More Cowbell

The stillwater bug has officially bitten.  I've got a fever, and the only prescription, is more stillwater!  Blake and I headed back up to see what we could do.  The fishing wasn't fast, but we did catch some decent tigers along with a good bow stuck by Blake.  Stay tuned, their will be more to come...

Stillwater Time

The ice is melting in many places, and it is time to pull out the fly rods with intermediate lines again.  It had been many years since we had fished this lake in Wyoming and figured it was time.  So Blake loaded up the drift boat and off we went.  When we arrived we found that about 1/4 to 1/3 of the lake still had ice on it.  This place is known for its tough days and brutal wind.  By lunch we had been blown completely off the water.  But before that happened we were able to get a few to scratch our ice-off itch, and a few really nice fish to boot.

Seeing Green

I took my annual pilgrimage to the Green River.  This year I was joined by a pair of brothers, Josh and Tyler and Brett and Jake.  I couldn't have asked for better guys to spend a day chasing trout.  I will let the pictures do most of the talking.  The fish are healthy.  We didn't catch anything huge, just a lot of really healthy fish.  The was one that I spotted while stalking that was HUGE but it wouldn't move for anything I threw at it.  Eventually I got tired and tried to wade out and poke it with my rod.  It still didn't move.  So I took off my backpack and went deeper and was able to slide this massive brown out that had probably been dead for at least a few days.  I'm not sure how long it takes a dead fish to start decomposing?  But this is the type of fish that fishermen dream about at night!  Too bad it was caught with my foot and not my fly, and was dead before contact and didn't give me a great fight.  Still very cool to see!  You can't complain about catching dozens of fish in t-shirt weather at the end of November.

Here is the big boy, Brett posed with him for the picture.  The rest of the pictures show it was a great day with A LOT of fish caught!

Green River Glory Days

Anyone that is a flyfisherman knows about and has probably even fished Utah's famed Green River.  You talk to old timers and they talk in reverent tones of days of yesteryear where the fish were both healthy and plentiful.  It seems these days that you can catch a lot of fish but many were skinny and at some level stunted.  Of course there were the few fish here and there that were true trophies, but the health of the fishery seemed to be on the decline the last decade.

We took a trip out this fall and the fishing was nothing short of epic.  The sheer numbers of fish caught alone would be something to write about, but what was most impressive was the health of virtually every fish that was caught.  We didn't catch any huge fish.  There were some really nice fish along the way, but nothing huge.  But every fish had girth and health that you are not accustomed to these days on the Green River.  The first day was literally one of the 2-3 best days fishing I've ever had in my life. And it certainly was the best day ever on the Green.  I won't comment too much about the details, I'll let this post be very picture heavy.  But it was awesome to be with my brothers, brother-in-law, nephew (first time at the Green...got totally spoiled!), and great friends for what was truly an epic trip.

The Land of Pharaohs

Blake, Mikey, Kelly, and I took the long jaunt west to the land of pharaohs to chase overgrown Lahontans.  The anticipation as this trip came closer was high for me as reports from the year were pretty poor.  And forecasts of possible snow and cold the entire time we were there gave cause for some concern on top of the already poor fishing.  Many reports abounded of solid sticks and experienced local guys getting completely skunked over multiple days.  Good days had people barely hitting double digits.  But we had an RV rented and plans set, so we just took off on faith and prayer that the fish would play.  Also, a 19.2 pounder had been caught from shore in February....and after all....that's why we play here!

We got a late start on Wednesday night but eventually were able to hit the road after loading up all the gear, doing our grocery shopping for the weekend, and putting down a Double-Double, Animal-style/Protein style for the road!  The winds and rains hit us early in the trek but I-80 cooperated enough to get us to Dover to see a couple team players provide entertainment for the others in rolling some bones.  After losing enough we hit the road again and took up shop in Elko for the night.  Having the RV made it sure nice to just find a parking lot and call it a night.  Of course we had to set up the tying station and turn out bugs of all sorts on the drive out.




Thursday morning it was on and you could cut the anticipation with a knife!  We were stoked to hit the water and give it a try.  We hit Crosby's for the permits and then started hitting beaches and talking to folk.  After some conversations it became apparent that Pelican was the place to be if we wanted a shot.  The wind was relentless, and it was right in our faces.  It was game on!



Blake was able to get us on the board first.  We weren't sure if Mikey was going to join us on the lake for this trip as he was just hanging in the RV and not even ready to roll.  Little did we know that he was just harnessing the mojo because he followed not long after Blake's with what ended up being the best fish of the trip for us in a nice 25-inch buck, but Thursday afternoon/evening was slow for us.  That was it.




We soaked our sorrows in Diet Mountain Dew and Better-Cheddar Brats for the night and came up with a game plan for the next morning.  The guys just west of us were slaying them while we sat and watched.  We figured out that their 'mids were only 3.5-4 feet down.  Ours were more like 7+.  We made the adjustments accordingly, and went to bed with high hopes for the morning.  The morning started out slow in the beginning, but then Kelly turned on the switch.  Kelly was stripping beetles and was just on fire.  I was 'mid fishing and started to get some love.  Mikey was stripping as well and doing okay.  Blake had caught one as well.  We were all on the board after a couple hours of fishing and Kelly was putting on a clinic for all to see.







The morning bite subsided after our group probably doing the best in the morning from anyone in the area.  We had brought close to 10 fish to hand between us in a few hours, most of those coming from Kelly.  Mikey disappeared for a while and we couldn't figure what he was doing.  Little did we know that in no time we'd have BBQ beef sandwiches delivered hot to us on the shoreline, right off our ladders!



You're the man Mikey!  The afternoon cooled off and the wind wasn't cooperating with us as much.  We tried different tactics and Mikey even brought out the spin-rod for a bit to get a little more length on the casts.  It pretty much shut off for the middle portion of the day though.




In the afternoon and evening the fish played a little bit more for us, but not too much.  I think we finished the day with 15 between us.  We figured that Friday was good as it was, so we'd just proceed with the same plan for Saturday.  But what a difference a day makes!  We fished our tails off all morning and we didn't catch a thing.  In fact, the only person we saw even hooking up was a little ways down from us throwing a big, dark jig on spin gear.  There was much talk of hanging up the waders and calling it a trip.  But when you come this far to chase this fish, you stick it out.  Glad we did, even if the fishing wasn't hot.  We were each able to stick one more fish for the trip before we called it quits in the late afternoon.





We hit the road and made it back to Elko again before returning home on Sunday the rest of the way.  All-in-all the fishing was pretty un-spectacular.  I think we landed right around 20 fish in 2.5 days of fishing between 4 of us.  That isn't stellar by any measure.  But we talked to an old-timer that we met out there last year that was just arriving as we left.  He spent the week before there and had a hook-up at 8 AM on Thursday, and didn't have another bite until 6 PM on Saturday.  So it could have been A LOT worse for us.  And we were able to catch some pretty awesome fish.  Nothing in the double digit category, but Mikey's 25 incher was no slouch and almost every fish we caught was over 20 inches.  And for my money, these are the most beautiful trout there is out there.  There isn't anywhere else I know where you have an actual legitimate chance of catching a 30+ inch 10+ pound cutthroat on any given cast.  Literally every cast you have a chance of catching the fish of a lifetime.  Here are some of just the fish to send you on your way.







Thanks for an incredible trip fellas.  It's a special fishery.  This place gets in your blood.  I will be back.