part that got my wife interested in the trip.  I just showed her a few photos from the map and she was on it.  She and I both love playing in the desert and seeing new places is welcome.

Having only a vague memory of the roads from my map hounding, I had to wing it, but there were plenty of signs directing me to where I needed to go.  We decided that the Upper Cathedral Valley would be our venue and made a right turn, dropping into a wonderful world of cascading veils of sandstone.

The place was amazing!  Every curve in the road made way for something even more spectacular than the last.

It just kept getting better and better as floated along the soft, sandy road.

Then there was the giant "fin" of rock with huge gaps.  This was probably my favorite part of the valley.

Incredible.

A little farther down the road, the outcroppings became less frequent and we started getting close to juniper country again.  We turned around and hoped the Sentra would make it back up the sandy plunge we took to get there.

When we arrived to the sandy hill, I was really struggling to see, as the sun was shining right in my face once I rounded the curve before the big climb.  It completely illuminated the sand-pitted windshield and visibility was zero.  Catching me off guard, I almost drove us into the inside wall, but got my head out the window in time to correct and stomp the gas pedal.

Luckily, we made it through the sandy patch and got enough traction to make it.  Whew!  Saved me a 30 mile desert drive to Hwy 24 in fading light.

Out of the desert, we ascended the mountain we'd come from as it provided us with shade from the sun for awhile, at least.  Getting closer to the pass, my head went out the window again, thanks to the blinding sun.

On the bright side, we were rewarded with a great view of Cathedral Valley as the sun cast its last light on it, igniting the red rock.

We'll be sure to visit the area in more depth some other time.  It was great to get out there and see what we did though.  Awesome place.

On our way back to civilization, we stopped in at one last lake (10 cast rule again) to see how the bite was at dusk.  Five casts into it, I lost my spinner after catching a small splake, a small perch, and something nicer that got off the hook before I could see it.  It was a good note to go out on.

What a trip it was!  These days are only getting longer and how thrilling is it to spend all day pursuing the things you love, with the people you love?  It's priceless.

Happy Fishing, Humans.