Ham's Fork last post of the year

Ham’s Fork River, Wyoming

Utahan’s like to throw both Idaho and Wyoming under the bus, tagging the residents as backward ass hillbillies living out in now-where’s-ville. I’m not really sure why, until I see what was once a fantastic little fox--shot by some idiot, then displayed up on the fence at the lake access parking lot.

I am not really sure what anyone would get out of doing this act of I don’t know what would you call it… “territory marking?” This is not the first time I have seen this, including in Utah. I’ve seen plenty of coyotes in the basin area shot, and strung up on the fence. I just wonder where this bizarre custom comes from. Is it some ancient primal Neanderthal custom where cave man screams to the world “I rule these lands beware both man and beast,” by displaying his most recent kill. Does this guy think if he kills foxie and sticks him up on the fence that others of its kind will come sniffing around, see one of their own and run and hide, never to be seen again? Well there’s the question, why would you not want to see a fox again? Are they eating your cattle? No. How about your sheep—stupid question? No! How about your chicken coop? Maybe, build a better coop then. So what in the hell are you killing such a magnificent creature for? Here’s the thing, what makes a place beautiful? It’s more than just the environmental surroundings: the mountain structure, trees, river, lake… The beauty is also found it the animals who live in the wilderness. If you kill and eat, or kill in skin something—no problem; but to kill the stunning fox just to strap bloody and lifeless to the fence—No!  I realize they are predators, and that a large part of their diet is also game birds like pheasants, that the fox is in direct compitition with the hunter. That still does not justify the act of killing them and hanging them on the fence.

With that said, I am not going to let it jade my opinion or Wyoming, or the people who live there for that matter. After all this could have been one or two stupid teenagers, and you can’t judge the whole state by a couple punks. Still—

This was my first river adventure with my old time buddy Tom. Although it’s the heart of winter, we both needed to get out a little bit and “get some air” so to speak. I have been studying maps of Idaho, Montana and “Forever West Wyoming” for days. To me all three states are fly fishing meccas, and of the three I probably steer more toward Idaho than the other two, but I love all three for both their rivers and mountain ranges.

Many years ago when I was a teenager I remember fishing the river in Kemmerer, which I did not know was the Ham’s Fork; I was just thrilled by all the huge fish we were catching with our Mepp’s spinners. I also remember being chased across a field by a bull—it scared the hell out of me. I was screaming like a school girl running toward my older brother and uncle to same me. I remember is so vividly. Aside from that adventure, I have only driven through the area, on my way to Jackson.

This was also one of my first escapades to a river that I did not even pack a rod. Even in the heat of the day I bet it was not even 20 to 25 degrees, and as it got later in the day I bet it was easy 10 below. Even at 25 above, that pretty much shoots you down. The fish are not feeding at those temps and your line turns to a frozen rope in a matter of one to two casts. But fishing was not the purpose of this trip; it was a time to explore. It’s not like Tom has never seen a river, or stopped and sat at the bank of one and enjoyed its solitude. But it is still nice to take a friend to the places that mean so much to me, places that re-charge my soul, and help wash all your troubles away.

The Ham’s Fork did its job on both of us. We pulled off the road just below the spillway and found a ladder going over the barb-wire fence. Someone else had the idea of paying homage to the river before us, and broke a trail through—we followed it down to the river bank. It was really cold at this point, cold enough that we were not going to stay too long. But I did get some shots, and got to listen to the sound of the river.

Ham’s Fork falls right into my favorite size of river, not too big, not too small. It looks to have a wonderful rock bottom, and good flow, which helps to create the right environment for bug life. And we all know if bugs grow in a river, then fish eat the bugs; and if the fish eat a lot of bugs that means they become big fish. Another aspect that makes this river so interesting to me is all the oxbow bends and twists to the river. This creates excellent holes, and pocket water that I love to fish. I cannot wait until early spring to see what this river looks like, and fishes like when winter’s grip starts to loosen.

I will have to return with Tom on an early spring day when the big clumps of snow and ice are falling off the branches, and the birds are swarming, from sparrow to the eagle. Find out if the river speaks to Tom, when the life expands, when the fish are rising to the tiny caddis on top of the water; the muskrats, otters, beavers are making themselves busy. Maybe we will get lucky and see the return of Mr. Fox bouncing around with his proud, full orange tail.

Price River

Price & Scofield

Scofield Reservoir, the Price River, Clear Creek all bring back a lot of childhood memories. Buckle in frequent Blog followers, here I go down memory lane. Come on, you’ve been down this road with me too many times to count. This is how I get you interested in today’s story, by starting off with childhood tales from a warped twisted memory of  me and a cousin catching “X” amount of huge fish getting home way too late—blah, blah, blah. Let’ just skip it and keep it about nowadays.

Johnny & I decided to hit the Price today because it’s one river that’s not that far away, adding to our Utah Rivers photo and film collection. I have decided my next book will be “Rivers of Utah.” I know it’s almost impossible to fish and photograph every river and stream in Utah, or to even capture all the rivers in their complete form.  What I want to do is capture all the major and even less known rivers in my home state; sort of a collection of “what I think” are worth perusing as a fly fisherman. 

