More Thoughts On Streamers

Last week I was fishing with Jordan. We were mostly nymph fishing but I brought the streamer rod along just for teaching another style of fishing. We had a few strikes with nymphs but the fish didn’t seem real active and we hadn’t landed any yet. After we had fished one hole thoroughly with nymphs, I grabbed the streamer rod to teach Jordan how to streamer fish.







Within the first few casts, a big brown came up from the depths and tried to hit the streamer just as I was pulling it up to start the next cast. This started my adrenaline running. This was a big fish and we hadn’t seen much action until then. A few casts later an even bigger brown hit the streamer right at the surface. This was exciting to see such a big fish hit the fly right at the surface.




I wasn’t able to hook the fish but this experience convinced me that I need to always make sure I give streamers a chance. I like to nymph fish upstream and streamer fish downstream. One idea is to fish upstream until I’m ready to turn back and head to the car. On the return trip, while leaving a little early to give me time to fish, streamer fish downstream. This is usually late in the evening when the larger fish go on the prowl and the insects have stopped hatching anyway. Another thought is to do what Jordan and I did on this trip. After fishing each hole thoroughly with nymphs, quickly fish it with streamers. I will experiment with these methods and see which one seems to work best.

Bonus Fish On the Way Back

After fishing for a couple of hours and I’m on my way back to the car I will often quickly fish the holes where I had caught fish on my first past through.  Wednesday I was fishing with Jon.  We had caught a few nice fish and we were a ways upstream from where we parked.  It was about time to head back.  So that we would have time to quickly hit the good spots on the way back, we started back a few minutes early.

By now those holes we fished earlier should be well rested and the fish eager to feed again.  I call these fish we catch on the way back bonus fish.  We have already fished the entire stretch we intended to fish so everything we catch on the way back is just a bonus.

Back at the first hole where we had caught a few fish an hour or two earlier,  I quietly approached.  I cast up into the current somewhat closer than where the best spot is located.  I do this just in case a huge brown is feeding in the shallows like they typically do this late in the evening.  I didn’t get a strike on the first cast, so I cast a little further out.  On my third or fourth cast, sure enough, I get a nice strike.  This is the bonus fish. Jon hustled downstream with the net so after fighting the fish a couple minutes I coaxed the fish toward the shore and Jon was able to net it.  It was a beautiful brown.  What a great way to end the day, with a bonus fish.

Small Trout and Big Thunderstorms

The clouds were threatening rain to the northeast but the forecast read that it would be clear for the rest of the evening. I tied my rain jacket around my waist just in case. With the cloudy afternoon the fishing should be great. Right off the bat I caught a couple small 6 to 8 inch browns. I headed to the next stretch and again, I catch an 8 inch brown. This is unusual, but it’s good to see these young ones in the river. These will be the ones I’m targeting in the next couple years. Finally I hook a nice 17 or 18 incher. It jumps and the hook comes loose. I fish that same stretch a few more minutes but only end up with another small one.

On my way to the next stretch, I see family of geese. It looks like the same family of geese I saw last week in the section a little further downstream. In the deeper section I catch another small brown but as I reach the top of the pool and cast into the shallow water right before the pool I hook a nice size brown. It shows off its aerobatics and then heads for the deep water. I allow it to fight the current in the deep water. I’m not worried about scaring fish in this hole because I have already fished it. I worked the fish back to the top of the pool and then allowed it to swim back downstream past the pool and into the shallow water where I was able to net it. It was a pretty fish, somewhat slim but a good 18 inches long.

At this time the lightning hits close by and it starts raining. I put my rain coat on intending to continue fishing. As another crack of lightning was heard I reconsidered. No need to be standing in the middle of the river waving a fishing pole during a thunderstorm.

Bloopers

Sometimes fish like to flop or jump right as a picture is being taken. 

It is like they sense the click of the camera and immediately flop so they are either in the air as the picture is taken or completely out of the field of focus.

I noticed this a lot on my last couple of trips.

I started to delete these pictures and then I thought I ought to share them first.

Some will have the fish in the air where you can get a different perspective (more realistic) than if the fish just laid still.

 

Others will just have a picture of the ground where the fish used to be.

Consider these pictures action shots or “what trying to take pictures of fish that you have just caught” is really like.

The trout are usually a lot more cooperative and calm than the white fish.

For some reason the white fish like to just keep flopping and flopping while you are trying to take the hook out or take a picture.

It can be frustrating at times and at times I feel the fish is just lucky that I heaved it back into the middle of the river rather than into the middle of the field or some other alternative.

No, really I usually still calmly release them.

Sometimes I do laugh at the white fish though, when they have been so energetic, flopping all over the place while I’m trying to remove the hook.

