Winter River Fishing

The Weber was calling my name, so I headed out yesterday in hopes of landing some big browns. I arrived around 7:30 and fished until noon. The river was a touch low, and a touch muddy. I would say there was about a foot visibility. With that, fishing was slower than usual. In the time I fished, I landed 14 brown trout, with a few others getting off right at my feet. Most fish were in the 16-17 inch range. Two were picture worthy, with the biggest going 23 inches.

What is interesting about that 23 incher is that it bit about 10 feet from where I was standing. I was in knee deep water, and had no idea he was there until he bit. Once he hit, I got a quick glimpse of him as he surfaced next to me as he ripped down river. It took me a few minutes to wear him down before he came to the net. I'm hoping I can get a few more trips in before the river gets too muddy to fish.

First picture worthy fish of the day.

 

Biggest and last fish landed.

Strawberry And The Weeb

This post will cover a couple trips from the past few weeks. The first trip was at Strawberry with my Dad a few weeks ago. This trip was special because it was the first time my Dad had fished Strawberry in over 50 years. The last time was when he was a boy with his father.  I enjoyed hearing about the memories of that trip, and hoped to add a good fishing memory of our own.

We decided to try out Mud Creek, and we fished from shore. My Dad went with a gold Jakes lure, while I threw big Rapalas.  My Dad outfished me, and caught all rainbows. I only caught cutthroat. It was such a fun day hanging out with my Dad! Hopefully, We will get to get out again before the snow falls.

18 inch cutthroat.

My dad enjoying the nice day.

24" cutthroat.

The second trip was two days ago on the Weber River. It is the first time since early spring that I've fished it. The water was perfect, and the flows were higher than normal for this time of year. I arrived at sun up, and had to break ice out of my eyelets for the first few hours. The fishing wasn't as fast as I thought it would be, but I still pulled nice fish on a regular basis. I found out later that day I had been fishing behind someone which explained the slower fishing.
I landed 14 fish with all of them being browns with the exception of two cutthroat trout that gave me a solid fight. Three of the browns went 20 inches or more with the biggest being a beautiful 23 inch hen. I didn't see any beds, but I believe the spawn should start any time now.

Mr. blue cheeks.

This 23 inch hen brown topped the chart for biggest catch today.

The net held up just fine.