My first book is a collection of some of my favorite shots of western rivers, with virtually no writing in it, except a page or two introduction.  With my book about Utah rivers, I am going to take a stab with the pen. This brings up the question of what do I want to say? What do I want to write about that I can look at and honestly say to myself “I would want to read that?” 

I am not interested in writing a technical fishing guide or a “list of favorite’s book,” or a geographic guide on how to get to each great river. I have no desire to take years fishing every river in the state to tell other people where to go and where not to go—figure that out for yourself! 

To me fishing is about the going out, the joy of being there, the pursuit and catching of the fish is more of a reward, or a by-product of the journey. For example we stopped at the dam at Scofield and walked down river. We were not sure it was the Price River, but going off everything I saw on a map it was. We got a mile or two down river, and saw a sign that said “Lower Fish Creek” which I found out when I got home was just the name of a road. It was pretty cold, below freezing when you were in the shade. Believe it or not, walking back was my favorite part of the day. It was so quiet and isolated. Johnny spotted a bald eagle perched on a pine tree. The bird was in the shade so you could not see for sure that it was a bald eagle, until it took flight and you could see the white head. We watched it soar until it went over the mountain range on the other side of the valley. Cutting through the wind and riding it searching the ground for something tasty to eat. I want to be reincarnated as a bald eagle.  Further down the road, we found a pile of deer bones; we looked closer at it, and decided it was an elk. The color of the remaining hair was too dark to be a deer, and the spinal cord was really big. Fishing was only a part of the day.

I probably should mention that neither one of us caught a fish; in fact we didn’t see a fish, or even get a bite. I didn’t even have a fake bite—completely skunked! So that could add to why walking  quietly on the road, watching eagles fly or looking at elk bones was the highlight of the day, who cares, as long as you’re enjoying yourself.

Another interest we both share, is acquiring a knowledge and understanding of the waterways in our state. I know some rivers inside and out, where their head water is, its source, where it flows to, if joins other rivers, confluence points... But I don’t know that information on most rivers—point in case The Price River, and the Spanish Fork.

So I had to find out, not a difficult task, it just requires looking closely at some maps and going on-line to find out more details of each river. We were both trying to reason out the complete path of the Price River, and which rivers feed the Spanish Fork River. 

Scrutinizing maps is harder than you think to find out this info. The problem is that they don’t go into enough detail to really trace them down, or the opposite, they show a great amount of detail, but it is a small section of river, and does not show end path or the confluence with a larger river or the rivers ending lake or reservoir.

Here’s what I found out about the Price: it starts at Scofield, and flows down to the Hwy 6 point where it splits up; heading toward Helper and Price, it keeps its name, until its confluence with The Green, called the Green until it meets up with the Colorado, Then the Colorado wins the name game. The Colorado is the source of water that fills Lake Powell.  The confusing part for me about the Price is the part of it that flows toward Spanish Fork, and I wondered does it feed the Spanish? Answer: no that tributary is called the White River, and it does not feed the Spanish. The rivers that make up the Spanish are Soldier Creek, a small river following Hwy 6 where it meets Thistle Creek just below the Hwy 89. Lower down a bit Diamond Fork adds its waters to the mix, making up The Spanish Fork, which eventually flows to Utah Lake—easy sleazy!

Finally I traced down the Huntington River back and forth, coming up with the lakes on the top of that mountain range. There about 6 or 7 water bodies’ total, but the major sources of water are The Huntington, Cleveland, Miller Flat and Electric Lake; which all flow toward the town of Huntington, the general Price direction. All this stuff makes sense, it’s not rocket science, but it can be confusing and it’s hard to have a big picture unless you take a little time to research it out.

What does this all mean? Who really cares about the source of the Price or Spanish Fork River? Plus anyone can go on line and find this information or look at a map.  It’s not just about knowing facts or data about a river; it’s about the combination of it all. It’s about the images of each river, it’s about the different seasons, it’s about looking at cool elk bones—it’s about the soaring eagle.

Joe's Valley

Joe’s Valley—Cottonwood Creek

Second time fishing with Kolby—keeper. The guy is super funny and a great dude to fish with. Not all fishermen are compatible, some are; he’s good to go. It was actually his idea to fish the river that flows out of Joe’s Valley Reservoir; Cottonwood Creek—not to be confused with Big or Little Cott.

Let’s get technical with today’s report. The flows from the on-line site for the forest service said Cottonwood is below 15 cfs, which if true is so low you could call it a trickle. We went anyhow. Why you ask?  Well…we wanted to see it, plus I sort of had a feeling that that info was bunk (Bunk an 80’s term that should come back, meaning bogus). I can’t even tell you why I thought that, but just go with me on it. Also I know the Huntington area fairly well, and would love to fish it, plus there is always the Price on the way back home, or one of my beloved river, Diamond Fork. So really in my mind if Joe’s turns out to be a slow “bunk” squirt of a river, fine we have plenty of options.

As you can see from the photos, the flow issue is not an issue. The problem is not flow but the lack of fish. It’s not like I am a biologist and I can look at the river once and tell you that it has not fish, but Kolby is a biologist; so combine his biological knowledge with my hawk like vision and there you go—the river doesn’t have a lot of fish.

