Melinda chose me and American Fork Creek

I had one more day to fish before heading for home, and had lots of options. Melinda had talked about fishing with me Friday morning before I left, but she got an invite from friends to climb Timp. And guess what? She chose her dad and fishing over friends and Timp. I felt very important!

We arose early and headed for American Fork Creek, a small stream that Rob has fished several times, but that I had yet to visit. I figured it would be good to pick a small stream near to her home that she might be able to return again on her own. The stretch below Tibble Fork dam where Rob normally fishes was killed off by an inadvertent release of toxic mine sludge from the dam a few years ago, so we decided to head above the reservoir, which Rob had described as a "rough road". Uh, yeah, really rocky, loose, sharp rocks, and some big potholes. I was going slow and worrying about my new tires until I passed a group at a pullout where one of the parked cars was a low-to-the-ground BMW. OK, maybe I'm a bit cautious on rough roads...

We continued on and found an open pull out next to the small stream tumbling through the woods. Beautiful pocket water, a good place to practice roll casts, bow and arrow casts, dangling, and straight up and down casts, all the essentials of small, woody streams. We quickly found fish, small browns, in most holes of any size.

Her first brown trout!

Uh, it's getting away Melinda, but that sure is a nice pose and smile...

After a couple hours in the small stream with quite a few browns to the fly, we headed home with a stop in the larger stream below the reservoir. Didn't see many fish, and the two we caught were rainbows. I imagine it might take a while for the browns to wash down and repopulate.

Mel was very patient with me, putting up with my at times contradictory instructions (I don't know how my fly gets out there sometimes, it just does, so I'll often say to try one thing, then something different when that doesn't work). Fishing the indicator made casting different, but she was able to pull a rainbow out before we left. So this week she not only completed her Utah Cutthroat Slam, she also got a slam of the the four major trout species - brook, brown, cutthroat, rainbow.

We'll hope she finds time to find her way to some of these small streams on her own to further hone her newly rediscovered skills! Happy fishing!