As soon as I place them calmly into the water, they turn belly up and stop moving all together. I tell them “come on, you’re not hurt that bad, you big baby!”

Luckily the trout seem a bit more dignified and stay upright, getting to their senses sooner and swim away just fine.

These are also pictures you can just laugh at, knowing the fish were playing tricks on a fisherman lucky enough to catch them.

Gold Medal at the Summer Corporate Games

It was Friday afternoon and I was looking forward to a quiet, relaxing weekend. As I started to save the documents that I had been working on, Seth from the Wellness Center approached me saying that someone had dropped out of the fishing competition for the Summer Corporate Games. We would have to forfeit unless we found one more person. Just then my phone rang. It read “Micro ID” on my caller ID. Just a minute Seth, I better take this call. Now Geremy was asking if I wanted to participate in the Corporate Games. When does it start? The boat needs to be ready to launch at Jordanelle Reservoir tomorrow morning by 6:00 AM.

At midnight, after shopping for the necessary fishing equipment, packing the car and taking my wife on a date, I set the alarm on my cell phone to go off at 3:45 AM. If I hurry I can eat a quick breakfast and make it to Geremy’s apartment by 4:45. He had planned on picking up the boat the night before, after the wedding he was attending up at Alta. I had printed the directions to the apartment the evening before so I would have no problems finding it in the dark. I took the exit off the highway and looked for Main Street. The map said turn left on Main Street. I couldn’t find it anywhere. After driving between 700 W and State Street a couple of times, I saw on the map that further down the road, 700 W was called Main Street. I finally made it to the apartment by 5:00. We better hurry.

Geremy and I arrived at the Jordanelle Reservoir right at 6:00. We paid the $10 park entrance fee and met our teammates Milton and Jordan. They are quite dedicated and actually went up the night before to camp, get their boat launched and check out the fishing. Geremy and I got signed in for the tournament, of course wearing our ARUP Corporate Games shirt and showing our ARUP Laboratory badges.

The format for the competition was: Four people per company team. Each team could keep eight fish. The winner is determined by the total weight of up to eight fish. The Utah fishing regulations applied: trout limit is four, bass limit is six. All bass over 12 inches must be immediately released.

We headed to the boat launch ramp. On the way I took pictures of a skunk raiding the picnic tables. Since we didn’t have a big power boat we stuck close to the dock, fishing along the shore between the dock and the dam. There were some nice bushes along the shore where we first started fishing. The Minn Kota battery-powered trolling motor was perfect for this. At first we tried yellow Fox spinners and didn’t have any luck. Then we tried Gary Yamamoto power bait jigs. These also didn’t yield any fish. Then we tried yellow Panther Martins, no luck. Well, how about a yellow curly-tail jig? Milton had mentioned that they had luck with the bass previous years with yellow spinners so I kept trying various yellow offerings. Bingo, I had a strike. The fish even stole the curly tail. I put on another one and sure enough. I caught a little smallmouth bass. By now we were near the rocks right before the dam. Maybe yellow curly tail jigs near the rocks is the ticket.

Within the next hour we caught a dozen small bass, enough to fulfill the eight-fish maximum. We let the smallest ones go. As we caught bigger ones, we would swap out the smaller ones and let them go. We got on the phone with Milton and Jordan. They had caught two trout and decided to meet up with us at the dam. As we met, they caught another bass. We pooled our catch together, keeping the biggest eight and again, letting the smallest go.

Just before heading back to the dock for weigh-in, I had a strike right at the surface as the curly tail hit the water. This fish was not one of those little ones I could just crank in. It took out line and went deep. This was the fish we were after. Even after a couple of minutes of fighting we still couldn’t see it. Finally we got it near the boat but then it would go under the boat and take out more line. The pole bent all the way into the water. Geremy grabbed the net and as I used the fish’s momentum to bring it near enough to the boat, Geremy netted it. What a beautiful fish! It measured 16 inches and weighed 2.5 pounds. Because the bass was over 12 inches long it had to be immediately released and didn’t count in the competition.

The ARUP Laboratories team took the gold medal. Not only was the aggregate weight of the team’s fish the largest, we were the only team to catch eight fish, and for that matter, the only team to catch more than one fish. Great performance team!!!

Loch Leven Brown vs German Brown

 

Last week I caught a brown that had no red spots. Instead it just had all black spots and was more silver in color than the usual brownish – yellowish color. I have noticed a few of these on the Weber River. They look distinctly different.

The German Browns that we usually catch have red spots with haloes around them. They are also slightly brown or yellow. The Loch Leven browns seem more silvery, not as yellowish brown and have no red spots.

