Guest photographer/writer Tom Szalay

El Diablo

Lost in the river

I talked my wife and youngest Jac to go to a fly tying expo up in Heber—hosted by Four Seasons, at a park in Midway. The girls pretty much slowed down to a safe speed for me to jump out; “we’ll go waste some time in Heber, be back in about a half hour,” the wife yells leaving a dust trail.

I heard about the expo from a dad of one of my chess club kids, Alan Thomas, who is quite a fly tier. It was nice watching Alan tie. He takes his time on everything he does, and is willing to un-do something on a fly to make it look just the way he wants. I don’t tie much and when I do, I’m in too big of a hurry—surprise surprise. This is like the way I fish, trying to get to as many holes as I can instead of slowing down and just get to what you get to.

The girls picked me up and we headed home, but not until we hit the outlet mall in Park City. I did my best to let them have their fun, but the whole time I could feel the flies working their way into my brain. We all knew it was going to happen, when we got home I was going to hit “Big Cott” for a few hours. Which is so easy because I live right at the base of the canyon. I could literally walk to the river—it’s that close to me.

“Why don’t you go fish for a few hours while Jac and I finish shopping,” suggests the wife. I drove higher than I usually do. I’m trying to find a spot that’s not so damn treacherous. I know you’re thinking “Big Cottonwood is a small river, what’s dangerous about that little guy? It’s not about the size of the flow, its steep banks, wicked, jagged rocks that look stable, until you put some weight on them. Oh let’s not forget a ton of vegetation on the banks, and a moss on the rocks that’s “snot slick.” I haven’t even mentioned the deceptively deep holes that are surrounded by big rocks, and dead fall that just dares you to step on it. At any rate I have yet to find safe spot.

I parked below the entrance road to Donut Falls; which is a pretty flat area and the biggest obstacle is the growth of willows on the banks. I tried to take my time walking down to the river, touching the tall grasses, to see what terrestrial bugs are hopping. I noticed a fair amount of bees and some small hoppers.  The sides of the river had a lot of life, mostly small caddis, but I did not see a lot of fish feeding off the top.

The water level was low, but not so low that there were not enough riffles and flow. I absolutely love working that river with dries, so I thought I would just start with an elk hair caddis pattern. I was fishing like a bull in a china closet; and that river requires more of a ninja, slowly creeping and casting. I slowed down and watched holes before I started casting.

This went on for I don’t know maybe about a half an hour. I switched to a few different patterns, a stimmie, and a small hopper. I had about a half a dozen takes, but I couldn’t hook any of them. I worked up to the area where the water is glass flat. If you know the area just above the road, it’s beautiful. But keeping with Big Cott tradition, it’s still a tough river, with thick willow to beat your way through. But that’s really no big deal. I slowed down and approached the holes with slow steps, watching my shadow.

I sat at one hole and just watched. About a dozen small browns were holding about mid-level and some of them about an inch from the top. I wanted to throw the big beetle I had on at them, but I knew it would spook them for sure. I was almost thinking of moving up river and casting down. My first cast I scattered every damn fish in the hole.

Next hole I watched again to see what they were eating—small caddis. I put one on size 20 or even size 22. I have great eye site but on a riffle these guys are touch to see. But if you just give yourself a little time, you start seeing it. At this point I got completely lost; I went into that time out of time. This is the time of going back into childhood, when you are playing with your friends and you get completely engulfed in what you are doing—total focus. Getting lost in the moment is bliss, getting home late is not; it never was.

No Tell 'EM Creek

We all have our rivers that we think of as our own; waterways that belong to us. And if we see other fishermen on “our” river, we feel like they are trespassing on our land. You pause and look at them like “who said you could be here?” When we get one of these rivers in our blood stream, we often rename them with names like “Holy Water” then we name all the holes. We go to these rivers because they hold something special to us, big fish, water type, terrain whatever it may be, they rise above the rest. Every fisherman has at least one of these hidden treasures.

But let’s be honest, there are no hidden creeks, or unknown streams.  There are no flows that no one else knows about. We go into fly shops and we whisper about where we have been, and we tell our tales of splendor and grand adventure, while hiding the true/exact location of where we’ve been.   But no matter how remote the water, there are no truly hidden treasures. I hate to say it, but you know that your private holy water has many other faithful praying upon its banks.

There is so much information at the touch of a finger, you can find out anything you want about any river anywhere. You can find You-Tube footage of almost every stream. And maybe that’s precisely why there can be a river here or there that can fly under the radar unnoticed. A cloaked gem can flow right out in plain sight and go undetected.

Today Johnny and I found that treasure; actually I have fished it once before, but did not have near the success we did today. We both have our own theories as to why this river has so many big fish. Johnny thinks it’s because our newly found little honey flows into a larger tail water that is flowing really high, forcing the fish are escaping the torrent and muddy water for a calmer home. I think this river has all the important ingredients to make it healthy: cold tail water, great rocky bottom, and tons of food.

