It has been a few weeks since I have fished on the Lower Provo in the morning. The last time I was on the river there was enough light to start fishing at 6:45 am. This morning there was enough light to start fishing at 7:10 am. I fished using a jig and also a spinner. It was getting close to 7:50 am (which is when I need to leave so I can get to work on time) and I had not yet had a bite. With just 5 mins to spare I finally caught a 15" Brown. It wasn't the biggest fish but this one fish prevented me from getting skunked so I'm very happy about that. Since there is not that much light in the morning for me to fish before having to leave to work I think this will be my last fish before work experience until next year.
I will start finding a few hours in the evening to fish on weekdays. Until next time.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
BIG FISH CHALLENGE - Green River (August 13, 2011)
GREEN RIVER 2011 BIG FISH CHALLENGE
Competition base camp was located at Flaming Gorge Recreation Services Conoco Station's RV Park. Registration check-in for the competition started bright and early at 6:30 am. By 9 am all of the contestants were checked in and out fishing. We had 16 participants total in the competition. Sections A and B are the allowed places to fish for this competition.
We setup a mid day result check-in at Little hole where we had drinks available for the contestants and where we could judge their catch results. We only had a few participants take advantage of this when the others stayed on the river and continued to fish
(here was our mid day top results)
We re-opened our base camp at 5 pm and shortly after we had some anglers showing up and the final judging began. By 6 pm the competition came to an end and shortly after we had found our top 2 winners.
Our first place winner was a surprising 13 year old twin by the name of Jace Garcia. He caught this very nice Brown trout that measured 21 3/4". Jace caught this monster fish on a Black Triple Double fly.
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Our second place winner was Chris Greenwood that caught this nice 17" Rainbow. Chris caught this fish using a Rainbow Dynamic Lure. Chris was also the second place prize winner on the Provo river were he won an assorted pack of Dynamic Lures were he recieved the lure that caught him this winning fish.
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There were a lot of great fish caught by our contestants one of the catches which was a surprise by me was this 25" Northern Pike caught by Thomas Huber. This competition was a trout only competition which disqualified this catch as the biggest catch but it was still a very nice catch one that I felt needed at least an honorable mention.
Here is the URL to see all of the final standings and fish caught by all of the participants:
Click here to see all of the photos for the competition:
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Green River Fishing (September 23-24, 2011)
This is a delayed post but here is the fishing report of my Green River September 23-24 fishing trip.
September 23 (midnight to 2:30 am)
This is the 2nd annual couples fishing trip with Geno and Khirsten Hadley (good fishing friends). I have been on the pursuit of catching a 20" plus trout for along time. The information that I have gathered that I haven't yet had the opportunity of trying is that the big fish feed at night. The record Brown trout caught on the Green River caught by Mark Miller was caught at 2:30 am. I told this information to my buddy Geno and we both decided that we would give it a try. We got at the Little Hole parking lot around midnight, got our gear on and started to walk up the trail to Coney Island. The walk up to Coney Island was super spooky; it was pitch black out with no moon in sight. Being super dark out, in the middle of the night out in nature your mind starts playing tricks on you. After a 20 min walk we finally made it to Coney Island and started fishing. I fished for about an hour at this spot trying various jig colors with no luck. I happened to have some Blue Fox lures in my bag and I decided to give it a try because of the vibration that it puts off. I gave the new lure about 5 casts and finally caught my first fish. The fish wasn't the monster that I was hoping for but it was still a catch. I caught this 15" Brown trout.
September 23 (early morning 7am - 11 am)
September 23 (evening 6 pm - 8 pm)
Tonight Geno isn't feeling good so I will be fishing with my wife (Tammy) and Geno's wife (Khirsten). We parked at the upper parking lot at the Dam, collected our gear to walk down the trail. I felt something was missing and realized it was my fishing pole. I went to the back of the car, looked into the trunk and there wasn't an extra pole in there. My wife noticed that Khirsten was holding my "Cross Fire" rod. She mistook it for hers and then she realized that she left hers back at the cabin. We walked down the trail and made it to the river. Since I allready had the opportunity of fishing in the morning we lent one of the rods to Khirsten to use. It was a perfect night with a perfect temperature but the fishing was very slow. It didn't take long to chew up 2 hours of fishing and at the end of the day I think Khirsten caught 2 fish, my wife got skunked, and I did get a few chances to cast the line in for myself and caught 3 fish.
September 24 (7 am - 6:30 pm)
For a very long time I have always wanted to walk and fish the entire trail of section A. This morning we decided that we would walk the 7 mile trail from Little hole to the Dam and fish along the way. We dropped a car off at the dam and headed down to Little hole. We got to Little Hole and ready to start our morning of fishing at 7 am.
