Bear River (East Fork)

September 26

There is no better month in Utah than September, and there is for sure no better month to fish than September. The temps are perfect, the smell of fall is so earthy, the fish are hungry, and of course the autumn leaves. Mr. Wilson and I happen to think that September 19^th is the best day inside the best month. We have both been wanting to go to the north slope of the Uintah’s for over a year now to check out Christmas Meadows, China Meadows, the Black Fork, Haden’s Fork just to name a few. The Uintah’s on Mirror Lake Hwy 150—winner winner chicken dinner!

I have camped so many times with family and friends in the Mirror Lake Highway area, I couldn’t count them if I tried. In all those camping trips, I have never driven over to Evanston, and then taken Hwy 150 back over to Kamas. I hate to admit it, but this really is the first time I have ever done it.

Driving up from Evanston is beautiful, and it didn’t take too long up the canyon before we reached the confluence of the Bear River with the East Fork of the Bear. We just could not help ourselves from parking quickly. This is the first time for me to fish these rivers. My overall rating-- straight up "B." Explanation: 

Winning features:

• Extremely beautiful (especially in the fall)
• High Mountain away from people and major roads. Yes a lot of people visit the Uintah’s in this area, but go there on off times and avoid holiday weekends
• Fabulous size river (sort of the baby bear syndrome not too big, not too small)
• Healthy, clean water great flow and cfs
• Fun to explore and nice holes
• A lot of trout species

Not so winning features:

• Not a ton of fish
• Fish in the Uintah's are not monster--we started calling some of the little cuts “Deans”—short for sardines. It’s hard to catch anything up there over 14 inches, and it’s easy to catch fish under 5 inches.

Looking at the two lists, it’s easy to see that the Winner category is large. It’s hard not to like the Bear, and it’s East Fork. When we were done fishing we headed back to the car to burn some “Brats.” Kicking back smelling the grill, sipping on a Sam Adams, watching the big puffy white clouds move over that landscape was honestly as good as it gets. Both of us are compelled to explore this area more. My buddy Zogg is always talking about Christmas Meadows and all the wonderful rivers in this area, and I have heard if you find the right spots you can also find bigger fish.

I hate to say it out loud or worse yet to write it, but here goes; on some level size does matter. The fish on the south slope compared to the fish on the North Slope are bigger. There are so many rivers on the south end of this mountain range that hold some big husky fish. Of course you are talking about a whole different kind of fishing; high mountain free stone rivers cannot be expected to yield fish like the ones in controlled tail water. Also I really have not fished the north end enough to say honestly that it doesn’t have the fish that the south slope does. So perhaps I should end on that note, and head back up hwy 150 to see what I can find…

Boulder Mountains

 

 

 

 

I haven’t fished with Paul Judd since he joined in on a trip to fish Montana’s Madison and Beaverhead Rivers in I think it was 2008. It’s always a treat to hang with the Judd Man. I am excited to meet up with David & Hammer, who drove up from Phoenix to reunite with us in the absolutely beautiful country of the Boulder Mountains.

I think when you hit the town of Bicknell you see the red rock mountain, and the Freemont running through the town (Bicknell Bottoms) its maybe some of the most stunning topography Utah has to offer. From Hwy 24 you make your way over to the town of Torrey, which has a turn off to Hwy 12. That road takes you through an amazing range of almost 12,000 feet of pine and aspen mountain top of the Boulders, to the red and white rock of Escalante Grand Staircase forest, to Bryce Canyon.

Forget even talking about the rivers, the lakes, the fishing—just forget about even talking about fishing, let’s just talk about the drive. Where else in the world can you see such a range of terrain? I don’t really know the answer for sure, but I think I can say—nowhere else in the world can you see that! Many parts of the west have truly stunning red rock canyons and formations, but I just can’t think of an area that is like this—with such range and diversity.

We drove up from the town of Escalante on Hells Backbone (what a great name for a road) to Posey Lake. David & Hammer arrived about 4 hours before us, and had set up camp. Not a sole was on the whole lake—what luck. I prefer to camp in what’s called “primitive” camping areas, but honestly not a sole was camping up there. The next day though, one solo man decided to camp right next to us through. We wolfed a yummy Dutch Brat dinner, in the dark, and enjoyed a bottle of Camp Fire whiskey courtesy of my buddy Colby. I would like to elaborate more on the absolutely hilarious antics that resulted as the night progressed but some things need to stay at the lake.

The next morning after some pain and suffering (look at the pic of Paul’s face) we slid out of the tent on our quest for many small rivers that are home to many large fish—information directly from the mouth of the Oracle. To our disappointment they were pretty much dried up. The Oracle had warned me about this because this area hasn’t seen a lot of water this year. But no worries we made our way over to the Black Canyon and to the upper Antimony River. Hammer and I broke off from David, and we pushed it until dark; what I should really say is that I pushed it until dark. We had a long and hard drive back to camp on dark winding roads.

The next day I wanted to explore more of the lakes on Hell’s Backbone, or even make our way back to Bicknell to hit “The Bottoms.” But reason, a touch of wisdom, and the look of all of their faces told me the best thing to do would be to work Posey Lake. It was the best decision of the whole trip. We stalked the shores of the lake, and in terms of fishing, it didn’t get any better than watching both Paul and David hone their killer instincts and casting technique to bring up fish to take their dries.

