" The first men that our Saviour dear, 
Our apricot tree is turning for the fall season, and it reminds me of ... me. Still standing there, mostly alone, showing signs of age, grudgingly dropping leaves now that the fruitful season is over. I'm glad to have a busy wife by my side, wonderful daughters, and sons-in-law who still don't mind if I tag along on fishing trips. And the grandkids; they still allow you to be young and playful whenever they're around.
Here's a cold water sample of a tiger muskie. Jon caught this "snake with teeth" early one morning while out with his family.
Jon gave me this shot of a tiger trout in fall spawning colors. Interestingly, these fish are sterile hybrids, and do not reproduce. However we still get to benefit from their display of brilliance when cold weather starts moving in.
Jon also has gotten into hiking into the Uinta Mountains to fish for beautiful brookies, and this unique species: Arctic grayling. Distinguished by the very tall dorsal fin. they are not found in very many areas of the continental US. But we're lucky enough to have them.
This is my next goal of a specie that I want to catch, but as yet haven't. Jon and I did a hike-in to go after these unique beauties, but all I caught that day was gorgeous brookies. On the other hand, Jon caught several arctic grayling that day!
This isn't the actual "BIG one" of the day, but one just like him walked out into the road on us this morning as we were on our way to Pineview to go fishing. Fortunately for both him and the front end of my truck, I managed to brake hard and move enough right to miss him. At the moment, all I could see out the windshield was legs and belly. These guys are monsters. Once he meandered off the road, I turned the truck to face him and the headlights showed us the nice rack he carried, and the cow who must have crossed just in front of him. I don't mind a big one like that getting away!
One of Jon's smallmouth bass of the day. Only slight breezes, but with the temps barely reaching 50, we were pretty chilled by the time we left.
Jon got this shot of the 5 crappies I kept for filleting. I jigged them up out of ~20 feet of water, and had a fun time catching them. No tiger muskies on this day, but one had some healed teethmarks on its backside!
This big female was just over 13-inches, and as you can see quite healthy.
On one of our family camping trips, we stayed at an area where we can all fish. These were some of the golden days for the kids, I think. They got so much excitement and happiness from being outdoors in a beautiful place.
My first float tube got a lot of use. Here at Lyman Lake, Cindy and I took turn going out and casting to nice cutthroat and rainbow trout.
Look how little the kids were here! They always showed a lot of enthusiasm for my outdoor successes. This rooster pheasant was cooked for dinner one night, in a gravy of mushrooms and chopped bird, over a bed of rice. Good stuff!
And now, to compare Alivia and Lincoln in size, I can barely remember the girls being this age!
Stacy has her stringer from Trial Lake up for show in this photo. She always had excellent patience when it came to fishing. Her preference for bait: nightcrawler & a marshmallow.
Stacy really liked ice fishing, and was darned good at it. She also fished with an attitude; no one was going to out-fish Stacy!
Stacy caught this nice Strawberry cutt while on a weekend trip with our neighbors. The biggest one of the trip, she brought it home for us for dinner.
One of my very favorite pictures of Jamie, here she shows off her stringer of trout caught at Trial Lake in the Uintas. That excited grin could only mean one thing: Jamie was having a really good time! Her favorite trout bait: salmon eggs.
A bull bluegill from out of Mantua Reservoir was one of the biggest I've seen caught here in Utah. According to my scale, it weighed 15-ounces; just one short of a full pound.
Here Jamie shows the camera the nice size of this catch of yellow perch on an ice fishing trip. I must admit, Jamie made this part hard on me. I'd fill the sink with water to dump the perch in, and most were still alive. She'd start naming them, and playing with them ... But was always a good sport about their use as fillets for dinner.
Debbi, always the best fish eater of the 3 girls, was the luckiest little angler I ever saw. Any pole she touched was immediately the "hot stick" for fish. This stringer came from Tony Grove Lake.
Debbi was wiped out from slaying the perch on this day. She even slipped off her boots and warmed her toes by the heater. We took a mess home and had them for Sunday dinner the following day.
