2023 Fish-Pic-O-Rama

[Rasputin]

Dad sent me a book for my birthday:





Written by the same demented angler that wrote How To Fish Good (Fearless Facts About Lying, Cheating, Thieving, Poaching & other Ancient and Honorable Piscatorial Practices). He also sent me enough scratch to drive out to my favorite cutthroat stream for my birthday.

[romeo tango]

as the pool drops, terrain features become exposed that offer access to deeper water
the kind sturgeon like ....

I paddled out to this "island" and set up shop for 6 hours,
nothing ....

back at the dock, I chatted with some jet-boaters that said the bite was slow all over the river
nobody is quite sure where the fish are

side bar: the sturgeon season usually opens around june 20, tail end of spawning
this year the season opened september 16

.

[plugboots]

Meaty football! It would have been a great video to see you fight him under the bridge.

I have a whole bunch of dry fly eats on my GoPro that I have to look at in the next day or two to see if I want to share anything, but I did not wear my GoPro for this fish and I’m pretty bummed about that.

[Rasputin]

Yeah, I've had a couple really nice ones recently that would have been cool to "capture". It just adds a complication which I've been doing happily without. However, I'm going to bring my camera when I go camping this week.

[romeo tango]

the real camera was up on the bank ....

.

[kokomas]

Proud of this one

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[tgapp]

Dibs showing how it's done

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[Rasputin]

Wednesday was my birthday, so I went to my favorite cutthroat stream for three days. My birthday was as any fisherman's birthday should be, full of fighting and netting healthy trout fish. I caught eight, all of which were over a foot, and half were over fifteen inches. You'll just have to rely on my impeccable honesty, as I left the camera in the truck all day. At the end of the day a hudge beast took my size 16 BWO parachute, and challenged me to a tussle, I'd pull him in and he'd shoot away repeatedly. He was quite certainly 20" of bloody red bellied cutthroat beastfish if he was an inch, but after very many runs to get away from me, over several minutes, apparently some flaw in my 5x tippets caused the line to break just an inch below the surgeon's knot. The day had been a real workout for the repair to my broken fly rod.

Day two, I continued leaving the camera in the truck and caught two, large, thick fish which would have looked beautiful on teh interwebs, but I remember them like it was yesterday, I guess it was just yesterday. It was a long day of not getting bites (excepting, spectacularly, the aforementioned, two large thick fish) while fishing water that really seemed like it oughtta be sprouting fish mouths all over.

When I returned to the big pool where I'd lost the fish the night before, I'd brought my camera, but there were four guys there all standing in a knot around a guy that was casting a streamer at the heads of the fish that were boiling for yummy noseeums, as the fish tend to do most evenings at the big pool. I managed to get off a confused sentence like ".....gee those fish sure are rising right where's he's throwing that streamer.....". I left, and went downstream, grumbling to myself about how maybe they'd do better with dries when the fish are churning up the surface. After losing a decent fish, I crossed over and fished the same section from the opposite side, first hooking the smallest fish of the first couple days (but still a decent fish):





The bite intensified, and I became glad those guys had been at the big pool, when I hooked into a fine specimen of heavy cutbow fish flesh, every bit of 18".





Today I went to a different deep pool area, and got a taker on a big royal wulff, which I was using as an indicator for a spinner.





Later, I discovered the awesome extent of some water I'd over looked when in that area during previously visits. I hooked up and lost a couple fish, first the biggest, then another slightly smaller, then finally the smallest fish of the trip hooked up. Ooh, what a feisty little guy! What's that? Got a BWO spinner stuck in your mouth? Yeah you do.





I got into another big one as the dusk gathered tonight, from the way he fought, it seemed like he was belly snagged by my spinner trailer, but he broke it off after stretching my leader for a while, and then I was ready to come back home.

[MarsB]

Got my dad to make a quick swing out for a visit, did a little in-town fishing then headed over to Dutch John. Great day on A; dries did impressively, we brought over a dozen each to the boat despite our guide's hesitation that it might be be slow going and nymphing might be in order. The next day started with a crack-of-dawn Little Hole mousing and streamer session, then a gradual float down to Swallow Canyon. Ticked two items off my list by catching my first trout on a mouse pattern and first time floating on C. Celebratory Old Fashioneds at Red Canyon Lodge before shuttling the old man back to SLC for his flight.


















Trout Creek Flies has jokes

[romeo tango]

[Underoos]

Jcpm and I had an amazing day recently.

[east or bust]

^Been waiting for that, absolutely insane

[teleee]

^Been waiting for that, absolutely insane

Me too, I thought the pictures were impressive seeing that video - man that is absolutely bananas! My quest to hook a river trout in excess of 30” has new fuel! Thanks for putting that together Roos (and JPCM)
I will say it again, GOD DAMN!!


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[I've seen black diamonds!]

I've got a huge smile on my face just watching that. Ridiculous fish. Congrats.

[Rasputin]

I loved Underoos' reaction to it the most, sort of stunned disbelief. I expect that fish was closer to 30 lbs than 20. So girthy, it messes with one's sense of proportion.

[shroom]

big boy!

[ColMan]

What a hog. Trout of a lifetime.

I'll be on that water with a couple other hacks on Sunday. Odds of me catching a 36" fish are about the same as winning the Mega Jillions.

[tgapp]

Absolutely unreal man. And what a beautiful fish, too! Strong fucking work

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[GiantManta]

Nice work boys!! The flows are just ripping this fall on that stretch.

[neckdeep]

[east or bust]

[::: :::]

after 20yrs of flinging (f)lies and untangling loops of line at my feet, i finally really kicked myself in the nuts properly on thursday: I stepped away from a run without reeling in and was ready to change a fly. Just prior to clipping the fly, I decided to take it to the bank for a breather. So I dropped my hand with my scissor/forceps and closed them...cutting the fly line behind the shooting head.



is this repairable? or just another humble opportunity to learn?
I started to put a double nail knot in it & the resulting barrel was huge
my brother's helpful comment: "probably shouldn't have had that much line out anyway"
he at least lent me a reel to close the day out

I suppose i'm happy it wasn't a fly to the face
probably time to just get a new fly line

[east or bust]

Where's it cut? Looks about 15ft into the running line? It's probably trash. Sounds like something that could happen to anyone.

Speaking of flies to the face, on Thursday I came as close as I've ever come to a weighted streamer neck shot. Well, it did smack me straight in the neck, but luckily the poky part didn't stick.

[::: :::]

Where's it cut? Looks about 15ft into the running line? It's probably trash. Sounds like something that could happen to anyone.

Yeah, about there
I hit up the fly shop & got a new one

[Rasputin]

I went out to my most frequent fishing haunts yesterday, and found noticably more water. It being a remarkably beautiful day, I was relatively content in spite of getting very little action. However, I caught a half dozen, among which was this spry 10" trout fish (and one other fish later) on a poly wing October caddis with a #10 hook.