Methow River

Fishing today with Garn Christensen on the Methow above the confluence with the Twisp. I caught five cutts, one rainbow, lots of missed strikes. Garn caught lots on the dries.

My first fish were on black stonefly nymph with bead head, nothing on the prince nymph dropper. When the fish started hitting the Thingamabobber I decided to change to dries. Good choice! Had some big fish attack (I missed) the golden stone fly dry that was my dropper, a few to a chernoble (orange) bug that was my lead fly. This photo of a nice cutt I took early in the day on the black stone.

Diamond Fork

Before returning home, I spent a morning on Diamond Fork to try and replicate the great action Tom and Dover had last week. I found some nice fish, but not like they did. Seven browns and two cutts in about 2 1/2 hours. Biggest was 15" and fat. All on stonefly or psycho prince. Only a couple were from riffle type runs, and half were from one larger, deeper hole. Lots of water covered with no strikes. Perhaps it was a different time of day (about 8 am to 10:30 am) or just a lack of skill, but it was slower than Tom and Mike experienced. Still, nice fish and a beautiful stream. I'd come back.

Upper Huntington Creek

While returning to Provo from Hanksville, we stopped a couple places. First at Upper Fish Creek above Scofield Reservoir, which we found poorly named, virtually free of fish of any size for the first 1/3 mile. Long, flat runs with not much depth. Jess lost a nice one right by the parking lot, I missed a couple in the 10" range. Only saw a couple larger fish (easy to see in the shallow runs). Appears fished out close to the trailhead. Continued on the scenic loop past Eccles Creek, which looked nice next to the road, but didn't stop.

We did stop at Upper Huntington Creek, about one mile above where it runs into Electric Lake. It was a beautiful, but very small stream, full of willing, but easily spooked tiger trout along with the occasional surprise of a fat cutthroat. The stream is completely open, meandering through a meadow and is very narrow in most places. Tigers were 6" to 10", the largest cutt that Mel fought in for me was 14". Jess showed great fly-fishing memory, quickly remembering her out-of-practice skills and catching a number of beautiful fish. Jess fished a humpy, I fished something like a Turck's Tarantula. Not much length of fishable water here, but fun fishing and a great stop on the way through!

Pleasant Creek

On the drive around Boulder Mountain, I was determined to fish somewhere. After reluctantly passing by Calf Creek so I would have time to fish somewhere new, I briefly stopped at Oak Creek and found it more a swampy low spot in a meadow near the highway. Continuing just down the road, Pleasant Creek was much more pleasant. Just a short distance downstream from the highway, we hiked a short distance and found a beautiful stream full of some of the prettiest brookies I have caught, along with the occasional rainbow. The stream is quite brushy, with some open Meadow areas in this section. After missing quite a number of fish, Jessica began remembering her skills and hooked a couple. Lots of fish if you can get to them without spooking them. I fished a renegade, Jess fished a humpy. Both worked marvelously. This stream is well worth a stop if you are passing by.

Calf Creek

This is an absolutely spectacular place to fish! After a long day of scenic driving, the kids wanted someplace cool and wet, and of course, I wanted to fish. We found both, along with stunning scenery, at Calf Creek. We pulled off the highway at the first pull out we could find after crossing the Escalante River. This creek runs over slickrock between huge, red sandstone cliffs. Jess and Sarah took off their shoes and started downstream, while Mel and I went upstream with my 3-wt. We found plenty of willing brown trout in the 6" to 10" range just about every place you would expect there to be fish and some places you wouldn't. It is a very unique stream, as the creek bottom is pretty much sandstone everywhere, and you can find fish not only in the deeper holes that have been eroded, but in small cracks and even flat surfaces where the stream runs only a few inches deep across a sandstone face. I wouldn't pass by here without stopping and fishing! Just don't do it if thunderstorms are anywhere in the area. The high water marks from flash floods the previous week were about four feet above the normal creek level - you wouldn't want to be in there when that came along!

Sunday after church we hiked upstream to Lower Calf Creek falls (without a fly rod of course) and counted multiple fish in every hole whenever the trail approached the creek. I'd never hike that trail on a weekday without my rod!

Santa Clara River

I guess around St. George, this qualifies as a river! However, I won't complain about names as long as there are trout in it. And there are some small browns to be found in the section of this stream below Pine Valley reservior just inside the National Forest fee area. I just fished for a short time while we were driving around the area seeing the sights, and caught several browns. This short section is near the campgrounds and one of the few stretches of the river that is on public land. It is apparent it is heavily fished. The stream looks like it might be getting that icky algae growing on all the rocks, which could impact insect availability. The fish had relatively large heads and small bodies. Small attractor dry was the ticket. Definitely a fun stop if you are in St. George and want to get away from the heat! There is a longer public section below the town of Pine Valley, but it involves a good hike down into a rocky canyon and is not recommended for summertime. We also drove by Pinto Creek to the north - very small, completely overgrown, high steep banks in the public stretch - not fished.

Hobble Creek

Just minutes from Mike and Amy Dover's house is a brushy little stream full of easily spooked browns. A couple hours of fishing was a good prelude to Heather's wedding in St. George later in the day. I fished a couple hours and had about eight to hand using a renegade, psycho prince, and humpy. This stream could be better later in the day, as in the early morning the browns seem to hold in very shallow water at the sides and bottom of the holes, where it is difficult to reach them and easy to spook them. This is not easy fishing, and you walk by a lot of water because it is unreachable due to the brush. That being said, it is satisfying to dangle a dry in a little pocket behind a rock and to see a small brown come up and slurp the fly! I fished at the first pullout after the campground just inside the national forest upstream from the left fork. It is apparent this stream gets a good bit of pressure here.