As I arrived at the Weber River, I noticed there are now sign in stations where you put your name, license plate number, time, date, and how many fish you harvested. The stretch I was fishing this particular evening flowed through the Judd property. My wife’s maiden name is Judd. In Hoytsville there is an LDS church on Hoytsville Road at the Creamery Lane turnoff. It is a good landmark to know where to turn to get to the river. A few years ago my wife’s relatives had a Judd family reunion at this church house. Had I known at the time that I would be spending so much time on this river I would have tracked down the Judd’s who own this property and introduced myself.

There was quite a bit of insect activity this particular afternoon. I noticed caddis flies, mayflies and midges hatching. I tied on a couple of emerging caddis nymphs that I had bought last Saturday at cabelas. I immediately hooked a nice 17 inch brown that went air borne and I was off to a good start to the evening. After catching a couple of white fish I hooked the Loch Leven brown trout that I mentioned earlier. After this, the sky clouded over and the insect activity dwindled. I caught a small cutthroat and a few more white fish. My thought on this experience is that I should use nymphs while the insect activity is going strong but later in the evening when the hatches die down I should switch to streamers and target the big browns that come out as the sun sets.

Oh ya, there was a family of geese that watched me for a while as I fished. I love seeing the wildlife on these fishing excursions.

The First Cast

You know it will be a good day when you catch a 17 inch brown on the first cast. I had just pulled off Judd Lane at the bridge crossing the Weber River. No other cars were in sight. Since the sun was shining bright I placed the windshield covers on the dashboard and under the visors. I had two different caddis emerger flies already tied on and I looped my leader through a small, yellow Thingamabobber about four feet above the first fly.

Hopping over the guide rails of the bridge I climbed down to the river. I pulled a few feet of line off the reel and lightly cast it quartering upstream into the riffles right before the water ran into a deeper pool. The small, yellow strike indicator immediately darted under the water. I was hardly ready to handle the strike of a large brown. I was still working out line and getting into position to seriously fish this riffle. I wish I could say, “ya, this always happens on my first cast.” The trout quickly swam into the deeper water and bull-dogged me there for a few seconds. I got him to swim back upstream a bit where I could make him fight the current. After a moment he turned and swam back downstream. I used his momentum to pull him toward the shore and up on the grass. I snapped a couple of pictures and put him back in a deeper portion of the water near the shore where he hesitated until he realized he was free, then with one quick flip of the tail was out of sight.

My next cast was in the deeper water. This time I had my line worked out and I was standing in a better position to fish this stretch. Now that I had a little more line worked out I shot the next cast higher into the riffles slightly upstream from that first cast. Keeping my eye on the indicator and sensing a good drift, I kept the line ever so lightly tight as to not impede the drag free drift but still be tight enough that if I got a strike I would be right on top of it. Sure enough, the indicator hesitated and I lifted the rod - another brown. This one jumped and I could tell it was slightly larger than the previous one. This one also headed for the deep water on the other side of the river. It stayed deep near a couple of large boulders and I kept it just across from me. When it would start heading downstream I worked it back upstream. I tried the same trick that I pulled on the previous fish, pulling it toward the shore just as it turned and darted downstream. This time however, it got down stream a little too far and I put too much pressure on it. The line pulled out. I should have followed him downstream, played him a little longer and netted him in the slower water. I just didn’t want to try and deal with fighting him underneath the bridge where I wouldn’t be free to raise the rod. Oh well, fun fish. It was then that I realized that I had left the net in the car anyway.

Ok, off to the next good looking stretch. The next stretch actually ended up being below a string of boulders strewn across the river. These boulders created a series of riffles and alternating deep water and shallow water. I systematically worked these riffles all the way across to the other side. Then I cast right next to the bank, near a bush that overhung right above the last boulder. This riffle was a little deeper and not as fast. After a drag free drift of a couple feet I saw a flash in the water and I pulled on the line as I raised the rod. A large brown immediately leaped from the water. This was a nice fish. It stayed in the deeper water and tried to get right under the larger boulder.

Fearing there may be a build up of debris in which the line could get caught, I kept the fish from getting too close. I waded my way closer to the fish and as I got close enough to net it I grabbed the net from off my vest. I was glad I had gone back to the car to retrieve it. As the fish saw me with the net, it swam back upstream into the deep water near the boulder. Then as I got it to turn back toward me it was able to avoid the net somehow and take out more line going downstream. Luckily the stream quickly became shallow and I was able to follow it downstream a short distance. I then managed to lift its head above the water and slide it into the net. Holding the fish in the net, I quickly waded over to the other side of the river so I would have a spot to set it down, take the hook out of its mouth and click a few photos. It measured 19 and a half inches long. It had beautiful red circles with halos and a buttery color to its belly.