Summer Conference - Day 1

My brothers Weston and Jeff are both woodshop teachers "Up North" and each year they down to Ephraim for their Summer Professional Development Conference. Usually this means they spend at least one evening fishing, but this year Dad finally took us up on the invite and came with them to do some fishing during the day. So to start out our two and a half days of fishing I decided that my sons, my Dad and I would walk into a lake not too far from my house that holds some nice fish. 

The first epiphany on the hike in? The boys really need some good hiking boots if we're going to do much hiking. The second? I need a backpack that doesn't kill my shoulders the moment I put it on (I didn't even have that much stuff packed). Once at the lake I started to work on making this a successful trip for my boys and it didn't take long for Atley to haul in a nice Cutthroat.

Pretty good one!

Then it was Caden's turn to try his hand with the rod and it didn't take him long to haul in a good fish!

He was afraid that he'd drop it

The boys kept taking turns with the rod while I helped out as much as I could. Atley even caught a really nice Brook trout (about 17-18") that we didn't get a picture of because he dropped it back in the water before I could get the camera ready. Sometimes you just gotta be quick I guess! At least the fish got away, no worse for wear. The boys even let me have a turn with the rod so I didn't have to go fish-less.

Pretty Fish

My Dad tried just about everything he had in his box, but he just couldn't find what they wanted (even when he tried the flies that were working for us). I tried to help him out, but sometimes there's no escaping the skunk.

Definitely one of the prettier places I fish, that's why it's my blog's background!

Once the temperature started to rise we headed back to the car. The hike out took less time then we expected so there was a little time to drive around and explore just a bit. The feeling of only seeing the tip of the iceberg seems to go hand in hand with this area so an opportunity to even drive a little bit is always welcomed. In the high country we came across three bull elk that held still just long enough to get a blurry picture of.

Hard to tell in the pic, but the one furthest from us will be a pretty nice bull

When we got back to the house we reconvened with the conference goers and the wife made us an awesome hamburger dinner. After eating we were back out the door to hit a small stream in the hopes of finding some fish.

Feels good to hook one after a lot of missed strikes

One of the joys of living in Sanpete county hit us right in the nose when we got out of the truck. Turkeys and cows outnumber residents down here and their smell seemed to be coming from all directions. We pressed on and both Weston and Jeff found a willing trout in the fading light though my Dad was still feeling the skunk. There were many more hits than fish landed, but it was a good day. On to day two and more fun and games! 

Hope you're as lucky,

Kidder

Browns love the dark!