September 23 (midnight to 2:30 am)
This is the 2nd annual couples fishing trip with Geno and Khirsten Hadley (good fishing friends). I have been on the pursuit of catching a 20" plus trout for along time. The information that I have gathered that I haven't yet had the opportunity of trying is that the big fish feed at night. The record Brown trout caught on the Green River caught by Mark Miller was caught at 2:30 am. I told this information to my buddy Geno and we both decided that we would give it a try. We got at the Little Hole parking lot around midnight, got our gear on and started to walk up the trail to Coney Island. The walk up to Coney Island was super spooky; it was pitch black out with no moon in sight. Being super dark out, in the middle of the night out in nature your mind starts playing tricks on you. After a 20 min walk we finally made it to Coney Island and started fishing. I fished for about an hour at this spot trying various jig colors with no luck. I happened to have some Blue Fox lures in my bag and I decided to give it a try because of the vibration that it puts off. I gave the new lure about 5 casts and finally caught my first fish. The fish wasn't the monster that I was hoping for but it was still a catch. I caught this 15" Brown trout.
I continued to fish using the blue fox but didn't have any additional luck. After fishing in the middle of the night in pitch black for 2 hours and catching only 1 fish we decided it was best for us to go back to the cabin to get a few hours of sleep because we were planning on waking up early at 5:50 am to get an early start on the morning fishing.
September 23 (early morning 7am - 11 am)
After 3 hours of sleep the sound of an alarm clock comes way to early. Geno and I woke up at 5:50 am, got all of our gear ready and headed down to Little Hole again for round two. The girls didn't join us this morning because they wanted to sleep-in. We finally got on the river around 7 am and started to fish. This fishing was slower than I was use to on the Green River but the fish were biting enough to keep it interesting. We fished for 5 hours and during this time I caught 17 fish (mixed Rainbows and Browns).
My favorite catch of the morning was this 16" Brown. I liked it for its golden underbelly and great side markings.
During the morning fish I came across a section of the river that had hundreds of black and red fuzzy caterpillars. I also saw this cool yellow, blue and white banded caterpillar. The caterpillar on the left is called a "Wooly Bear Caterpillar" and the one on the right is a "Monarch Caterpillar".
September 23 (evening 6 pm - 8 pm)
Tonight Geno isn't feeling good so I will be fishing with my wife (Tammy) and Geno's wife (Khirsten). We parked at the upper parking lot at the Dam, collected our gear to walk down the trail. I felt something was missing and realized it was my fishing pole. I went to the back of the car, looked into the trunk and there wasn't an extra pole in there. My wife noticed that Khirsten was holding my "Cross Fire" rod. She mistook it for hers and then she realized that she left hers back at the cabin. We walked down the trail and made it to the river. Since I allready had the opportunity of fishing in the morning we lent one of the rods to Khirsten to use. It was a perfect night with a perfect temperature but the fishing was very slow. It didn't take long to chew up 2 hours of fishing and at the end of the day I think Khirsten caught 2 fish, my wife got skunked, and I did get a few chances to cast the line in for myself and caught 3 fish.
September 24 (7 am - 6:30 pm)
For a very long time I have always wanted to walk and fish the entire trail of section A. This morning we decided that we would walk the 7 mile trail from Little hole to the Dam and fish along the way. We dropped a car off at the dam and headed down to Little hole. We got to Little Hole and ready to start our morning of fishing at 7 am.
(Left to right: Brandon Pack, Geno Hadley, Khirsten Hadley, and Tammy Pack)
We walked up the trail about 100 yards when I did my first cast of the morning. On my first cast I caught a 15" brown. This gave me great hope that we would have a good day of fishing. We continued to walk the trail being very selective of the holes to fish in because we had 7 miles of river to cover.
In one of the first holes we came upon I caught this nice Rainbow Trout. This Rainbow really stood out to me because it was very stout with a long skinny bottom jaw not common on a Rainbow.
We continued to fish and work our way up the river and got to my favorite fishing hole above Little hole on Section A. This hole is called "Dripping Springs" but I call it "Fisherman's Relief" because there is an outhouse there.
I love the scenery at this place with the tall red rock canyon walls and the fishing here is always great.
Right above Dripping Springs I caught this Rainbow trout that was very unique because it had a yellow skin instead of the usual silvery white. I really like the middle picture with a cool sun spot.
We were about 2 miles up from Little hole when my wife realized that she left the keys for the car that is parked at the top at the Dam in our car at Little hole. My wife and Khiresten decided to walk back down to Little hole to get the keys. While they were gone I slowly fished and waited for them to come back. The hike back down to Little hole and back added an extra 4 miles to their hike. It didn't take that long for them to quickly hike the 4 extra miles and joined back up with us. We continued our way up the river.
Here is a great view of the the bottom of the "Mother in-law" rapids.
Right above the "Mother in-law" rapids my wife caught here first fish. It was this Brown Trout. She was so proud of this fish but not proud enough to touch it. I held it up to her and took this picture.
Here is a nice Brown trout I caught right above "Mother in-law"
This is around mile 3 of 7 miles. I really like this view of the river.