Another hot stick day was at Pineview fishing for yellow perch, when all of a sudden Debbi yelled out. Her pole was bent double, and it was obvious she didn't have on a perch! This fat 6 pound carp gave her his best, but our Deb was equal to the task!
Her first day actively fishing with a fly rod, and she completes a cast, retrieve, hook set, and landing of this beautiful 22-inch rainbow.
Stringers full of spring crappies are just about my favorite fish to both eat and catch. We got into them really well from about April until June. We had our best success attacking them from float tubes, and dropping 2-inch grubs and jigs into weed patches, brush tops, and the edges of moss beds. Great fun!
My uncle Gene came out to visit and fish a couple of times over the years. One of the highlights was a day in Idaho where he fly fished his way to what he later called, "The greatest fish catching day of my life!" To say I was pleased is hardly adequate.
My sweetheart Cindy and I pose by a morning's catch of halibut. At least on this day, I finally caught the biggest fish. But Cindy still trumped us all; while the rest of us were initially doing battle with sharks and giant cod 200 feet down, Cindy went 1 - 2 with her limit of halibut, and was done! We were exhausted before completing our catch, but it was well worth every ache. My 2 halibut went 65 & 63 pounds. The biggest caught that day.
With Cindy as chef, every fish dinner is memorable. All is homemade, from coleslaw to baked beans to hushpuppies!
Now here's a story: Debbi went with me one Saturday morning to chase crappie and smallmouth. We fished so hard, and produced so little, that I was afraid that Deb would never go with me again. As we trolled back toward the marina, dragging deep-diving crankbaits for smallies, my pole took a hard nose dive. As soon as I picked up the rod and felt the huge head shake, I knew what I had. Debbi ran to the upper end of the boat, and threatened to not budge until I got rid of that thing. I had to beg her to bring me the net when I got him up toward the boat. She came half way and threw it at me! But we got that monster! 40-inches and 22 pounds worth!
Nothing says color and excitement like a brown trout from a stream as fall spawn is coming on. This big guy was 20-inches, hit a rainbow Rapala . . . and I still have the scar to prove it!
Fall also means the kokanee salmon run in several Utah lakes and tributary streams. The land-locked koke is genetically identical to the sea-run sockeye salmon, frequently caught in Alaska.
This is a 26-inch rainbow, beautifully spotted, but the camera just couldn't do justice to it's array of color.
A friend of Jon's took a picture of this fantastic yearling golden trout. The vertical bars on the sides are called "parr marks", which the fish carries for its initial year of life. A rare find, and a true trophy in spite of its relatively small size.
A gorgeous brown trout who fell victim to a Panther-Martin spinner. Check out those gorgeous spots!
One of my favorite shots: taken at Huntington Reservoir in central Utah, this tiger trout was caught through the ice. What makes it so cool is the mosaic pattern of the ice, which came to appear this way after it had initially frozen, went through a partial melt during a warm spell, and then re-froze.
A black crappie, caught from a float tube on a 2" twister-tail jig. Delicious! (The crappie I mean, not the 2" twister-tail jig ...)
A brook trout lying in the grass after the catch. One of the prettiest fish you can catch.
Lincoln pauses briefly from the fight of a fish to say "Cheese!" What a little ham.
This isn't Lincoln's first, nor biggest fish he's caught all by himself. However, he certainly celebrates every catch made by anyone. He loves to hang close to his dad and cast continually for as long as they stay.
A beautiful sunset frames a walking bridge over the lake, complete with some young anglers fishing.
I have the good fortune (not monitary) of writing for the Outdoors column in our local newspaper, the Ogden Standard-Examiner. One of the great things is that I have no shortage of material when I'm around my "boys" and grandson. Sometimes I write about technical aspects of a particular fishing style, but I prefer more of a storytelling and how-to story. On occassion I find a comical or humorous twist to a feature, and these get as much positive feedback as anything. But most of all I'm hoping to leave behind some family tales that those who read the column will be able to share. Hopefully they'll have a positive feeling toward our little tribe!
