Thursday, January 27, 2011

Stocked, yet again?

     I had to go with my wife this morning to Salt Lake City.  Several days ago she got a rock chip in the windshield of her truck.  The company that replaced the windshield back in September offers free rock chip repair but they closed their Riverdale office.  Off to Salt Lake City we went, while she was attending her meeting I went to Diamond Glass and got the repair.  One the way to SLC I got another call from Copper John.

    Guess what?  Meadows Creek Pond is being stocked again.  Wow, two days in a row with Rainbow and Brook brood stock.  I got home about 1pm and drove over to the pond.

    I ended up catching a ton of little ones and two brood stock, both Brookies.  The first brute was pretty big and gave a good fight but the second trout was huge.  This is the first time I had to use my drag to tire out a trout to get him in.  He was about 19” long with a firey orange-red belly.  I wish I had my camera with me but I forgot it because I am working on a new video at home.  Oh well, there will be more trout.  I caught both of them on purple wooly leeches.

     Tomorrow we home to hit the lower Odgen River.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Meadows Creek Pond Stocked

     I got a call from Copper John this morning, it seems like Meadows Creek Pond is being stocked again, with brood stock.  I couldn’t go when he called but did get to go in the afternoon.

     One thing that was different with this stocking was some really big fish were hanging out right next to the shoreline.  I found that if I dropped an orange scud right in front of them and dangled it for a couple of seconds they would strike it.  It was pretty interesting because I got to see how trout feed.  The would either sip it, inhale it, or lunge at it and grab it.  The trout that sipped the fly didn’t fight at all.  I ended up catching two brutes off the shore and a host of smaller fish.

     Here’s a video I made during in November of the DWR stocking the pond.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Preparing for Odgen River and a little Mysty trouble

     On Saturday night I got a book for the library that mentioned that fishing East of Wall Street on the Odgen River has some big brown trout in it.  The book suggested wooly buggers, crayfish, and muddlers. 

     Using a larger pattern on top of a smaller pattern worked so well that I decided to use it again.  I tied some big pistol petes and some smaller wooly leeches to hang beneath them.  I tied a crayfish but it doesn’t look so hot, I think I need some practice tying them.

     I wanted to practice tying some crayfish patterns but I got into some trouble with Mysty.  Mysty is one of the kittens that I trapped (rescued) from Glassmans Pond in Odgen.  On Saturday afternoon I noticed that Mysty has crawled in his cage and went to sleep.  Very unusual, Mysty usually cries to be let out of his cage.  Sunday all he wanted to do was sleep, he wouldn’t purr or eat.  This morning he ate a little and purr some so I thought he was getting better.  I noticed that he had bad breath and at one point I had trouble getting him to wake up so I took him to the vet.

     It turned out that Mysty’s blood work showed an infection somewhere in his little body.  He got a shot of antibiotics that will last him two weeks and he has to spend the night with the vet to make sure he eats and drinks.  Over the past couple of weeks Mysty has decided that I am his human.  He gets jealous when another cat is in my lap, he follows me around.  Mysty is quite the little lovable kitten, I hope he pulls through OK.  That kind of ended my fly tying for today because I keep thinking about the little guy.  The vet thinks that he will recover just fine and I am supposed to pick him up tomorrow sometime after 10am.  If he is doing better I will put him in his cage to sleep and hit the Odgen River in the afternoon,

     Here is a picture of Mysty sitting on my lap.

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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Little fishing a big fish

      I can’t believe it was 45 degrees out there today, I had to drop a line in some water.  I read an article last night that you tie a fairly big midge about one and a half to two feet above a smaller midge pattern.  The bigger midge is supposed to get the attention of the trout who see and hit the smaller midge.  I tied on a #10 sexy chironomid and hung a #16 brown chironomid beneath it.  It worked, whatever it does, it worked.  The first trout I caught with it was at least 18”.  The second and third about 15” apiece.  I couldn’t fish long I am still hanging out with 4 little kittens.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Ogden River

     Today I called John and we went to the Odgen River for a couple of hours.  I had read a fishing report for the Odgen and Weber Rivers that #18 brassies and scuds were what was catching fish.

     On Google maps I noticed a screen that is used to keep stocked trout from getting into the 21st Street Pond; I reasoned that there might be some trout up against the screen so that’s where we went.

     On the way up the trail we found a still water break with a huge trout in it, the biggest I have ever seen.  I could see him swimming around and I was able to put my flies right in front of his face.  He nosed past my brassies, scuds, and eggs.  I am pretty good with wooly leeches so I tied one on my line.  About five times he moved towards my leech by at the last second he would turn away.  I finally had a good profile on him.  He was swimming about 10 feet away from me crossing left to right.  I had tossed the fly over towards him and stripped the fly in until it was above him.  I let it sink down to about three inches off to the left of his face.  I jerked the leech just once and he pounced on it. 

