Strawberry Utah

The Strawberry

The Strawberry cuts into me deep, too deep to really explain. It started about 20 years ago with my buddy Roger. He is to blame for the obsession I have for the Strawberry.  If I’m going to blame Roger I have to include Frank as well. They are both to blame for many things: it’s because of them we spent so many days & nights with the kids boating, camping, hiking, and of course fishing. This tale is complicated; I have to separate this river into three “f” words: family, friends and fishing. I will group family and friends into one, because in my world they are the same thing.  I have so many rich and satisfying memories of this river with both groups.

Chapter 1 Genesis/the early years F&F:

Brief history: Roger is married to Mindy, a deep/dear friend of ours from my wife Melissa’s job--the first year we were married. Mindy’s sister Missy is married to Frank.  We met Frank and Missy on one of Roger and Mindy’s weekend boating trip on their infamous boat “The Scooner Tuna.” This friendship was pre kids for all of us, and through the years the “Scooner Tuna” has been stuffed to the brim with everyone’s kids.  On one of the first Scooner voyages something happens to the forward gear; some tranny problem.  Roger is forced to back the boat back into the dock, about 3 miles. Missy is convinced she is going to die at sea, “we are not at sea, Frank reminds her, “just at a reservoir.”  Frank’s reassuring comment does little to calm her, “death by water, I just know I will die by drowning!” retorts Missy. This one event reveals everything about Missy, and it sets the tone for our friendship to come. If you have ever read the Ramona kids’ books, there is a girl that sits in front of Ramona in school with these big “boing, boing” curls tormenting poor Ramona; she just has to pull them. I am Ramona, and Missy is my "boing boing" curls. I must tease her, I’m simply compelled.

A few years later, summer time, same group, same reservoir, Scooner Tuna, and Missy is still freaking out, because this is the year she will die by sea--in a reservoir. During this whole time, whenever I drive past the river, drool drips down my chin. It has great bends, nice volume, and an overall fishy appearance. I’m thinkin its time to grab a Mepps and give it a shot—I finally do. I caught only one fish. But that one fish wow, it was enough to rekindle the inner fisherman that was lying dormant. It’s kind of like having hepatitis, once it’s in the blood stream, you never get rid of it. Oh, just to put you at ease, Missy did not drowned.

At this time we all have little kids, the fishing at this point is about drowning worms, un-snagging one kids line, while tripping over the other one’s line. We all decided to go fish, wives, kids the whole clan. We walk  below the dam and fish the spillway. It’s a great spot to teach the kids, sort of get fishing into their blood.  On the way back Missy cries out “snake, snake, it’s a rattle snake. Oh my God kill it Frank--kill it.” To this day Frank backs her up that the snake had a rattle on the end of its tail (funny no one else saw the rattle or heard the tail tale sound). She still has a serious phobia of rattle snakes because her vivid imagination and too much sun one day on the river. I have to admit though she is funny as hell, she entertains and delights.

The next year I try to move from pulling on Missy’s "boing boing" curls, so to speak, to yankin Roger’s chain. We had to go into town to get some butter or ice or something, and we’re in this ”one horse” grocery store. I’m ready to get my super duper special ed on, and see if it will make Uncle “Wogger” wiggle a widdle. I sometimes go into various characters in stores to get a rise out of either the people I’m with or people at the store.  I belt into character on Wogger, and you could hear a pin drop; “It’s my uncle Wogger” I'm yelling and shuffling across the grocery store, I get right up to him at the checkout counter just carrying on. Throughout this process, Frank has slid behind the ice machines, and is silently laughing, the kind where your shoulders are shaking up and down. Roger aka “Wogger” looks the checkout lady dead cold in the face and asks, “Is he with you?”then calmly walks out to the truck. It was that moment that I realized I am way out of my league; years later I still am. The son-of-a-bitch didn’t even give me credit until later that night at the fire.

Rest easy my trusty blog followers, the two of you will like how he gets me back the next camping trip. Although we were at a different location, I am going to say we were at the Strawberry, that’s where I wanted to go but got out voted. My heart was in the right place, so close enough. We are camping next one of those Bubba’s who bring up his construction 4000 watt generator, and has the s.o.b running pretty much non-stop. It’s getting later at night, camp fire time, and it’s not looking like he’ gonna turn it off. But why would he, then his kids would have to turn off the TV and video games, and go outside into the dirty outdoors—God forbid! Roger does his special sophisticated and masterful adult form of double-dog daring me to kibosh Bubba’s sound machine. He has this way of out witting the witless. Of course his partner in crime Frank fuels the fire. I have had enough beers to sneak over there, while singing the “mission Impossible” tune. Here’s the problem, I’m casting a huge shadow on his trailer, and I’ve gone too far to turn back. I can’t, go back at this point and not follow through. I get to the generator, which by the ways is strapped to the bumper of his trailer. I can see people moving inside; I can’t hear them because the damn generator is so loud. I have no clue what to do. It’s not like I can smash the hell out of it with a hammer, and I don’t have one anyhow. I swear to God I am standing outside their trailer in the dark for two hours; ok a solid 5 minutes. It comes to me shut off the gas. I find it, I turn it, I run back to our camp fire. We are so close, that everyone is watching the whole thing. We all laughed and almost pee in our pants. Then we waited for the damn thing to go off. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting, sputter, putt, putt; out comes Bubba. He didn’t look at us, said nothing, and didn’t touch the generator, left early in the morning.

