Cadillac Ranch

Fishing in the upper stretches of the Weber River has helped avoid the main portion of run off this spring. Although a little high and slightly off color, it is definitely still fishable. In certain sections of the river you see lot of old, rusty cars along the bank. I fished by a line of them Monday. They were lined up like rip-rap preventing erosion along the bank. This caused the river to be a little deeper so I gave this “Cadillac Ranch” stretch a try with my nymphs. I was using midge pupa imitations and caught a medium size white fish. Then I remembered the last time I did throat samplings that I talked about in my blog “Stomach Pumps”. There were several bright green caddis larva in the sampling. I hurried and switched my nymphs from two different styles of midge imitations to two different styles of caddis nymphs.

I notice often that right after I switch patterns I immediately catch something. I think the reason is that the nymph is dry and when submerged into the water it has air bubbles stuck in the fly’s material, fur, synthetics or whatever was used to tie the fly. These air bubbles are easy to see, attract the trout, and probably look like insects that use gas to rise to the surface.

This time was no different. On the first cast after changing flies, I got a strong strike. I could tell it was a big fish because it took the line deep and I was not able to work it into the shallows for a few minutes. The trout didn’t jump and ended up coming to the net quite easily for a large brown. In fact, he seemed real calm. He just laid there and let me take a couple of pictures. He measured 19 and a half inches. I think he wanted to say “go ahead and get this over with and put me back in the water”. When I did release him back into the water, he just hung there in the water for a few seconds so I could take another picture. He swam away so slowly I was even able to get a second picture of him in the water. It was the most cooperative fish I’ve ever caught.