High Water On The Weber River

Tuesday was another day of warm weather. When I got to the Weber River it was 58 degrees. Just one problem, the water was flowing over the banks and was quite muddy.

I checked the U.S. Geological Survey site for water discharge on the Weber River near Wanship (below the Rockport Dam) and it said that Monday it had risen from 200 cfs to 300. Then on Tuesday it had risen to 400. The following day, on Wednesday it was up another 100 cfs to 500. Before January the river was running at its usual 80 cfs.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ut/nwis/uv?cb_00060=on&cb_00065=on&format=gif_default&period=120&site_no=10129500

After filling out the survey paperwork at the river access site, I proceeded to the overflowing river. The rocks on the bottom could not be seen. I went downstream a bit until I came to a bend in the river. The fast flowing water was flowing along the far side while the inside of the bend had calmer water. I was hoping I could catch something in this slower water, since the fish may use it to rest from the faster water.

Sure enough, after a few casts I managed to hook a brown. It took the San Juan Worm I was using. I was pleased to see it jump right after being hooked.

I managed to keep it from running into the faster water and heading down stream. After a short fight I easily pulled it up onto the brush the water had flooded into. After two quick pictures I let it slide back into the calm water near the shore.

I fished for a bit more but decided it was too hard to fight the current to get into a good casting position and the water was too high and fast to work my way upstream or downstream.

Earrings

The other day I stopped into the Western River’s Flyfisher shop to ask how the streams were fishing. They said the middle Provo River was fishing real well. The trout were mostly rising to midges in the middle of the day. They also mentioned that some of the guides were having luck on streamers and pointed to the brown Sex Dungeons that some had used.

I have some green Sex Dungeon streamers in my fly box but not any of these reddish-brown ones so I bought the last two they had. When I got home my wife was wearing some blue feather earrings. I wondered, those streamers I just purchased would make wonderful earrings. When I told her I had just bought her a new pair of earrings, her face lit up and she exclaimed, you did? I pulled them out and showed them to her. She loved them. She pulled out a couple of earring hooks and put them through the eyes of the streamer hooks and put them on.

They looked fantastic - original and classy. I proceeded to clip off the hooks and file smooth the place where I cut. I also put fly head cement on the places I cut just to make sure they wouldn’t scratch her. What do you think? Could this be the latest trend?

Wading Boots – Adding Cleats

OK, it's winter again.  It's been snowing all evening.  There are 5 inches on the back porch.  Good thing I got out and enjoyed the sunshine last week.

I bought a pair of felt sole wading boots (Simms) six years ago and they came with cleats that could be fastened into the soles. At the time, the felt soles seemed to work adequately for preventing slips. After using them for a couple of years though, I have noticed they aren’t as slip resistant as they used to be. Remembering the cleats that came with the boots, I went into the garage and found the old box the boots came in. Sure enough, the cleats were still there. To see if they really improved things, I added the cleats to one boot but not the other. On my next fishing excursion I put the experiment to test. I was amazed. The boots with the added cleats were tons better, that boot didn’t slip at all. The boot without cleats was slipping on the moss covered rocks.

The cleats are easy to insert. The felt soles came with pilot holes already drilled. The cleats themselves were actually hexagonal head screws that could be screwed into the pilot holes. I will add the cleats to the other boot before I head out again. Also…I have another pair of wading boots (Cloudveil) with rubber soles that I want to add cleats to. I will use the pattern from the felt boots and drill my own pilot holes. I ran down to the fly shop and as I expected, they sell packs of cleats just like the ones that came with Simms wading boots.

It’s Finally March

The weather was nice yesterday so I headed out to the Weber River. Within 15 minutes I had my first brown. It was a little skinny but still a nice fish. It took a little grey scud imitation.

After another half hour and no bites I decided to try something different. I tied on a large rubber leg stonefly nymph pattern and a bead head San Juan Worm. Then I added a third dropper, a midge pupa imitation on some 5X fluorocarbon. I immediately caught a huge white fish in some deeper water. It took the stonefly.

I hooked another fish upstream a bit underneath some tree branches. I had it hooked for quite a while but when I tried to pull the fish a little further upstream to some shallow water the hook came out. I moved upstream to one of my favorite stretches and hooked another large white fish.

It sure felt good to be out on the stream again.