I’ve been reading about what makes a healthy river and how a river produces a large amount of big strong trout. I’m trying to keep it simple and not over complicate it (an almost impossible task for me). Trout need some basic things, a safe place to sit comfortably in cold, oxygenated water so they can eat and eat and eat. That’s what fish do, be the predator not the prey--all day long. The only other drive is making new baby fish—spawning time, and that is seasonal. So it makes sense that a river that produces a lot of bugs will produce a lot of fish.

Johnny and I are probably both on the right track, and the things we’ve come up with are basic, components that anyone would say. This would be a great river to dig into and go past that obvious top level and really find out details, information that will lead to some universal understanding of river and trout health.

 It’s not often you find big healthy fish in a small stream. But when you do, it’s time to hold your tongue, and start thinking of a new secret name for it, and start naming its holes and…

Holy Water

Maybe even better than catching a Holy fish, is watching someone else catch one for the first time. Welcome to the holy club bro. I guess you know you are in when you get to name a hole; Colby went Pagan, searching his mind for the Greek Goddess of sex, but settling on the name "Greek Whore" Incidentally his newly named hole is located right at the end of the "Book of Mormon."

Its a long story as to how Colby ended up naming a hole in Holy Water after a whore but it makes sense that he would go Pagan; and besides even the bible has tales of "unclean" women...what ever, so let it be written, let it be done.

Mystery River

Deep Sea St. Kitts

“Have you ever deep sea fished?” I get this question a lot when I talk to people about fly fishing; I’m not really sure why, I speculate that people think if you fish, you would like to go after big fish, and we all know the biggest and baddest fish live in the sea—fish like the barracuda.

The answer is “no I have not, I am a trout fisherman; but I’d like to someday.” After all my blog says fishing the world one river at a time… That doesn’t mean all the fishing I do is in a river, and it doesn’t always have to involve a fly rod. As you can see from my pics, I can now answer that question with, “why yes I have deep sea fished in the ocean.” 

Frank was the man and booked us on a ship with captain “Speedy” on a small private boat that took out only the four of us off the coast of St. Kitts. This was the initiation for his son Zach into the “Bro Club” while the ladies went on a rain forest excursion.  Our  families decided to take a group trip, a cruise through the Caribbean; starting at Puerto Rico hitting a bunch of Saint islands, ending in Barbados. St, Kitts was man time and chance for me to add deep sea fishing to my list of fishing experiences.

We were out of the dock not 15 minutes and fish on.  Zach was first up; a beautiful tuna. Speedy and Mervin, his mate rigged about 8 poles some on out riggers, some set with what looks like huge plastic flies some with small fish.  They set some deep, mid-level and some pretty much on top water. In a nut shell it was dad fishing--where the dad does the fishing and the kid reels it in. But no complaints here.

The next fish was my turn, which turned out to be a king fish. I want to say it fought like the devil and almost ripped me right out of the seat; but the truth is it felt more like a heavy weight that kicked a little here and there. Although I must say at first I did feel a like captain Quinn in the first Jaws, sitting in the classic fishing seat located at the end of the boat.  But if we’re going to reenact Jaws and assign characters I would be Sheriff Brody, Frank would be Hooper and Zog would be Quinn. And if memory serves me correctly it was Quinn who was sitting in the fishing seat when they first hooked the monster.

Frank’s fish followed about an hour after mine. Wow this fish seemed big from the get go; and it turned out to be a Barracuda. The teeth on that bad boy were wicked; in fact Speedy wouldn’t let Frank get his hands anywhere that things mouth.

The only one we have left is the naïve, simple, all American county boy Zog. We reached the end point of our route, zig zagging back and forth along the coast line. Speedy had fish finders and the like, but I noticed he followed the birds more and read the location he was at more than anything. They were working it hard for Zog, baiting and re-baiting, adjusting lines. It was looking like Zog’s patience would be pushed to the limit. I was doing my best to rattle his cage, although I have no idea why; it’s never worked in the past, but why not try.

We have about 5 minutes left before we reach the dock, and the boys are working it hard for Zog-- bingo fish on and as fate would have it a big fish. This one is taking line, and it’s looking like might have that epic battle. I’m going to switch stories from “Jaws” to “Old man and the sea” battle between man and fish; why not Zog is the old man, and he deserves that place among us in the “Bro Club.” His fish is huge, a barracuda. Check out the teeth on this monster. Oh by the way a “Cudda” look as mean on the boat is it does in the water.

The rest of the trip Zog and Frank were real sports about being the “Cudda boys” but then that’s sort of how they roll anyhow.  Although I still don’t think it was a coincidence that the night club singer performed Heart’s Barracuda on the ship that night.

Good time was had by all; kids had a chance to sort of reconnect and chill on beautiful white sand beaches, we all got a good taste of the island life. Who knows maybe next time I’m in that neck of the woods, I’ll get a chance to make some long distance throws at Bone fish.

Lost Creek, fishing with Beezer

Today's guest writer:

Hannah (Beezer) Engel

Photos by John & Beezer Engel

Lost Creek Utah: