Strawberry Kokes

Have you ever gotten up as early as 2:00am to go fishing? I did this past week. I went out with a friend, Shawn (better known as ObiFishKenobi on BFT:  Big Fish Tackle website). We got limits of kokanee, and at least a dozen cutthroat trout to boot. We were on the water at 5:30, before sunup, and started catching fish immediately.
After returning home, I filleted the salmon for the smoker, and we had them for Sunday dinner.

Painting of Cindy With Big Mack

I had a painting made of Cindy with her big lake trout, minus the arm helping to support the fish's weight. She's quite proud of it!

2 Days at t he Gorge: Cindy & I

Beautiful Flaming Gorge with Captain Randy Browning.

Randy posing with Cindy a fun laker she fought.

Cindy with her 20 pounder. She always out-fishes me!


A 16 pound lake trout, caught on a 6" tube jig in ~25 feet of water.


Nice pose with a nice laker. They were ferociously feeding on shallow-water rainbow trout.


3 limits of kokanee salmon we caught in less than an hour.


I finally got to pose with a nice fish.


A large group of bighorn sheep were along the water's rocky edge.

Strawberry On The Ice

We took a Saturday trip to Strawberry before the road into the Marina is closed for the year, due to heavy snowfall and a diminished budget for snowplows. Pretty sad; we wanted to go back several times this season. But the snow is amazingly deep -- 5 feet or so in the parking area they've been plowing. And they just about ran out of room to pile the stuff! The ice was so thick, Jon buried out power auger up to the motor to cut through it all. That's 3+ feet of snow and ice covering the big lake.
We took snowmobiles out of the Marina to get out to a spot where we could get both cutthroats, and a possible kokanee salmon. We did get 3 kokes; Pax caught one, and I got two. It was a cold day:  -12F when we arrived. But the sun was out, and in my black tent I didn't even need to fire up the heater.
Jon cooked some hotdogs for us, so we had a warm meal to boot.
What a great day we had! Lots of fish and lots of winter fun!

Uncle Gene

My good Uncle Gene with a mess of trout he caught in Arizona. Apache trout, I think. Likely using a female Adams fly (his favorite). We communicate frequently through e-mail to keep up with all the goings on with each other.

Late Fall at Strawberry

Jon and I went out with ObiFishKenobi (Shawn Lindsay) to Strawberry in mid-November, and just knocked 'em dead! We had a great fish catching day; we caught mostly cutthroat trout. I did lose 2 rainbows at the boat. But the biggest fish, Shawn's, was a full 21" and probably weighed over 3 pounds. We estimated our catch at around 50 trout for the day!

Beautiful fall colors aren't just for trees!

Shawn with a big one!

Jon with a nice, hard-fighting cutthroat!

Hobbs Pond & fishing success!

Dad, Jon, took his 3 kids to Hobbs to let the kids go after some sunfish. Not sure if those are rockbass or what, but they are certainly fat and sassy. They had great success, as the photos and smiles will attest.

High Uintas: Marjorie Lake

My daughter Jamie took this photo of her husband Jon with a beautiful Arctic grayling. Quite the exotic species for Utah.

Wintertime Brown Trout

Winter Brown Trout on the Weber River are slender, skinny specimens after the fall spawn. But they're still fun to catch on a fly rod!

Grandkids on the Ice!

Taking advantage of what little winter weather we've had this season, we've managed to get 5 of the 7 grandkids out to experience ice fishing on Mantua and Pineview Reservoirs.
They all do a nice job of detecting the light bite you get with panfish, and all have caught fish by themselves without any help from Grandpa. It took a little teaching, but sitting in a warm tent with a heater going makes for a great teaching atmosphere.
We tried setting up "Tiger Traps" for the muskies in Pineview, but didn't have any luck hooking into one of those toothy monsters. Jon and I like the nice tiger muskies who live in Pineview, but have only had success catching them from float tubes and kayaks.
Lincoln, Alivia, Maui, Paxton, and Macy all did a great job handling both the cold and the fishing poles!

A Windlass Tip-Up for tiger muskies.

Maui with a couple of nice perch!

Maui and Paxton showing off part of their catch!

This is what the Tiger Muskies look like. A toothy beast!

A catch of edible sized perch. Delicious!

Pax with a mixed bag from Mantua!

A fish-finder is a must for locating schools of fish.

Tony Grove Lake with 2 Granddaughters



 

Two of my sweet granddaughters, Ali and Maui, show off some of the trout they caught while we were at the cabin at Bear Lake.

Nymph Fishing the Weber River

Cam and I have been using our newly learned nymphing skills to catch brown trout on the Weber River. It's a very fun and rewarding way to fish, and we're loving it! Here's some of our catches.



Browns are beautiful fish, and we're strictly catch & release. We've had good success on San Juan worms, golden stoneflies, pheasant tails, and scuds. Best success has come fishing shallow riffles with rocky bottoms. Of course, this time of year the water flows are up and the river is muddy. But we have a spot where Lost Creek flows into the Weber, and Lost Creek is relatively clear. So that area has a half-muddy, half-clear stretch that has been quite good to us. I can see that we have a new direction for our favorite hobby. I know that when I have to go alone, this is what I'll be doing!