Friday Fun Adventure

I went out Friday morning with the goal to catch a trout over 20 inches on a fly rod. I got up a 5am (which you all know is unnatural for anyone, especially me!). And left as the sun was rising. I caught a fat 12" Brown trout right away. I didn't take a picture because I assumed this was a good sign. I later hooked into a nice trout, but it released itself before I could land it and measure it. It probably wouldn't have fulfilled my 20" goal, but it would have been close. It started getting hot and I wasn't getting any more takers, so I decided to head home. On the way home, after re-hydrating and getting my wits about me, I decided to hit one more stream on the way home. I headed thru the Cedar Breaks area towards Panquetch Lake. There were a lot of pretty wild flowers along the road on the drive over. I had never been here, but a friend told me about it. I wasn't sure if there would be fish in it. At its widest, it barely pushed three feet wide. I think this is the smallest stream I have ever fished on.


I used the rod I built a month or so ago. I caught a little brook trout right away. And figured this was about what I'd be catching on the rest of this stream.


But I was surprised to begin catching many fish over 10 inches and one that was 12". There were fish in nearly every little pool. I even had one trout miss the fly a couple times. As I cast into the pool, it would continue to try and snatch the fly. On the last cast, it flew out of the water completely, but again missed the fly. I think it was far sited or something.


The fishing was tons of fun. There wasn't much skill involved, except getting the fly into the small pockets of water without getting the fly wrapped and snarled around the little willows that lined the stream. I ended up staying longer than I had expected. I knew I had to get going, so I made the rule if I lost my current fly, or went two pools without catching a fish, I would go back. Even the pools that looked too small to hold fish, held fish. I finally stood in the same spot until I couldn't cast into any more new pools and ended up sacrificing my fly to the bushes.


I was going to keep one of the Brookies, and BBQ it fresh from the stream. But I wanted to get back in time to catch a movie with Katy at 4pm. I picked Katy a bunch of wildflowers on the walk back to the truck. It was a beautiful day and catching all those fish help boost my ego after not meeting my goal earlier in the day. Today was about quantity of fish and quality of the experience.