Today was the day in my week for solo fishing. I arose reasonably early and headed to Diamond Fork armed with great intel from Mike Dover, who has been fishing there several times a week this year. He said he's been consistently finding nice cutts and smallish browns.
On the water about 9 am, I quickly missed a nice cut in a side channel, but then saw no other fish in the next couple of holes. I was beginning to have doubts after floating my fly above a beautiful drop off near a small logjam with nary a looker, but the doubts were quickly dispelled after six nice cutts in succession rose to my fly in a large eddy against the far bank. Beautiful Bonneville cutts, a joy to watch in the clear water, slowly rising to take the Morrish hopper.
From that point on, the action was consistent, though frustrating at times. For every fish that took the fly, there were four or five that would slowly rise, follow it downstream with their nose right on it, then they'd turn away. And if the did take it, they were facing downstream, making the hookset very difficult since I was fishing upstream. Maybe the fish are just getting tired of the Morrish hopper after Mike's frequent trips. Or maybe I could have used one size smaller on the fly, since the natural hoppers in the grass were pretty small. But it's hard to complain when you have complete solitude on a long stretch of a beautiful, clear stream full of fish.
No cutts were found in the riffles, all in the deeper runs. Then about halfway through my day I started picking up fat little browns in the riffles and pockets, all cookie cutter 10 to 11 inches and stout. These guys hit the hopper much more aggressively.
The occasional cutt would still show up, but browns were the norm for the afternoon. About 13 inches was the biggest to hand, popped the hook out of a couple that would have run 16 inches or so, and had a 20-plus inch monster nose up to my hopper in full broadside view before turning away. When I described the location to Mike, he said in the same hole last year he had hooked and lost a huge fish. Could be the same one. Showed no interest when I tried running a bugger or streamer through the hole. Maybe Mike can get him one of these days.
Arriving at a bridge around 15:30, I could have continued for several more hours, but I'd received a call that my car was ready to pick up from the shop, and with the easy out from the stream, decided to call it a day (the alternator on my car died yesterday when Mel and I stopped in Heber for dinner, luckily not in the remote mountains where we had been earlier in the day). Pretty much a perfect day!
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