Labor Day Fun

For the last couple years I've gone with my in-laws to stay in Island Park. Of course we always go fishing for one of the days and this trip was no different. We started out early and headed down to Ashton to fish the Snake River below the dam. I unwittingly brought wading socks instead of my waders and I found out really quick that that was a mistake. The water was freezing! I fished for a while with no luck so I crossed a bridge to try the other side of the river. I looked off the bridge about half way across and saw about 50 good sized trout. After seeing that I knew what I had to do. Even though my Father-in-law told me I was crazy, I waded out in waste deep water and gave it a go. The only thing that kept my mind off of how cold the water was was the thought of hooking one of those big trout. To bad the fish didn't want to bite. We moved up river closer to the dam to give it one more shot. I started throwing rapalas and finally started having hits and follows. I saw some monsters follow but no commitments. By this time I was a little frustrated and ready to go try a different spot and then finally, FISH ON! This fish made one long hard run for about 10 seconds and snapped my 8 lb test! Between his run and the current, I couldn't keep up with him down the river.

We decided we had had enough of that spot so we headed back to the cabin, ate some lunch and we were off to Henrys lake to try our luck there. The wind was blowing hard and the lake was white capping but we launched my 14 ft tracker anyway. We didn't drive 5 hours to give up easily. Needless to say, I ended up just driving so the others could attempt to fish. The lake beat us and after an hour on the lake, we called it a day. The next day we headed into Yellowstone National Park to check out some of the sites. There we a few that had never seen Mammoth Hot Springs so we headed up the upper loop to see it. We saw a lot of wildlife including a Grizzly bear right off the road. by the time we got to Mammoth Hot Springs, the tempurature had dropped dramatically. We ended up not staying long and headed back. On the way back we noticed in had snowed in the higher elevations and I believe that was the first snow the season. We had a great trip and better than the fishing or the beautiful surroundings was being able to spend time with the family.

One of the many geysers in Yellowstone.

Young Grizzly bear.

Mammoth Hot Springs

Traffic Jam

First snow of the season???

Ashton Dam

The Ranch

My brother invited me out to the ranch that his friend owns to do some bass fishing for the weekend. We met up with some other friends and had a blast. There are 3 ponds you can fish and I was surprised at the size of the fish we were catching. It was so fun to watch the younger kids going to battle with these fish and loving every minute of it. At night it seemed that the big boys came out a lot more to play and we managed to hook a few of them. The next morning it was more of the same. The kids were catching bass after bass and they even caught a some craw fish which they thought were pretty cool. It was a great weekend and hopefully we'll be able to go out there again before the snow flies.

My nephew with a great catch!

My biggest of the trip.

Not that big but it made a great picture.

Some of the kids "scouting" where the fish were.

The Boulder Mountains of Utah

I made my first ever trip down to the boulders this past week. What a beautiful area. The boulders are surrounded by Capital Reef National Park and Grand Staircase National Monument Which made for some spectacular views. I fly fished a few lakes and had some success but not what I was hoping for. I'm still learning to fly fish and this was the first trip I went on that I didn't have my spinning rod to back me up. It was really frustrating knowing I could have caught a lot more fish if I had it but it was really good to learn fly fishing skills. By the second day I had it down and could cast good enough to get the fly where I needed it. I saw some really big fish while I was there and hooked a few decent brookies in the 16-17 inch range. I also saw some monster tiger trout but couldn't get them to commit. I am going to head back down in September for another go at it.

A few nice brookies.

Thats one big mushroom.

Hogsback. No gaurdrails and a very long drop if you go over.

More Hogs On The Weber

I made my first trip to the Weber since the spring run-off to see how the fishing would be. I have never fished the Weber this time of year and didn't really know what to expect. The weather was sunny and really hot. I started out fishing early in the morning and the Weber was good to me today. I landed 15 fish with 5 over 20" including the biggest cutthroat I've ever caught on this river. I landed him and hurried and got the camera ready and was ready for the picture but the fish had other plans. I dipped him in the water right before the picture and the fish wiggled out of my hands and was gone! It measured out at 21 inches and is compareable to the second picture down for body size. It's days like this that keep me addicted to fishing.

22" Brute which was the first and biggest catch on the day.

16" Cut

Utah Suckers soaking up some sun. The one at the top right was huge!