Gar Recon

I came across a backwater of one of the the area's major rivers and I soon observed a fish shaped similar to a pike but on closer inspection its true identity was revealed, gar! I did not know too much about the fish, only that it was toothy and could be caught on the fly. My friend out in Omaha who is now a warm water guru had shown me a pic of a gar he had caught on the fly. I had more exposure to the alligator gar which grow to mammoth proportions and are usually caught on bait in the south. The gar around here are related but don't grow to hundreds of pounds like their cousins. I did a little more research and recon and luckily found a gar mecca in the local area where I have fished twice for them already. I'll just say I will be targeting them often!

Back from the dead

Between August 2009 through the third week in May 2010 I had been out fishing only twice! Thankfully that has changed since school has ended and hopefully I do not go through such a fishing hiatus again. My first year of graduate school was pretty brutal (time consuming) but the next 3 will not be quite so bad. After classes ended I really did not care where I fished I just wanted to get out so I hit a local lake to see what was there. I had a lot of fun. There were bluegill and crappie in close along the rocks. I started off fishing a warm water pattern called the breaminator that my friend Scott tied up for me. It was magic. For the first hour it was a hit or fish on about every other cast. They would hit it on the drop so to increase my odds I put on a micro indicator about four feet above my fly. I would strip a few times then let the fly flutter down and most often they would smack it on the drop. It was a mixed bag of bluegill, crappie, and a few green sunfish. At one point I was working the shoreline and something really smacked my fly and was pulling a lot harder than a bluegill or crappie. I thought it must be a bass but when I finally got the fish in I was surprised, a little channel cat. The same thing happened again a bit later and it was another little channel cat. They were a lot of fun to catch. Overall it was a great way to break myself back into the fishing lifestyle.

Fishing Amongst the Corn

Well, I have been out in Iowa for over three months now and despite my school being extremely busy I managed to escape to a local pond over the weekend. I did get out once before school started and fished a small pond with a friend which was fairly productive. While not having much experience with warm water species on the fly we still managed to catch about a half dozen green sunfish on the fly, a woolly bugger to be exact. Anyway, the weather has turned cool and over the weekend I went to some ponds that lay just outside downtown. I saw a fish or two rise which got me excited. I tied on a trusty bugger and began working the water. After several minutes of casting I was just about to pull up my fly for the back cast when a flash of white came from the depths and hammered my fly. A quick and exciting fight yielding a beautiful little crappie. That was all I caught during my time on the water but it was a lot of fun. There is so much water to explore around this area. Once I get more time on my hands I will not have to go far to target a variety of warm water fish. I don't know the possibilities of catching warm water species during the freezing months that are approaching fast but I'll be sure to have a few good flies tied up for when spring rolls around. Thanks for bearing with the cell phone pics.

The Uintas

With memories of small slashing brookies filling my mind as the days grew hotter and longer I figured it was time for a day trip up to the Uintas to catch some hungry fish. We started the morning off at Trial Lake which is a heavy pressured roadside fishery. They keep it well stocked and there were fish rising all over the place as we pumped our tubes up. I decided I was going to take three rods out into the water: One set up with a dry fly, one with a sinking line, and one with a slip indicator/chironomid setup. David was testing his luck with a spinning rod to start out. Once I kicked out a little ways I started working the dry fly rod with instant results. David spotted some larger fish cruising underneath his feet so I then switched to the chironomid setup and suspended a nice orange chironomid (that I got in a fly swap) just off the bottom. After a minute or two I had a nice fish on. It turned out to be a very chunky rainbow that put up a great fight.

David was not having too much luck early on with his jake's lure and opted to troll a night crawler. David starting catching quite a few fish on his worm including a nice rainbow.

I let him use my dry fly rod off and on and he hooked up with several on the top as well. I spend quite a bit of time trolling or stripping in a bugger on my sinking line with no luck. I did have a few hits but that was it. It was surprising since I covered a lot of water and my fly must have passed by a considerable number of fish. I kind of wish I had my depth finder on board so I could see how much water was beneath me at any given moment. We both trolled up the shoreline and eventually we needed a restroom break in the trees so we beached our tubes. Afterward I spend a bit of time casting my dry fly in near the shore and many small fish were brought to hand including a first for me, a grayling! I also caught a red sided shiner (baitfish) which was funny. David caught multiple species as well including some brook trout and a beautiful little tiger trout.

Eventually we were satisfied with the stillwater portion of the day and decided it was time for some small stream brooky action. The little stream was beautiful with gin clear water, just the way I remembered it.

We worked our way up the stream and any good looking hole or run gave up a fish or three. David's first catch on the stream was a beautiful wild little rainbow that I wish we got a picture of, oh well. All the rest were beautiful little brooks decorated in a colorful regalia. It was a great day spent up in the highcountry and the hungry fish didn't disappoint.

In Search of Cutthroats Part 2

Since Scott was in town taking a course that ran every day for a week, we were limited to some late afternoon/evening outings after his classes ended. With the sun setting around 9 o' clock we had plenty of time for a nice fishing trip. The second day of our cutthroat search led us to a hike-in stillwater. Scott, David, and I all drove separately for time's sake and met at the trail head. We decided to strap float tubes to our backs which made the hike very tiring. Once we reached our destination we quickly rigged up and kicked our way towards the inlet stream. No action happened on the way over nor once we got over to the inlet. I decided to mix things up and switch to a nymph rig and make some dead drifts in the current. Fairly soon I had the fish of the day (size wise) on the end of my line. I was able to land a beautiful cutthroat after a brief battle.