David caught the biggest trip of the trip, a healthy Brooke in pursuit of his orange #16 stimmie. It was awesome to see him drop a cast in just the perfect spot in front of this bad boy, to see the take and the set. It was pretty much the exact story with Paul. It brings such satisfaction to see someone go from awkward and struggling, to focused, precise and deliberate. It is also great to see them have a fish take their fly. Hammer had his night of glory on Antimony Creek the night before.

All said and done we didn’t catch a ton of fish, and the ones that we did catch were by no means trophies. But I had as good a time fishing as I ever have. I can say it a million times, and not say it enough—it’s not about catching fish. Maybe for me it’s about seizing all the other things. I hope they all had as good a time as me. One last note: the final night’s dinner was a huge Dutch oven success for me. I started out wanting to make a sort of shrimp Cajun dish. It ended up having about every animal from the farm and the sea in it when it was all said and done. But they all sat back in their chairs, full and happy.

 

 

Guest Blogger X Matheson

Huge Erection Blog
As an experienced angler I have deduced that there are three great parts of fly-fishing: the water in its meditative and healing properties, the physical hardships and topographical landscapes that make each cast a reward, and the mysterious yet sexually euphoric feeling you get when hooking into nice fish. After a weekend with my old man (the Oracle as previously blogged about) in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, I experienced all 3 of these great moments.

Our journey began in SLC Utah where we drove north to Boise. If anybody has a chance to see southern Idaho with their own eyes, don't. The gas is expensive, and the desert is surely the butt hole of the west. I'm not bagging on sage brush fields, as I am a western man myself, but Idaho's sage brush fields are surely the ugliest. Once past Boise the drive just gets sexually explicit in the awe of Mother Nature. Driving next to the Payette River all the way to the gorgeous and friendly town of Cascade Idaho. We reached our final destination through 60 miles of lodge pole pines and aspen where we saw both osprey and eagles. That's right two different birds of prey. We finally arrived in Yellow Pine Idaho which conveniently was having a harmonica and music festival while we were staying there! Okay... Music, fishing, hippy chicks... Is this a blog or an erotica forum? And if you are wondering why I'm spending so much time on the drive up and not the actual fishing, it’s because the journey is just as sacred as the destination.

Now to the fishing. After beers with a local who shall rename nameless, the Oracle and I got the goods on where to fish for "Dolly's" or the Dolly Varden char that swim all the way from the main Salmon River to its tributaries to spawn. I know what you are thinking, there aren’t any Dolly Varden in Idaho, and they are called bull trout. Well I call them Dolly’s because the local fisherman called them Dolly's. Despite what’s scientifically correct, I go by vernacular and in my opinion calling them Dolly's is much more badass. Unlike Salmon, Dolly's don't die once they spawn, they swim back and repeat the cycle 3 or 4 times in their life. The East Fork of the South Fork of the Salmon River is in Yellow Pine, so that was convenient for us. (I will abbreviate this river by calling it Huge Erection River) Also convenient for us is that the Dolly's are in Huge Erection River on their way up to spawn.

If you are wondering why I'm calling the river Huge Erection it’s because it was HUGE! The fact that there IS an East Fork of the South Fork of the Salmon River and it has 500 cfs of water in August makes my head spin. The funny part for me is how much water there is in Idaho and the Northwest and how little there is in Utah. In Utah we have the Provo River, if it were in Idaho it would be called Provo Creek. The topography of Huge Erection River would make any angler drool. Long tongue and currents holding westslope cutthroat, little rocks with pocket water holding  Redband, and deep pools against rock cliffs where I caught my Dolly. I think Herman Melville once said, "Water and meditation are wedded forever."

Now the part of the blog reserved for me to brag a little. We fished the pool of Huge Erection River that the local fisherman told us to fish. He said he had a 27 inch Dolly on earlier that day. I fished the pool for about 20 minutes with possibly a few bumps before Bam! This creature hit my streamer deep and immediately started for downstream making me fall backwards on my hand. I thought to myself what a cheap shot! Most fish wait for the bell to ring before they start fighting, but this animal gave me little time to react. Without thinking my lower brain told me to get in the water and follow the beast downstream. Normally I wouldn't jump into a 500 CFS, slippery, and free stone flowing river but the adrenaline in my veins gave me no choice. Keeping balance while trying to keep tension on the 1x fluorocarbon leader was impossible to say the least. I followed her downstream 100 yards falling on my butt twice with my 4 weight rod bent into a U. When I finally bagged her she dwarfed my 16 inch net leaving inches of her tail out to reflect in the afternoon sunlight. A 25 inch Bull after a 5 minute fight. Definitely a short fight for such a powerful fish. I'm sure she got so tired because I was chasing her downstream, and giving her little line. I was just as tired as she was though, and trying to lift the net was hard after fighting that fish. I'll never forget the face she gave me when I lifted her out of the net. Her face said I shouldn't have given you a cheap shot before our fight and I put up a good fight for just a kid. Her face was powerful with a slopping forehead, vice jaws and a stocky camouflaged body. An image that makes little redband trout tremble. She is a member of a genus that has been around for thousands of years in that water and I just broke the cycle in the grand scheme of things. That is special.

I've always loved native fish because my family is obsessed with cutthroat. But I think my new favorite fish is the Bull Trout. They are big, bad, and native. They put up a fight that rivals big browns and are much prettier in my opinion. The great part of this trip was sharing the catch with the Oracle because it was the first time he had ever seen a Bull of that size. If you find yourself in Southern Idaho; make a detour to the hidden gem of Yellow Pine because there may be beer, music, and a girl named Dolly waiting for you.