Utah Cutthroat Slam II - Day 3

We took a break on Sunday for church and family, leaving for Duchesne and the South Uinta streams after a few wonderful hours with lots of family at our sister Kristi's house in Alpine. As we left, I called the hotel to let them know what time we'd be arriving, as it was a small, family establishment that doesn't have someone on site all the time. The owner asked "How many of you are there?" which worried me since I had changed the days of our initial reservation. "Four," I answered. I had spoken with him a couple weeks earlier and said we needed a double queen. A bit of silence, then he said he only had a single queen available that night, but could move us into something else the next. We left it at don't worry, he'll find some way to make it work. When we arrived, here is what made it work!

Tight quarters with a double air mattress wedged between the wall and the queen bed. Note the off-center wall hangings, showing that the queen was pushed over to where the door would barely open!

As we unloaded as little stuff as we could, took pictures and texted them to family, and generally complained a little, Rob's daughter Michelle sent back a text that said, "It's kind of like backpacking, except with a lot more room!" We laughed and realized it is all a matter of perspective, we embraced the adventure for the night, and the next day were moved into two, very nice and spacious double queen rooms for the next two nights.

Monday morning we took a break from the slam and arose early to meet our guide, Matt, for fishing the Rock Creek tribal lands, mostly a brown fishery (the guide is more a tribal member who accompanies you while you fish, not someone who ties on your flies and tells you where to cast. He was a great guy and I enjoyed the conversations with him as we fished). We were fishing in the special permit area, which the tribe manages with artificial lure and catch and release regulations, and only allow non-tribal members to fish with a guide. We were hoping for something spectacular, but met the reality of just a reasonably OK day of fishing.

Rock Creek is a beautiful stream running in a canyon off the south slopes of the Uinta Mountains

The stretch we fished has lots of pocket water, where we occasionally found decent browns.

Tom and a nice Rock Creek brown

Dover found one in a stretch of pocket water

Rick gets a nice brown on a Turk's Tarantuala

We fished mostly in pairs, hopscotching each other up the stream, and ended up fishing a little more than a mile-and-a-half of water, ranging from fast pocket water to nice long flat runs. The only thing that was consistent was the slick-as-snot, irregularly sized boulders lining the bottom of the stream. We all fell or nearly fell multiple times throughout the day.

Dover throws a loop in a flat stretch of water

The best moment (for me) came when I dropped my big, black skully bugger streamer I had tied on into a hole Tom had been running his smaller flies through. I swung it right next to an undercut boulder at the top of a deep hole, and watched as a big brown came full out of the water attacking the fly! It was the biggest of the day.

A 20-inch brown makes just about any day a good day!

While it was a decent day fishing, it wasn't something we would pay a premium to do again. On a return trip, we'd spend more time exploring the water between the tribal lands and the dam, which we visited the next day, finding similar water, lots of risers, but no takers in a brief, evening stop.

We drove back along Rock Creek, stopping for a bit in the non-guide required tribal waters, where we found a number of small browns, but nothing spectacular. Arriving in Duchesne, we made a quick stop at the Strawberry River just a couple blocks from the hotel as it was getting dark. The water was colored, running high, but we found some nice rainbows and browns on both flies and my brass hackle. We closed the day at one of the few restaurants in town, Cowan's Cafe. The food was great, the company better. Tomorrow is the day to find a Colorado River cutthroat for everyone to close out the slam.