Nebo Creek--Day 2

Brian & I went back to try a different stretch of Nebo Creek today after checking out of the hotel and packing all our luggage and Stepahnie Lacy's electronic piano into the van. Natalie is still at organ camp all day and Heather and Simon were taking care of business they needed to accomplish. We went upstream to what ended up being about 50 yards downstream from where Page Fork breaks off.

We spent three hours fishing about 75 yards of water. Brian said we had over 50 fish landed--all German Brown trout today. Brian improved his finesse today very much, having discovered that a brown will usually only come toward a fly once--one chance. It was fun to watch them come to the fly. I was with a Renegade-no surprises there, and Brian fished an Irresistable all day. He became much more careful with it once I told him it was the last one I had. We had managed to lose a few flies into the tree branches.

It was a fun second day on the creek; we saw a different stretch of water without so m

any beaver dams; Brian was glad he went even though in the morning when we were heading there he wasn't sure he wanted to fish again.

Nebo Creek

There was a mudslide Monday that covered Highway 89 near Thistle and Thistle Creek and Spanish Fork River were about the consistency of chocolate milk with just about as much visibility. Nebo Creek was running clear. Lots of browns. I landed three cutthroat trout as well. Brian commented, "We caught more fish today than all the other days combined!"

We had fun trading off casting. One would go until a fish was caught, then we'd trade. Bonus casts when the primary caster got hung up in a tree or broke off a fly on a fish (Brian?). It was fun softly casting into beaver ponds and watching the trout come up to take the fly.

I used Renegade again and Brian fished Humpies and the one that is shaped like a Humpy but the body is made of trimmed deer hair so it floats really well (the name of the fly escapes me right now). Another great day on a new stream.

Little Nunya

Stopped on the way to the Spokane airport with my coworker, David Lamar. Found the creek dirty from thunderstorms earlier in the week, but not chocolate brown (about 3 to 4" visibility). Water level was up higher than our first visit in the spring, but not a raging torrent. There was also a pretty strong downstream wind. Despite the less than ideal conditions, we were able to find some fish downstream, though it was much slower than normal. David caught the first fish and several others after that. I had about 15 to 20 to hand in a couple hours, biggest about 13", almost all on the psycho prince.

Logan River Cutthroats

The Logan River was running high. You can see a little color in the first photo. A pretty good thunderstorm moved through right before we started fishing. After only finding only two small cutthroat at Red Banks with two more coming up to the fly and fighting lots of current and fast water we moved to Franklin Basin where water was also high, cold (50 degrees) and though wading was difficult, we were able to find some nice cutthroat trout. Notice the sun glistening off the back of the one I caught? Nice photo Heather. I used the Renegade, Brian a Humpy, and Heather a Royal Wulff. We had a few to the hopper.

American Fork Creek

We found lots of brown trout in American Fork Creek today. We were having so much fun that we never made it to Fort Creek. Oh well, there will be other days. Brian and Heather tossed big grasshopper patterns all day and I fished the Renegade. All were successful, but we missed a lot more fish than we caught. All we caught were wild browns. Of course, Brian caught the biggest fish of the day. I think the hopper in its mouth is a size 4.

Rob

July 31, 2010 Twisp/Methow Rivers

Tom, Rick, and Brian A. took a day to look for cutthroats and more on the Twisp and Methow Rivers. Started on the Twisp at the confluence with the Methow and fished up perhaps 1/2 mile, mostly in peoples' backyards. Wilderness fishing at its best!

We found a good number of 8" to 12" rainbows and cutts, and a few nicer sized cutts in the 15" to 16" range. Rick picked up this nice cutt on a double beaded black stonefly. Brian caught a couple similar sized on a dry (caddis or stimulator - no picture as he wasn't nearby). Most of the action was on a stimulator or elk-hair caddis dry, or a smaller prince/pheasant tail nymph, but the stoneflies seems to get the bigger fish.

On the Methow in the big hole above the confluence with the Twisp, Tom skillfully hooked into the biggest fish of the day, a beautiful 18-inch cutt that fought long and hard (tilt your head if you want to watch the video). The fish took a stonefly. We moved downstream to a run off Gold Creek Road and caught or had on a couple other good sized cutts as well as a number of smaller fish on the same flies as the Twisp, and Tom even brought in a couple whitefish. All in all, a beautiful day.

Enchantment Lakes, July 29-30 day hike

We crossed the Enchantment Lakes on an extended day-hike (can you say “headlamps”?) and did have some limited time fishing the outlet of Perfection Lake (the 30 feet that wasn’t covered in snow and ice and the inlet of Sprite Lake. Tim Johnson found a 15” full bodied cutthroat (sorry, came off the hook before I could snap a photo) at Perfection on a bead-headed green hare’s ear I had given him on our last outing with the scouts and Brian took my rod and headed down the trail to Sprite Lake while I stayed with Tim.

He figured if he carried the rod, he’d get first crack at the fish. After

lots of strikes (yellow wooly worm) he finally landed two (see photos) and I asked if I could have a shot at them. “I catch two, then you catch two, then you give me back the fly rod.” (Who taught that kid anyway?)

Beautiful warm day like I’ve never experienced up there. Lots of goats, saw marmot, ptarmigan with lots of small chicks and lots of gorgeous scenery. A tough hike with 18.5 trail miles and 11,000 vertical feet of elevation change (4,400 up & 6,600 down). Michelle, Hollis, Natalie and Elisabeth came along as well. A very memorable day!