The action went to a halt after this first fish. After a bit Scott landed a nice little fish on a nymph rig as well. The first few fish both came on chironomid imitations. We all had some more hits on the chironomids but we all struck out and set the hook too late. There were fish that were rising sporadically from the time we arrived and when the frequency of the rises started to increase I decided it was time for some dry fly action. I threw on a small adams which was a good imitation of the small midges that were hatching. Soon enough I had a nice little cutthroat to hand that came off the dry fly. Evening was approaching fairly fast and the topwater action continued to increase. After another fish on a dry fly Scott and David decided it was time to switch over. We kicked our way around the glassy water following the pods of rising fish. Soon enough David landed a beauty and Scott followed suit with some nice fish of his own.






The fly pattern didn't seem to matter too much once they really starting focusing on the surface. There were a small handful of fish landed with many more missed. The activity continued on the oily smooth surface of the water all the way until we had to get out of the water in order to get down the mountain before it got too dark for safe hiking down the rocky trail. We slid our tubes up onto our weary shoulders and enjoyed the quicker descent down the narrow path as the light faded from the horizon which ended a memorable day of fishing for native cutthroats.

In Search of Cutthroats Part 1

One of the top priorities for Scott during his visit was to catch some cutthroats. The best option was to hit some stillwater. We met up around 6pm in Salt Lake then headed up Parley's Canyon, past Park City, down through Heber, and up to Strawberry Reservoir. We pulled up to the parking lot at one of Strawberry's many bays and there were no cars and no one was even fishing in the entire area as far as we could tell. The light breeze was dying quickly and it looked like it was going to be a great evening. We got the tubes pumped and our rods rigged up and we got into the water as quickly as we could. We trolled and kicked over to a fairly steep bank. Before we got all the way over Scott hooked up and landed a very fat rainbow.



On the way over we also noticed some consistent rises in one area. When we got to the bank we wanted to work we noticed that there were fish sporadically sipping within a few feet of the shoreline. Scott made a nice cast with his bunny leech to one of the rises just off the bank and he immediately had a fish on. This pattern continued and over the course of the evening he landed several quality fish.






I seemed to always be out of position once a fish rose, or I made a cast that was too short or too sloppy. It was just not my night. On one rare occasion I made a very confident cast to a likely spot right along the bank and low and behold I got a hook-up. I was excited but once I got the fish close I noticed it was a fat chub! Such is fishing. To overcome my casting woes I should have just trolled along the shoreline but I wanted to mimic what Scott was doing since he was having success. It was getting later and Scott threw on a mouse pattern and started working the banks in the same fashion. Although I did not witness it Scott said that on one cast he saw a wake appear just behind his fly and a fin broke the surface like Jaws. The fish slashed once, twice, then took the mouse but Scott reacted a little too fast and missed the carnivorous cutt. It was very exciting to say the least and Scott said it was one of the coolest things he has seen. I tried throwing a mouse for a little bit too with no success, surprise surprise. It was getting pretty dark and we were tired from kicking around so we just trolled slowly toward the car. Scott immediately had a few hits and then was able to hook up with two fish on the way to the car. One of the fish started flying out of the water over and over so he called rainbow which was confirmed as the fat specimen was landed.

It was an awesome time out on the water. We could not have asked for a more beautiful evening. Kicking along the oily smooth surface and looking down at the weedbeds through the crystal clear water was very rejuvenating and therapeutic.

Semi-Stillwater Browns

My friend Scott came into town last minute so I tried to line up a few days when I could go out and fish. He specifically wanted to target cutthroats but day one did not leave enough time to get to cutthroat water so we headed up to the Provo for a few hours. Scott just barely missed a fish and after working the banks of the river for a bit we decided to go try the pond-like areas I had scouted out one a few weeks earlier. We saw a few inactive fish holding right on the banks that were hardly moving. Scott was working a bugger on a floating line and had a follow or two but no hook-ups. I had not changed rigs and had a zebra midge dropper off a san juan worm. I was in some shadows and happened to see a smaller brown just holding off the bank right in front of me. I lowered the midge pattern so it was practically on the fishes nose and I started jigging it up and down. As soon as I gave it a little motion the fish opened its mouth and sucked it in. It was hilarious and reminded me of catching bluegill by jigging a shiny bare salmon egg hook in front of their noses when I was a boy.

We then headed to a different section of the pond and Scott started stripping his bugger over some moss beds. He immediately started to get follows and hits. It was fun watching. He would cast out and start stripping and out of no where a fish would pop up out of a groove in the moss and start following the fly. He had a lot of fish come and strike at his fly. He would of landed a half dozen fish but they managed to spit the hook or short strike the fly. On one occasion though the fish was persistent and sucked the fly in which resulted in a nice brown.


Although we only landed a couple fish at our first few stops we had a lot of action which kept things interesting. We then headed to a favorite hole of mine and started nymphing. Scott missed what looked like to be a nice rainbow. One good flash and the fish was off. However, he did nail a fat little bow a little later on.

There were some golden stoneflys coming off and laying eggs but no fish were rising.

Scott tried a stonefly nymph but not much action resulted in the attempt. He eventually switched it up and put on a leech. After a cast or two he pulled back to make another cast and I saw a brown heading at mach 3 for the fly. The fly left the water a millisecond too fast and the brown porpoised on the surface like a tuna crashing bait. A few casts later the same brown (as far as I could tell) nailed the leech. Not a big fish but very aggressive to say the least.


Soon we had to head to the car as our time ran out. Quite a bit of action and a few fish made for a great couple hours on the water. On the way home we talked about cutts and where we planned to target them.