Duchesne River Ut.

October 29, 2011 The Duchesne River is holy, and it travels through sacred ground. I’m not saying this because a nice chunk of it is on Ute Indian land; oh no its holiness lies deeper. Everything about this river is blessed. Ok, maybe it has its teeny tiny flays but who doesn’t?

 For starters driving from Salt Lake you can take U.S. 40 or you can take Wolf Creek Pass. Driving 40, you go through Park City, then Up Daniels, past Strawberry Reservoir and through flat desert land. It’s a perfect drive, the scenery keeps shifting, and it’s less than two hours. 
If you select Wolf Creek, you get to wind through some of Utah’s finest high mountain terrain—pines, peaks and aspens. At the top of the pass you have Hanna and Tabby, both quaint, rolling hills farm community. The place is crawling with deer, hawks and hound dogs. When you fish the river you have a great view of Mount Tabby.

If I had to pick on one of those tiny little flaws, it would be the water clarity change; at times the river can get murky. First of all it’s a free stone river, and those rolling grass hills have a lot of cows grazing on them. The river bottom has this clay like brown mud that when it’s kicked up, it can really stay in the water.

Rock Creek Utah

October 29, 2011, Rock Creek Utah: We drove up Wolf Creek Pass, to Hanna, then over Blind Stream  pass to get to Rock Creek. I drove my two wheel drive Nissan and it felt like a big mistake. Going down the North Slope, the winding switch backs were ice packed, and I know everyone was thinking “I hope we can drive to Mountain Home and not have to come back this way, or we are probably going to see how good Steve’s survival skills are." He did have a killer Bear Grills knife, and I will admit he did come prepared for anything. We started calling him “Bear Shits,” but he’s pretty mormon and didn’t seem to appreciate the new nick-name.

Long story short Bear caught a lot more fish with a Panther Martin then we did with fly rods, and when we got back to the truck he already had a lean-to half constructed, and a fire going from his handy dandy flint—I’ve got to get me one of those.

This is the first time I have fished Rock Creek, and I fell in love the moment we met. Of course being tail water is always a real plus in my book. It  has all the classic Uintah markings; high altitude, rugged terrain,  a healthy rock bottom and clean clear water. I don’t think there is an abundant bug life though, which would naturally limit the size of the fish.  Adding to its charm, it meanders and forks off constantly, and has a real variety of holes and runs.

I can’t wait to get my feet back in these waters. Although I can imagine it will have to wait until spring, because it already has some spots that were starting to ice over.

Weber River

Weber with the Wife

This is really the first time I have fished with my wife Melissa aka “Sweet.” She gets the name from the Allman Brothers Band “Sweet Melissa.” It’s a song about a love struck Gypsy who just can’t make it in this world without his “Sweet Melissa.” Need I say more?  As much as I love her, and truthfully there is no one on the planet I would rather spend time with than her, she doesn’t fish with me. It’s one of two things: either she is giving me my “man time,” or she really has no desire to fish.

Ghost Adventures

The Great St. George Ghost Adventure

My family and I recently took a trip to St. George to visit the oldest of the three beauties, Hannah, aka Puff. The two youngest beauties Jac and Madeline, selected a ghost adventure over a southern Utah hike. Well, what they really wanted to do was search for Polygamists; which they had a lot more success at that then the ghost hunt.

The story goes that two Catholic girls have been buried with mormon pioneers’ setting the set stage for our quest; a journey to find out any facts to the truth of their burial. Legend and our trusty GPS lead us to two locations; two ghost towns each with a cemetery, and each with more clues to the validity of this tragic abandonment of these two seemingly  saintly young  schoolgirls.

Silver Reef is our first target, a grave site where all the inhabitants are separated into groups; Catholics, Protestants, Chinese and of course Pioneers. Our particular cemetery will take us to the Catholic section to see if any of our three mediums in the group can conjure up the poor tortured souls. Legend says the girls were abandoned in the Zion desert, left by their parents to wander, in search of polygamist wives and children, as their only form of entertainment. We found cool old wood cross graves; we did not feel the presence of any souls.

Our second site is Grafton, a small town at the base of Zion Canyon where two of our mediums, Fluff and Puff,  feel stirrings of something at the grave site, but is it the two Catholic girls, or something else that stirs in them? Stay posted for some video footage of their findings.

The story doesn’t end with a ghost, or a polygamist wife, but a serpent—serpent with a rattle on the end of his tale, and a piercing eye. Lurking at the bottom of a Grafton Stairwell the snake waits, waits to meet its eye with that of none other than Puff—one of our mediums. See her story for further detail on her blog: fluffandpuffsrealityblog

What does a ghost adventure have to do with fishing? Nothing--shut up it’s my blog I can put whatever I want in it.

Upper Provo

“This is murder,” is all Johnny said while looking at a truly dazzling stretch of river in Woodland the entrance to the Uintah mountain range. It is a portion of the upper Provo river that is mostly PRIVATE. It seems that Utahans overlook the upper precisely because of this reason. Although Johnny’s statement is a bit on the dramatic side, he’s right that it’s just plain wrong to say you can’t fish this river, or any river for that matter.

Just to update you on the current status of the law, a few years back the public access to Utah rivers was repealed (a complete act of God) allowing regular Joes access to fish what was previously restricted/private areas. Keep in mind that this didn’t give fisherman the right to tromp across private land, to stomp through some fortunate home owners’ backyard; it just meant they could access the river, and exit it on public land.

Idaho, often referred to Utah’s backwash, has this issue figured out, and most residents seem to be happy with the current situation. When Johnny and I were fishing the Big Lost, there were a lot of homes on its banks, and plenty o’ “no trespassing” signs up that basically say: go ahead and fish this river, but don’t walk across my yard. Fair enough, for everyone involved, the fisherman can enjoy the river, and the landowner has the right to keep people off their land. Utahans often look down their noses at Idahoans feeling superior. Is it because Idaho’s license plates tout their famous potatoes, compared to our world famous snow? Is it because their metropolitan city is Boise compared to our Salt Lake? I could ramble on about this for ever. The thing is that Idaho has some pretty killer mountain ranges, and Boise is a bas ass little town.

Bottom line: come on Governor Herbert, so all your buddies and your brother-in-law own a lot of land on Utah rivers, stop using the lame excuse that river fisherman are Bubba’s who trash the land, break fences, toss their garbage all over, and go poop in people’s back yard. In all my years fishing I have never seen one river fisherman show any of that disrespect. Although, I have had stomach trouble on the river before that resulted in an emergency poop, but never in anyone’s backyard.

Sure there are some guys who will pull up to a lake, pull out the cooler, kill everything they catch, and throw the fish guts and beer cans from hell to breakfast; but were talking about the extreme exception to the rule. I have never seen this in a river fisherman. We have this part set up perfectly for these guys, it’s called lake fishing. These particular guys have a walking limit: it’s from the pick-up to the shore line, usually in the 25 yard range. And in all honesty 98.7% of those guys are respectful and clean up their mess. In a nut shell, we all know that Utah’s current law restricting fishermen from rivers has everything to do with exclusivity and nothing to do with stewardship.

Just looking at some of my photos of this area you can see my frustration—this is genuinely exquisite area. The drive through Wolf Creek Pass is such a treat. I have looked at this river so many times, and have never really given it its due. As you go further up the pass, the river becomes public. I owe it to myself to give this goddess some time in her waters.