     Here’s a nice picture of him.  Keep in mind that my reel is about three inches across.  Using the reel I measured him at 26 inches long, my biggest  trout to date.  This is a hatchery fish. You can tell because Utah keeps the fish in concrete ponds until ready to release. I've been told that the concrete walls of the tank wears down the fins of the fish. Had this been a wild fish it probably would have been 28 inches or more longer. If you look closely at his upper lip you can see the wooly leech. Unfortunately, this was the only fish we caught after three hours of fishing.

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Saturday, January 01, 2011

2010, in review

Seems like everyone is doing a year in review, so why can’t I do one?

During the summer this year I was considering quitting fly fishing altogether.  I couldn’t cast and after hours and days of fly fishing I hadn’t caught anything.  I met a kindly gentleman named Dale at Meadows Creek Pond in Roy, Utah and he gave me some awesome advice.  I followed what Dale told me and I had enough success to get excited about fly fishing again.  When the weather is warmer my wife likes to join me for a couple of hours of fishing.  She saw how the other fly fishers were casting and gave me pointers on the back cast.  Under the right conditions (I feel good, no wind, light fly) I can back cast up to 60 feet.  I can roll cast about 40 feet.  One of the things I tried to do was to catch as many trout as I could in one calendar day, I caught 72 on a fly that I not only tied but changed to meet the hatch.

I’ve been tying my own flies for several months now and I have even posted a few videos of how I tied them on Youtube.  One of the videos was picked up on a web site in Japan.  I have invented several flies that work great; the sexy chironomid and leechasaurus.  I have even figured out an easy way to make spoon bodies for flies.

I caught and tamed four feral kittens.  The kittens that I caught at Glassman Pond in Odgen are awesome.  We just had them fixed and they are recovering.  One of my worst fears has been realized, my wife and I got attached to all of them.  The people who wanted the kittens either backed out of the deal or couldn’t adopt them.  My wife told me last night that we would keep them all.  Just after Christmas my wife and I were able to pick Shadow up and put her in a blanket.  Shadow started purring.  The next day we had Shadow tested and she was negative for FIV and FLV so we introduced her to our other two cats (yes, we now own six cats, my wife loves cats.  I would go to hell for my wife, six cats is a small price to pay).  We got a small ferret cage and are keeping her in it until she is comfortable enough and big enough to be released in our house.  Mysty’s surgery was botched.  The vet thought that Mysty was a female and opened him up to spay, unfortunately, Mysty is a little boy so he has a 1.5 inch incision in his gut as well as being neutered.  We put Mysty in another ferret cage to watch him.  What a little sweetheart Mysty is.  After we got him away from the other cats he started being a lap kitten.  Mysty loves to be rubbed and snuggled and play.  Smoky is still downstairs with Buddy.  Smoky loves to eat and be rubbed.  Bring down a plate of food and Smoky will come out of hiding to eat and get rubbed.  We found out that Buddy was the alpha cat.  I saw was because I am the alpha.  Buddy learns quick and is very smart.  Buddy loves to be rubbed and has a purr that sounds like a diesel truck.  I didn’t want to keep all the kittens but my wife wants them.  I can imagine a day in the future when I wake up with six cats sleeping next to me.  Smile

I had two surgeries this year, I hate being cut open but it turned out to be a good thing.  I feel much better.  Thanx docs.

For Christmas I got a brand new fly reel.  A Martin 3/4 weight.  I love it!

I quit my job, my last day was the 15th of November.  I had an appointment with a VA counselor and the fact that I quit my job came up.  She seems to think I have PTSD and now I have an appointment with the VA about it.  I guess just short of 26 years as an air traffic controller and two tours in the Middle East took its toll.  I got a fairly good lead on a job on Hill AFB but they announced a job freeze. Ouch.  Its alright, I will keep looking.  At least the wife has a good job and I get my USAF retirement check and some money for disability from the VA.  Life’s good!

I got involved with troop 719 at the Golden Spike Elks Lodge.  What an awesome bunch of guys.  I am really looking forward to hiking and camping with them this summer!

I’m really looking forward to the new year.  I can’t wait for the summer when I can hike up to some of the lakes in the mountains and fly fish.  The videos that I have been making on fly fishing are actually puzzles for geocaches.  If you didn’t know to look for the puzzle you would never see it.  I have three videos and geocaches that I am working one in my spare time which is quite a bit at the moment.  I am going to hide some geocaches up at these mountain lakes.

Well, I would like to write some more but I got to go change a litter box.  We changed the kittens food to different brand with higher protein and it gave Shadow the squirts.  I didn’t know that cats could fart.