Christmas Eve Cuts

Some people call us crazy...in fact, when I am dragging my boat around in snow storms and on icy roads I sometimes even feel crazy. It all pays off though when we start catching fish. The high on Wednesday was below freezing which means every fifteen minutes or so we had to pause and break the ice off the eyelets of the rods. This did not keep us from catching some fish. Evan had the first fish on right off the bat which ended up being an indicator for the rest of the day. It was a nice beautiful colored cutthroat. All the fish we caught were nice sized cutthroats all beautiful in color. There was one exception though...the biggest sucker I have seen caught on the Salt River and the first sucker I have seen snagged in the fin by a Rapala. Because of the circumstances it was an exciting fight and gave us much needed ice fishing bait for this winter! Here are some of the pictures. 

The big sucker

Salty Thanksgiving Weekend

In my opinion one of the best ways to start Thanksgiving is to load the boat and head to the Salt River. This is what Dad, Ben, and I did. We headed down to Salt River Heights to float to the Bedford turnoff. It was a bit cold, the water was murky and we didn't catch much. The important thing is we made it back in time for dinner. I am so thankful we have such good fishing less than ten minutes away.

One of our other plans this week was to float from Grover to Auburn which has been one of our all time favorites especially when browns are running. We decided that we would do that Friday because a storm is suppose to come in on Saturday. When we got going we saw a couple other boats heading to that section of river so we decided to do the Clark's barn to Grover float. It turned out to be a good choice because we caught some nice fish. I was surprised though because we caught a 3:1 cut to brown ratio. The cuts were beautiful, healthy, and fun fighting fish. The browns we caught looked kind of sick like they had been beat up a bit. Notice in the pictures one of the Browns had really big fins and tail but looked like it had lost some weight in its body. Anyways, overall it was a pretty good trip down the river with pleasant weather.  

Dad and Ben hit the Southfork...Finally!

Since about April I have been telling Dad how awesome the Southfork is and trying to find a weekend that would work for us to fish it together. Finally, we find a weekend in November.  I was expecting cold weather because of the time of year but for it being November it was a incredibly warm day and couldn't get any better.  I love the size of the river, the beauty of the scenery, and the size and fight of the fish. The river has changed a lot since spring. There is alot less water flowing now which is not a bad thing it just changes the holes. Some of my favorite holes from spring are a couple feet out of the water! I have to be reminded every time not to get stuck in a rut meaning what worked best a couple of weeks ago does not necessarily work the best now.Here are a few of the pictures we took.

Huskies to the bridge

First and foremost, I must admit if this was a picture less blog my report would be totally different. Mike and I would have caught a bunch of 4-5 pound browns, rainbows, and cutts. However, because I have pictures and I post them I have to tell you the truth...which kind of sucks sometimes because for some reason the pictures don't capture what my eyes see. Sometimes(as in almost always), my eyes see fish differently than my camera. I have even tried several different types of cameras and even recently bought a GoPro, all in the pursuit of finding one that sees and captures fish in the same magnitude as my eyes. Thanks to Evan, I am aware that my mental scale and tape measure are often exaggerated. But as any fisher is aware divide the poundage by half and the length by a quarter and we will be mentally seeing the same fish. Anyways, here are some pictures that show a bit of the truth of yesterdays entertainment and please help me keep the fish stories rolling.

A Little History...

 As my first post, I will let the pictures from some of the experiences I have had over the last few years tell you a bit about my history and love for fishing. I do want to say this...no matter how many fish I catch or how perfect of a day it is the best part about my fish stories is that I get to spend some quality time with my favorite people in some of the most beautiful places God has created for us. My family always has first pick to the seats of my boat; however, when they are not available my friends quickly fill the vacancy. I have spent hours and hours with these wonderful people on many miles of the Salt River that runs through the beautiful farmlands of Star Valley, Wyoming, the Southfork of the Snake River, the Henry's Fork of the Snake River, and several lakes that surround. My goal is to turn this blog into a personal fish journal of where I have been, with whom, and what we experienced. The fishing is always good: the catching is sometimes spotty.