Last day out

I had heard the rains would be coming on Sunday. Saturday may be the last day to get out during the nice weather streak we’ve been having. Initially, I wanted to go up above Porcupine, bike in a ways, to where Hans and I had had such a great day, way back in the spring. Both bikes had flat tires, and would not hold air. By default, I headed up LHF. I drove for ½ hour, hadn’t been that far upstream in many years. Each year that road gets rockier and rockier, good thing there. Keep out the riff raff. Seems every part of that stream I have fished, I can remember about every hole. Could see many changes, beaver dams, etc, it is true you cannot step into the same river twice.
I got into fish right away, several nice cutts, I was beginning to work this nice hole, lots of structure, could see some nice rises up higher, when the water began to turn cloudy. In less than a minute, it was run-off color. Then several Jeeps passed by on the road. I walked upstream 100 yards, to find an area that the Jeeps had been playing around in the water. I passed by the area, headed upstream further, to clean water. I came across several very long and deep beaver ponds, where the water had flooded the banks, and was causing the stream to change course. Some of the “ponds” stretched upstream 100 yards or more, and were above waist high. I wished I had a few sticks of dynamite, thought Robert Traver would object to such tactics.

Fished one nice hole where I hooked a nice brown, then upon casting upstream and under a tree limb, I had a trout inhale my fly, causing me to set the hook quite hard, resulting in the fish yanking back quite hard, and coming loose. I had thought I had popped my tippet, but upon inspection, I found the fish had actually straightened the hook on my fly. The day was quite fun.

Up the Stream

OK, another great day in Paradise. Up the LHF again. I wanted to drive upstream quite a bit, but the road was too rocky, seems to get worse every year. Caught some nice Cutts again, this time also threw in some browns. Just nice to be out. At this time of year you never know if this will be the last outing.

Gut Shot

With the memory of the recent fatal shooting during opening weekend of the Utah deer hunt, fresh in my mind, it was with great trepidation that I ventured forth to sally with the trout. Nerves on edge, I decided today would not be a good day to camo my hat with twigs. I listened intently for the distant crack of a rifle, that would bring searing pain to my innards.

Today was trophy Cutthroat day. Well, trophy for this little stream. Seems every fall, when the Browns are up to the devils work, the large Cutts come out in force. I was able to dance with a few that you would be proud to pull out of Big Creek, Id. Nary did catch a browny, and was bothered not a bit by the days tally. Gotta love it.

And Again...

ok, boys. Headed out again on Wednesday, up blacksmith fork. Weather was cool, cloudy, bit windy. I picked a class 4 set of rapids to fish. Dumb luck there. All told I was able to land 4 trout, fell twice, cursed many, forgot my flask of liquid heat, but had a nice time out.

Scratch that itch...

Headed up the Blacksmith fork, the main branch. Was thinking of the Left hand, but water was way low, and time was an issue. Beautiful fall day, great colors, nice fish. Made me think of ta king the whole month of Oct. off, and doing some fishing and upland game hunting. Good idea eh?

Scorecard: 1 hour fished. 7 browns landed. no swimming, no lost flies, spooked one grouse.

Alaska, the final frontier here we come!!

Ok boys, pack your bags! well at least mark your calendars for the first week in August. And sweet dreams... this'll get you through the winter!! yippe ki a----
and to top it off, NOT ANOTHER SOUL AROUND!! ps. cept bears.

Casual Trip to the Winds

We started out in Kemmerer with a power breakfast. This would fuel our 7 mile hike into Thumb Lake.

At this point, we ran outta gas. so much for the power breakfast. Wecamped amound the spruce trees, in the middle right hand area of this photo.rival, Hans whipped out a couple semi cold Diet Cokes. Bless that man!

We actually managed to catch a couple fish between the naps, and general laziness. Maybe it was the high altitude, but we were both about as motivated as a couple of newly neutered pups.

After the hike out, we camped next to the Green River. That morning we woke to a few showers of rain. We improvised by adding a "shell" to our sleeping quarters, and slept in a little longer. Waiting for the rain to ease.

After a bit, the sun came out, and we caught a few trout out of the fabled Green river. But wished we had had a drift boat, to do this large river justice.

All in all, the fishing was marginal, but the scenery beautiful, and isn't that what's it all about?

Ok, no. But there's always another day around the corner, before the snows fly.

The End All Be All trip

How can words describe the best trip ever? I'll give it a go anyway. Here's the crew, ready to head out.

Beauty that kills.

He's never going to make it.

I noticed, in viewing Han's photos, that he took many many photos of the same trout, hence, since we were absent from many of his "claimed" catches, we can only deduce that he caught ONE trout, the entire trip. Here it is.
Endangered Bull Trout.

The painfully remembered dreaded, "tight rope walk up a dead tree with wet boots" episode.
This did end up being a "triple" it just took me a second to hook that trout. The bigmouth, "Thunder Mountain" burger, going into the big mouth.

Millcreek Cub Scout Day Camp

Although a week has passed since I went fishing, it still counts as another day on the water. I am the Webelos den leader, and as such I had the opportunity to go to Cub Day camp in up Millcreek canyon. I found a few minutes to break away and fish the small creek that went through the camp. I caught a ton of browns, probably just recently stocked.

The Webelos crew:

I also didn't have my waders or boots, so it slow going. I had injured my ankle the day previous day at a work BBQ, and it felt good to soak it in the cold river.

A beautiful trout next to a beautiful foot (insert wolf wistle here):

This was a huge brown, or was it just the excellent photography.

Ok... this was the average size:

Ohh... Thank you John for posting the Brown Sugar blog; it was so sweet!

Brown Sugar 07

Here is a very limited selection of photos from BS 07. I'll burn you a disc, Mickster, of the rest, and give it to you when you come out for the Idaho trip. Since you've heard all the stories, I'll mostly let the images speak for themselves, unless some clarification is needed.

Not sure what they hey he was trying to do. Actually, he lodged his fly in a tree, and I gave him the advice to turn his rod upside down and use his reel to pull the offending branch down to his level, thus enabling him to dislodge his fly. You can see the results. This provided me with quite the laugh and better yet, the sweet fishing runs, while he attempted to free his fly.


This was the largest Cutt that was caught, quite the monster...we were up nearer to the dam at this point.

Well Mickster..hope this gets you through the next few weeks...and here's to next year on the Brown Sugar!!