Tag Archives: Spring Fly

Southern Utah

Back Down South

Hopefully the same Kings of Leon song is going through your head as mine while I departed on this journey last Friday after work.  Last summer and this spring I had spent some time fishing in Southern Utah and the opportunity came knocking for another trip so therefore it happened.

We arrived at camp after dark the first night so it was nice to have previously been in the area to have an idea of where to set up camp.  The following morning after a couple mile hike this was the scene.

10,000 feet
These were the fish
Clean release with a midge in the back

After catching more fish then we could count and discovering both of our waders were leaking which is a little chilly this time of year we decided to warm the blood and hike to another lake.

Still cold here

The original plan was to spend another night at 10,000 feet, but we kinda didn’t want to freeze through another night so we took off to a lower elevation.  After taking some real good beer drinking roads we arrived at night two’s camp well after dark again.  This place however was new to me so we had to spend some time on figuring out a spot to camp.

We awoke to this
We fished for these
Lots of wild trout on hoppers
The definition of pocket water

After catching more fish then you could shake a stick at we thought the only topper to this trip would be catching a hog.

So we went here
We caught this
and another one of these!?!
And a couple of hogs on streamers

Then we went home, but it was a three day weekend for me so I grabbed the dogs and went out for another day.

Tala fell off this rock ledge in the background, but was obviously unscathed.
I was fishing this hole until these guys showed up
The kids let me catch some fish, but I'd have to shoo Bandit out of the water when I was trying to land the fish because he kept on chasing them down in the river
After a while they become good fishin' dogs
Until next trip...
Utah Trout

Another day on the River

After having a little bit to much to drink in celebration of Cinco de Mayo, the alarm startled me awake a little early Sunday morning for another fishing day trip.  By the time we arrived at the river, the sun was already shining high with not a cloud in the sky.  However, we saw a Brown Trout chasing a chub right away so we thought streamer fishing might still be hot. However, this was not the case.

Evan trying to figure out what the fish were eating

Eventually, the fishing turned on or we started to figure the stream out, but we began pulling them up on Caddis, Hare’s ears, micro Mayflies, and Juju betas nymphs.

One caught on the micro may
Man and his pup
Another reason to believe the streamer fishing should have been better

After several miles of hiking and countless hours of fishing, pulling up Browns, Rainbows, Cutthroat, Tiger Trout, and quite a few chubs the sun began to tuck below the mountains and it was time to rip some Streamers.  With all the chubs in the water, I thought a white Peanut Envy would do the trick.

Notice not only did this trout eat my streamer, but it already had a chub for dinner
Tuckered out pooch enjoying the days last rays
Evan with the fish of the day, at the end of the day
Utah Trout, Wild Trout Streams

Getting out there

Over the past weekend over 700 hundred miles were driven in the pursuit of happiness and splendid isolation.  The weather was beautiful.  Life is all about the journey…

Enjoying the ride
Back where you want to be
Unfortunately, the guide book written ten years ago lied and this GEM of an establishment is no longer open for business

I love seeing everything the state of Utah has to offer so we packed up the car and headed into the incredibly desolate and isolated Northwest corner.

Small freestone stream. No spring runoff this year
FUCKIN' awesome
Trophy huntin'
almost there
Bow and Arrow casting all day

The fishing on this stream was pretty fast for bow and arrow casting, but I had the lady and the dogs with me and they weren’t as excited for the lack of back cast as I was.  So we went site seeing.

City of Rocks
Disappointing, rock climber, hippie establishment in the middle of no where next to a built up hot spring where we had dinner

Probably the place that helped put an end to the Naf cafe.

On the way back to camp from sight seeing, the front tire happened to just so delicately fall off of the Jeep.

6 pm MST. Lost a tire, 70 miles from the nearest real town...no cell service to boot
Sun down in the middle of nowhere

After jerry-rigging the tire back on we drove at 3 mph until we received cell service.  No one at Triple AAA even knew where Naf, Idaho was.  By 11 pm the tow truck arrived.  He wouldn’t drive us the additional ten miles out of the way to our camp, but took us the 70 miles to the nearest town.  From there we met up with Jourdan’s mom who took us back to SLC where we arrived at around 3 in the morning.

The following morning we made the trip back to Naf to retrieve our camping and fishing gear from our campsite.  The good thing about being in the middle of nowhere in the west is everything was there the following day.

To be at this place in its prime