Here is our analysis of why we think Cottonwood Creek has very few fish given its size and the quality of holes: It really starts and ends with the amount of food the fish have to eat, and there are a lot of factors contributing to the propagation of bug life. Although the water is beautiful, with this sort of out of the ordinary blue green, something is up with the water. It is very clear, but I suspect it carries sediment in it that sticks to the rocks, a sort of clay film. Perhaps that sediment negatively affects the bugs, stunting their growth. This is merely speculation, but every rock I picked up was coated in this film, and had only a few big bugs and some very small bugs.

When you look at the holes, they just know they are beyond a doubt filled with a grundle of fish, and some of them huge. Not true though shocking but not true. We hovered above the river clear up on the bank with a sort of birds eye view, unseen by the fish and we saw very few fish, and the ones that we did see were small. Like a hawk I scanned. You also have to take in to account that with holes that deep the big fish, may have hunkered in at the bottom, especially this time of year. But as the heat of the day warmed up the water these little Guppies started feeding off the top—none of them were big, and their numbers were few.

We started the day off working down river swinging soft hackle. I used a beaded one as my lead fly, and then off the bend tied a lighter, soft hackle to drift up higher in the water column. My goal was to get some weight, but still work up higher in the foam. I then tried a number of hackle variations. We had very little success, got one or two, and missed one or two but not much action. This usually works well with water like this. We would swing at a 45 degree, and kept our line very straight through the drift. We then did a little Czech Nymphing, and on the way back up river Kolby went indicator dropper, and I went hopper dropper. He had more success on the way back. But for the most part we should have a least had more action simply due to the variation in our two techniques.

Here’s my conclusion and judgment of Cottonwood Creek. Now keep in mind it is not in peak season, and this is one afternoon on the river, so that should limit to some degree my opinion and comments of it. But here it is none the less: the flows are not managed to maximize the life of fish on that river, but we both guessed that it is managed more with farming in mind. With inconsistent flows, that also means inconsistent water temps; and we all know that makes life tough on the fish, limiting their growth and existance. I really suspect that something in the soil is negatively impacting the growth of the bug life. Again its simple if there are a lot of bugs and they are plentiful then the fish have a lot to eat; and if they have a lot to eat…well.   

Even though there are not a lot of fish in Cottonwood, it is still a wonderful river. It has a lot of out of this world beautiful holes riffles and runs. As I mentioned before the water color is beautiful. The canyon is filled with huge boulders on the banks and in the river, really adding a dramatic look to it, as well as creating those big deep holes. The entire river is easy to access, without a lot of overgrowth on the banks. If you are a local it would be fun to fish now and then. But there is a reason you don’t hear guys talk about it, or you don’t hear the fishing guides whisper about it, because I think I’ve mentioned this once or twice: it doesn’t have a lot of fish in it.
 

Time

Do you ever dream of a life with no work, no worries, and no responsibility? Imagine a life of just getting caught in the day, living like I imagine the natives did hundreds of years ago. They had to get food, which was also their clothes, and oh yeah, it was also their house too. They had to do some work, and then they went about simply being and being simple. Imagine how much freedom they felt?

I will never really know if the natives lived like that, but I want to think so. I want to think that they understood time different than we do.  I picture that they did what they had to do, and then they just lived, sort of like in a dream. They didn’t have to get up and go to work, and they didn’t have bills. They didn’t have objects that they owned or that owned them.  We can invasion them hunting, getting the kill, spending a few days busting ass skinning and jerking the meat; tanning the hide, maybe making a new shirt or some cool buckskin pants (I wish I had a pair). But then it was back to chill time.

I liken tribal life to being a young boy when you forgot everything in the world except the activity that you were doing. It didn’t matter what it was, riding bikes, King of Bunkers Hill, playing with your Hot Wheels—can you remember that feeling I’m talking about?  It was when you pushed out time that’s on a clock. You were completely and magically caught in your timeless world. Not only the natives got this concept, the ancient Greeks talk extensively about this type of time; time that takes place in that dream state, not a movement of a clock.

It was this time that the Greek Gods lived in, the tribe lived in, and for small moments boys & girls, even now, get to live in. If you think back, you can remember some of those times. For me they mostly took place at night just before it got dark. I imagine it is like this for every kid, because the heat of the day cools, and all kids have to be home before dark. Can you remember the football games in the cul-du-sac, the neighborhood tire swing, jumping your bikes...come on you can remember?

Well, now you’re all grown up and the only time you know is on your watch. Don’t feel bad, we have all left Pan’s island, and those who have not are called drunks, druggies, bums, losers; and they live in their mommy’s basement. And even those guys don’t really get to stay in that time out of time, because it doesn’t exist anymore.

Today though I got a free pass to the island, a ride down memory lane; a ride on Apollo’s chariot. The air was thick of earthy musk smell; some of the leaves were still on the trees, yellow and red dropping on the water. The sun was bright and full, the breeze was at my back all day. Okay maybe that’s a bit thick, but for a few hours on Diamond Fork I forgot about my few hours.