Wind Rivers

The highest lake in the basin had the best fishing for us.  I named it cutthroat lake, because it was the only lake that contained this trout.  While we were fishing, we kept a fish for lunch, but after knocking it on the head, it swam 20 feet from the bank, but and then died.  I didn't want to see it go to waste, so I swam out and got it.  The water was very cold to say the least, but I did need a bath.

Wind Rivers

We had a great time in the Wind River mountains last week.  The group included my friend from high school, Danny, and his 8 year old son Luke and my son Isaac, age 12.

We picked a trail out of Lander, Wyoming.  It was 8.5 miles into Stough Creek basin, with 2100 feet gain.  It was described in my hiking book as moderately strenuous, and I would agree.   This basin has 30 lakes and ponds.  They never named any of the lakes in fact.  I forgot my map, so it was fun exploring the basin and finding different lakes.  In fact, we caught fish in 9 different bodies of water, not including the streams.  We spent 4 nights and had a great time.  We experienced one bad day of weather with 4 hours of rain and hail and lighting hitting all around us, other than that the bugs were not bad and the fishing was really good.  Isaac caught many fish, and he doesn't even like to fish.  We ate fresh brook trout everyday for lunch.  We rarely saw people, even though they were scattered throughout the basin. 

Wind Rivers

 

 

 

 

Encampment River Wilderness

The girls and I went backpacking in the Encampment River wilderness a few weeks ago.  We hiked up the trail, which follows the river, until we found a nice spot to spend the night.  The temperature was warmer than I thought it would be,  reaching the 80s, so after we set up camp, we played in the water to cool off and I caught several brown trout. 
After seeing bear sign on the hike in, I made sure to hang our food 100 yards away from camp.  We had several deer hanging around camp at night and they did not seem afraid of us. 
The rain hit right at bedtime and we experienced a lot of heavy rain and lighting.  This made for a very wet morning, but the girls still had a great time.

I'm famous!

The second day fishing steelheads I ran into a guy from Austria.  He liked to talked a lot and wanted me to follow him to a "good fishing hole."  Since I was fishing by myself in bear country I didn't mind following him and fishing with him.  It turns out it was a great hole we hiked to and I landed two fish withing 30 minutes.  The bigger one he took a picture with his iPhone and promised to email the picture.  I have heard that before from people, so I didn't get my hopes up.  
True to his word, he sent the picture. 
When I got back to Wyoming I was looking at the Situk river fly shop website and saw the picture of me on their website, so that guy from Austria must have emailed that picture.  You can go to their website and see it.  They don't mention my name, so no credit was given to my nice fish.

their website is       www.situk.net           and then go to Bob's blog

Broken lines and fly rods?

After hooking into many steelhead we were becoming pretty confident until one broke Andy's favorite fly rod.

Situk River Steelhead

I have never caught a steelhead before.  They are rainbow trout that live in the ocean and come inland in streams to spawn.  They grow very big and are known to be difficult to catch and very strong fish when you have them on your line. 
The Situk river is a small river with many log jams and places a fish can break your line.  Add to that the fact that you have to use a much smaller line than with salmon, because the steelhead is much smarter and you can see the challenge. 
Andy lives a mere 9 miles from the Situk river in Alaska and some claim it is the best steelhead fishing in the world.  I finally gave in and spent the last week fishing there. 
It started off with a terrible rain storm(9 inches of rain in a few days) that blew out the river.  Each day the river dropped and fished better.  I slowly got the hang of it and by Thursday, Andy took a day off from work and we hit the river. 
I found a great hole where many steelhead were hanging out the day before(now known as steelhead hole to us).   We spent 4 hours there fighting many fish.  Because of the swift water, many log jams, we only landed one out of every 4 fish, but it was a great morning of fishing and I'll include some pictures.  These fish tested your arm strength like no other fish I have fought with a fly rod.  (By the way, these were the average size fish, the bigger ones broke our line.)

Green River

Did my annual fishing trip with Dan in April this year instead of May.  Luckily we were in between snow storms and had beautiful weather.(we had 8 inches of snow May 1st)
We fished the lower Green(below flaming gorge) and the upper Green in Wyoming 2 days.  Each day we floated in my drift boat.  We had some great fishing and very enjoyable time.  It was great for curing my Spring fever.

Soldier Hollow

We had some fun last weekend in Midway.  Adalee joined us for some tubing at soldier hollow.  The kids loved it.  On Friday, Emily and I went scuba diving in the Homestead crater.  Emily was a little nervous at first, but once she got in the water, she remembered her training and had a good time.

On Saturday we went to Salt Lake and joined Ben's family to see the acquarium.  We celebrated Marilyn's 71st birthday on Sunday with a feast and cake.  Everybody loved to see the puppies.  They are very tough being born in the subzero temperatures.  So overall a great trip.

Tubing at soldier hollow

Christmas 2012

The girls coming out of their room Christmas morning.

Jecca's last Christmas

Jecca's last Christmas.  She died 11 days after this video.  We are all very sad, but had a great few years with her.