Monday, September 16, 2013

Rain, Rain.

Alarm went off and I'm laying there thinking, "Do I really want to go today?" In my defense it's been raining a bit here in Central Utah, not anywhere near Colorado but enough to dirty our streams. I really wasn't ready to go, didn't have any food or anything ready.  Didn't have anyone else lined up to go with. Just when I thought to heck with it, the little voice in my head called me a wussy and I was up and getting ready to go.

Even with the decision to go out of the way I still wasn't all that motivated, which made for some cool pictures en route.
Fall colors are starting to show

Mist & Reflection
After a short hike I was fishing, and was quickly into a couple of Cutthroat Trout on a BH-Pheasant Tail. Finally I was finding the motivation I needed and decided to make the long hike to the prime area.


First Fish

Nice place

You know it's been wet when you start seeing
 mushrooms on hilltops

Definitely worth the hike

Nice
To say things "picked up" from this point on would be a huge understatement.  It was a mixed bag of Brown Trout and Cutthroat Trout.  Caught on both dries and droppers.  For the Dry Fly I was getting good action on a Chubby Chernobyl (black with a single white wing, maybe I'm the only one who ties them this way?) after I switched to it from a Hares-Ear Parachute that was drawing a blank.  The droppers that worked best were a red Copper John and a red San Juan Worm, though I did get some on a couple of other patterns on and off throughout the day.

First of many chubby browns

They can't all be huge

About the average fish for the day

Dark one in the rain
Water's getting dirtier

Seemed like every thirty yards or so I'd come up on another hole that would produce fish after chubby fish.  In between I was picking up some in the pocket water.  The action stayed hot even through a downpour until suddenly I wasn't picking up hardly any fish.  Knowing that time was short I began making the hike out.  A different perspective made it very clear that the water clarity had taken a turn for the worst, luckily my day was done anyway.

That was a lot clearer before...
Such a fatty
So glad I decided to make the extra effort.  This was easily the best day I've ever had on this stream, with more fish and bigger fish.  Hopefully you can get out and enjoy the water.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Give-Away


Time to do our first Give-away! I'm giving away a sweet RIsen Fly SLIM Fly box with a dozen of some of my favorite flies (3 of each pattern: Red Renegade, Hare's Ear Parachute, Mod. Hares Ear, and Rainbow Warriors).

How to enter: simply Like the "Kidder Fishing" Facebook page, then Like and Share this post! The winner will be selected at random on 09/15/13





Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Dang Straight!

Grandpa will still tell you that "anticipation is 90% of the fun", and I still think he's right.  The last couple of weeks has been tough to endure with very little fishing to be had, but Labor Day promised relief in the form of a fishing trip with my buddy Sean.  Hoping to make the most of this opportunity I made sure that I was ready.  Of course I made sure my boxes were full of my favorite attractor style dries, which I was confident would work, but I also changed over my flyline so I could use my Ichthus reel on my new favorite 4 piece, tied up a new leader, and installed an eyelet and cord to my awesome net (my brother Jeff made it for me).   To add even more insurance of success we decided to head to a favorite stream of mine that always produces well.

Have you ever set your alarm for a trip just to wake up insanely early without it?  That happened to me this time.  Usually no worries, just get out a little earlier, but not when you're waiting for someone else. Luckily Sean was right on time, otherwise I might've gone nuts.

When we started getting close, we both noticed the unfavorable color of the water.  I've never fished this stream when you could honestly call it dirty, but today the water clarity wasn't what we had expected.  Oh well, at that point we were there and ready to go.  Though we figured if it was a bust we could always try another stream, we still had to give this one a fair shake.

The evidence: I actually did catch a
fish on a San Juan Worm!
Still hoping for the day I had envisioned I started out with a Hares Ear Parachute, quickly moved to a Renegade, then tried a Foam Beetle, and finally decided that I'd need to change up my methods.  So, I decided to switch over to the Stone Flopper and add a dropper of a Mod. Bead Headed Hares Ear with a Red San Juan Worm as a trailer.  Pretty quickly I was into fish with this rig, and though the action wasn't fast at least there was something more to talk about than just the amazing scenery.

The standard size brown
I had never caught anything on a San Juan Worm of any color, so I ran through some different colors to see if they could get some love.  Nope.  Red was the only color to get a hit.  I picked up a couple of fish on the Hares Ear, but most of the fish were on the worm.  Figuring success was more dependent on the fish actually being able to see the fly, I traded out the worm for a Gold Copper John (another fly that I hadn't caught anything on before this trip) and was really starting to pick up some fish.  Curiosity being what it is with me, I tried out some different colors of CJ's but only the gold had anything more than a hit.

Sean did his best, but sometimes the fishing gods frown upon you.  Nothing can be done when this happens, and no amount of changing flies, tactics, or location seemed to make any difference.  Felt bad for his bad luck, but didn't feel bad enough to stop fishing...
Caught a couple of nicer ones for this stream
Even with the less than ideal water clarity, still love being in that canyon.  Hopefully you can get out and enjoy the water...
The aforementioned amazing scenery

Lots of the fish had really bright orange/red tips