 Each camping and boating trip gives me a chance to fish this river, and I take what little scraps of time I can get to flick a spinner through it. Camping with family and friends is about family time. It’s about being with the kids, boating, camp fires and the like. It’s not about a dad sneaking off with his pole to get a river fix. I feel like a drug addict, I know what I’m doing is wrong, but I keep doing it. If you ask “the sisters” they will tell you I go fishing and do a little camping; and let all the manly duties fall to Frank and Roger. And I now realize they are right, I admit it. Furthermore, Roger and Frank should do those things, they should pick up my slack because they don’t fish. And if they don’t fish, they should tend to all those things for me—ask any fisherman and they will agree with me. Sure they have both picked up the rod, and flicked the fly a dozen times or two; but not enough to get into the blood stream. Note: if they read this, they will seriously beat me down.

The other “F” word: Fishing
David, The Lizard King, won’t admit it, but as kids, we did spend more time throwing rocks, and chasing lizards then we did fishing; especially lake fishing. We were both way too hyper to put a glob of Velveeta cheese or a worm on a hook, and cast it out watching for your line to go tight.  We did have fun fishing rivers though. I convince the Lizard King to fish with me for a few days on the Strawberry, camp a few nights, glory day’s talk, the whole nine yards. I even agree to drive the “Babe Mobil,” my little beater truck that doesn’t know the meaning of quit. It’s a rear wheel drive Isuzu, and David’s a non-believer in her four wheelin’ ability; oh what little faith he has.  
Summary: the fishing was great, the catching not so good. “The Babe” was amazing in its ability to climb muddy rain soaked hills. She showed David what she was really made of truckin up a slick hill that was truly out of her league. The highlight of the trip though was the Lizard King coming up to me with a nice bloody cut on his face from a spinner. He had a snag, pulled on it; it pops loose, flies back and catching him right between the eyes. He let the blood dry and walked around the whole afternoon with it, as a sort of war crown.
I  have been sucked into this river I think three times. I have donated hundreds of flies to her. I have two scars from cuts, I don’t know how many bruises and dings. I have watched the sun rise and set many times standing in her water. I have named it holy water; it has an Old Testament, a New, a bend called The Tao, and Johnny and I named our favorite hole “St. John’s.”  We even named a portion “The Book of Mormon,” we don’t fish that section because it’s boring and has no real character to it.
Year after year, trip upon trip of getting into this river, and the river getting into you. Some trips are weekenders, and some just for the day. They usually start at 4:00 in the morning piling in a truck—usually my truck, and fishing until dark. Truckin down new found dirt roads listening to Willy Nelson, encountering new sections of river, I call “putting on miles.” When this is happening you are just caught up in the moment. But you look back over it, and you start seeing the roots of nostalgia, romance, sentimentality and just plain myth & lie growing. You get to know things you like and don’t like about yourself, your buddies and the river. We get to know each crook in the river, you get to know each hole, and how it tapers at the bottom, how it differs with the water flow, how to mend your line on each portion, the different currents that move through it. And yet as much as you get to know a river, you know nothing about it, it always changes; you never really knew it anyhow, you just though you did; maybe you can say the same about yourself and your buddies.
I love parking at this one particular gate. I relish the walk to the river, the sage, the tall grasses, the huge Cottonwood trees, the air, the anticipation, the thrill, the sensation of being back with an old friend. I hope I grow old fishing this river, and stand in her water with old friends.
The whole Basin area, and in particular The South Slope of the Uintahs has so many great rivers. You can find it all there.  If you count them all there has to be over a dozen rivers in that greater area, and they all have a variety of aspects to them giving you all you can ask for.  When you talk to guides about great rivers to visit in the state, you get such different answers, and it mostly depends upon what kind of river fishing you like to do. Most people are interested in bigger rivers because they thing they will catch bigger fish, which has some truth to it. But even when you think of big rivers, they can vary enormously. Utah’s two most famous rivers are the Green and the Provo, and they are completely different. Basin rivers to me are the heart of Utah fishing and hiking; the holy land. In this holy land you can count on two things: rivers that make you believe in God, and people who bring out the devil. In the Basin you’ll find 12 different kind of funky people everything from Neo-Nazi, skin heads, to fundamental polygamist Mormons, to dig into the hills with a million rounds of ammo wacko jobs. There are also a lot of hard working farmers, ranchers, rough necks and just plain nice small town people. The truth is most of the people are really nice; but if you hear the  Deliverance banjo don’t say you weren’t warned.
When I  become a fly fisherman, and started hitting a lot of different rivers, I came to the realization of how much I love the Strawberry. Its complex what makes a fisherman prefer one river over others. So many Utahans flock to the Green and the Provo, which are great rivers, but it’s not always the size of fish, or the amount of fish, there are other factors that go into a love affair with a river. Sometimes it’s just personal, or maybe the solitude one river gives you. The Strawberry represents the whole experience: being in the mountains, laughter, junky old camp trailers, sabotaging other peoples late night generators, embarrassing your friends in small town grocery stores. In the end, it’s about the camp fire, and sitting around in realizing how damn lucky you are to have such a great family and friends, and sitting in awe of Frank and Roger hoping when I grow up I can be like them.