Rock Creek

Rock Creek:

Today’s theme:                Long overdue! My fishing & blogging life has suffered a serious blow, square to the rib cage; Rock Creek just put a stout end to all that.  Johnny and I have been talking about really working the South Slope of the Uintahs and the rivers of the Basin. Rock Creek is one of them.

My brother-in-law, Evan, is in town from Washington, and is planning on moving to Salt Lake. He is new to fly fishing, but is about as easy as a pair of Hush Puppies to bring along; so we let him tag. He even brought his little dog “Chacho” who is also Hush Puppy herself. We were on the road by 5:00 which is really needed if you live in Salt Lake, because it is a jaunt to get to Rock Creek. But for me the drive is fishing, and I really love the whole way to the Basin. The transition from the desert look of Duchesne to the rolling green hills of Mountain Home really tops the drive off.

The river itself is not misnamed, there are a few rocks there, but that’s a good thing on many levels. First off it’s beautiful; second it creates an ideal environment for bug life, leading to an ideal fish life. Uintah fish spend a good chunk of the year is sub-freezing temps which makes both fish and  bugs sluggish. This means when the weather warms up the dinner bell rings, and the dinner bell rang and rang and rang.

If every day you caught fish after fish you would get bored. I think one of the biggest reasons fishermen go to the fly rod is that exact reason, they are looking for some painful fishless days on the river. However, those days need to be rewarded with days of being a pig in the mud.  Rock Creek was my trough and I was the little pig who just wouldn’t leave.

I went up river with Evan, and Johnny went down. Evan hunkered into a hole, and I put on some miles. I kept pushing up river, which would split into two and sometimes three forks. I was fishing with a stimmie, and a dropper. Fish were happy eating both.  About an hour or two into it, I decided to drop the dropper, to wallow in dry fly glory. At one hole the river joined from two sections coming together. A tree was hanging over the hole creating a total fish paradise and at the same time forcing me to throw a curve ball. The first good cast put the stimmie right in line to attract. It didn’t take more than a second, and a nice brown came up slow but steady from the bottom.  Without hesitation he slowly slurped it in. I have a tendency to set the hook too fast with dries so I let this guy take the fly down—set. This hole had so many fish I almost got bored—almost.

We wallowed in fishing glory until dusk. The day ended with Johnny using the Go-Pro catching me making long casts to sighted top feeders.  The last fish was almost out of my casting range, sitting right in front of a rock, taking flies off the top about every 30 seconds. I timed it and got a cast about 5 feet above him—bam right on cue he hit. What more do you want.