Once we got to this point (mile marker 3) it was about 3:30 pm. We have been fishing for 8 and a half hours and have only covered 3 miles and had 4 more miles to go. We decided that we need to pick up the pace and start hustling out before it got to late. Because I was focused on fishing during the first 3 miles I really didn't pick up on the temperature nor was I tired from the hike. But once we took that fun out of the hike which was fishing and focused on just this hike I started to slowly feel the heat and started to feel my legs and feet wearing out.
Each mile we hiked I felt myself slowing down. Inside my waders right were the neoprene sock is sown to the canvas wader the seam was rubbing my leg and really started to hurt. At the bottom of my wading boots I have spikes and every spike was a pressure point on the bottom of my feet and they started to hurt. Hiking in waders and wading boots for a long period of time is not recommended. I felt myself really starting to wear out and was counting down the miles markers as we saw them. I was so excited to finally see this final mile marker.
With only 1 more mile to go I found some extra energy to finish the 7 mile stretch. During this final mile we started to see anglers fishing the river bank and they all were so friendly and chipper.
We finally made it to the dam and I was so grateful. We made it back to the dam at 6:30 pm and during our 11 and a half hours of fishing I only caught 10 fish. This was the slowest day I have ever had fishing the Green River. Even though the fishing was slow, my legs were gashed open from my waders and my feet hurt due to the studs on the bottom, but I was still very grateful that I had just fished and walked 7 miles along side my favorite river.
There is a saying that the Japanese say about hiking Mount Fuji and that is: "You are a fool for not hiking to the top of Mount Fuji in your lifetime but even a bigger fool doing it more than once". I feel this to be the same as this 7 mile stretch. I would recommend that you have the chance of doing it once but then never doing it again.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Weber River Fishing (October 10, 2011)
This morning I went fishing on the Weber River. I had the great honor to fish with Thomas Huber and Chris Greenwood (competitors and winners of the 2011 Big Fish Challenge). Thomas and Chris fished all three rivers of the competition and proved that they are Rock Star River Anglers. Today is my chance to fish with them and finally get to see them in action.
We got on the river around 7:15 am. Within a few casts Chris caught the first catch of the day which was a monster 20 3/4" Brown (biggest fish caught for the day), what a great way to start the morning.
I started doing what I know best and that is jig fishing. I jigged for the first 20-30 mins of the morning and quickly realized that my form of fishing on the Weber is not as effective as Chris and Tom's because I hadn't caught anything nor had a bite. At this point Chris and Tom had caught at least 5 fish each. "When in Rome do as the Romans do" came to mind so I took off my jig and tied up the spinner that Tom and Chris were using. I started fishing alongside them trying to learn their technique. Both Chris and Tom were very helpful and started to teach me. I felt like a golfer that was changing his golf swing. To me everything was off and at first it was hard to adjust. With some time I started to catch some fish and was slowly figuring things out. Often Chris and Tom caught fish at the same time.
These guys like to keep it fair so whenever they get into a good looking fishing hole they will do a 1,2,3 count and all cast at the same time. One time I remember all three of us doing this and all three of us caught a fish at the same time.
We got to about 3/4 of the way up river when I felt like I had finally figured it out and started catching fish close to the masters. Within 30 mins I had doubled my catch total and was looking for more. This is about the time I caught my biggest fish for the day.
Tom and Chris continued to catch nice fish and proved to me that these guys are master river anglers. It has been a long time since I have been out-fished (I was schooled and served up a nice slice of humble pie).
We got on the river around 7:15 am. Within a few casts Chris caught the first catch of the day which was a monster 20 3/4" Brown (biggest fish caught for the day), what a great way to start the morning.
I started doing what I know best and that is jig fishing. I jigged for the first 20-30 mins of the morning and quickly realized that my form of fishing on the Weber is not as effective as Chris and Tom's because I hadn't caught anything nor had a bite. At this point Chris and Tom had caught at least 5 fish each. "When in Rome do as the Romans do" came to mind so I took off my jig and tied up the spinner that Tom and Chris were using. I started fishing alongside them trying to learn their technique. Both Chris and Tom were very helpful and started to teach me. I felt like a golfer that was changing his golf swing. To me everything was off and at first it was hard to adjust. With some time I started to catch some fish and was slowly figuring things out. Often Chris and Tom caught fish at the same time.
These guys like to keep it fair so whenever they get into a good looking fishing hole they will do a 1,2,3 count and all cast at the same time. One time I remember all three of us doing this and all three of us caught a fish at the same time.
We got to about 3/4 of the way up river when I felt like I had finally figured it out and started catching fish close to the masters. Within 30 mins I had doubled my catch total and was looking for more. This is about the time I caught my biggest fish for the day.
I caught a Brown Trout measuring 18 3/4" (look at that sweet hooked jaw).
Tom caught the second biggest fish of the day and it was this nice 19 3/4" Brown.
Tom and Chris, thank you so much for an awesome fishing day on the Weber River!
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