Jimmy, Pete and I would fish Diamond Fork a lot in the
teenage years. My most powerful memory of all comes from the hot pots—in particular
one night we got chased all the way down the canyon onto I-15 by some crazy drunks.
Who were the drunks, you ask? Well, good question? Let’s just say we evaded
getting a serious ass beating by throwing full beer cans from the back seat directly into their windshield, while careening
90 mph down the canyon; getting away
only by driving through the median of the freeway and booking it the other direction.
This sounds like a fish tale—well aren’t
all tales?
In terms of fishing Diamond Fork, well we did a lot of that
too. But for the life of me I can’t honestly remember if we fished the tribs of
that river. If we did, I can surely tell you that we did not know they had
names like 5th Water or 6th Water. Least of us three who would know what the
hell was going on was me, I was the youngest “tagalong” I was I just happy to be included.
At any rate, enough of tripping down memory lane. Let’s get
current. I told the Oracle the other day that I was at the point that I can say, "I have fished pretty much all of Utah!" Quick note: "The Oracle is another one of those Roger Eastman's, a guy who knows too damn much about the terrain of the Wild West. I realize by saying I have flushed out the state, that this does not mean
all the little tribs and ditches locals know in their little stretch of the
state. But for the most part, I have fished almost all the major rivers & streams of the land of Zion. It took The Oracle maybe 1 minute to dig into his little bag of rivers and pull out 6th Water.
Okay, maybe I’m not done. Let’s dig into the deeper cuts.
This trib is not unknown, but it’s deep. Go into any of the local fly shops and I'm sure the guides know of it, but...its not on the radar for most fishermen. I drove up the canyon as far as I could, but was shut down. The gate was locked past the hot
springs, so I was forced to go down river a bit, and work up the tributary on foot. It was
touch going, and I never did get to the area The Oracle spoke about. But I put on miles, and got back to my truck about 4:00. I was starving and just beat to hell. But I was happy; happy to be tired, and happy to sit on my tail gate and listen to the brats sizzle in my pan. I guess
I will have to wait for another day to fish the section he talked about. Maybe we can make it a hot springs
trip---ouch.
