First Day Back

The old ball and chain let me sneak out finally this weekend for some fishing. Just kidding first weekend as a married man and I was out fishing, told you so all you haters. I woke up and went towards Circleville. I fished the water I usually fish when I go that way. Started off with a yellow zoo cougar and on one of my first casts I floated downstream and pulled up towards a good bank and had a vicious take from a nice 18" brown. I fished up river and managed to get my zoo cougar stuck in a high tree behind me. While trying tug it out of the tree one of my ferrules on my Sage SLT 4 weight broke in half. I was so disappointed I left to fish water further down the road, so I could cool down. I ended up driving towards Hatch and fishing the area there. I caught a bunch of dinky rainbows, but it was a good time. It was nice to get back on the water. 3 weeks I went without fishing just about killed me. Hope I can manage to get out again;) Sorry no pictures I forgot my camera and my buff.

End of an Era.

Epic Journey
Today was the closing of a chapter in my fishing career. With my wedding next week I will be no longer able to fish Blue Springs without a member. It's unlikely I won't fish Blue Springs again, but it won't be the same having to have a member to fish along side of me from now on. There have been enough memories made at Blue Springs in the last 10+ years to start its own blog. I started flipping(developed pictures) through old pictures and was reminded of some great trips. Blue Springs is where Matt "Pike" Anderson and started our fishing adventures. We started fishing bait and eventually worked to fly fishing. Collin Cleaner started fishing with me and Matt pretty much at the beginning, but not the very beginning:) There have been many friends along the way.

The Beginning Years
We fished a lot of bait from a boat and from shore, kept a fair amount of fish, we chewed a lot of sunflower seeds, listened to 959 the hawk faithfully, drank a lot of Dr. Pepper, skipped a lot of school, slept at the cabin many nights, and had a lot of fun. Also, started the SPC fishing club. We had a bunch of old 70's SPC hats and decided to start a club. It didn't last, but it was fun at the time. A lot of early mornings at the cabin with hot cocoa to get us going. Phrases like, "Collin the GD sun isn't even up yet," happened somewhere in the early years when we worried about waking up really early and anyone that knows me, knows I like my sleep. I also fished with a lot of different people in the beginning years. It was always an adventure.

First actual photo of first trip fishing trip to Blue Springs with Matt

Matt and I unashamed to take partial credit of Collins fish

Brett, Kyle and Joe, the 3 of us spent a lot of time on the waterWe would ice fish a couple times a year
Consumed lots of this, start of the belly
The beginning of the SPC fishing club. Never had any luck night fishing though

Seeds, SPC hat, Sun Tan and Soda(Dr. Pepper)

Somewhere In There.
After everyone we knew had to many fish in there freezers and a lot of bait chucking we started venturing into the unknown world of fly fishing. I believe it was me, Matt and Collin that got the necessary gear to get started. Eventually Steve, Brett, Joe and others got involved. I still remember going to SPC and fabricating our own fly rod tubes. We were all new and learned a lot of hard lessons. We eventually would go back to chucking due to frustration, but for the most part we stuck it out. Had some help with from people like John Schultz, Larry E, Wes C, Chris H, Dustin D, and some others. We didn't have nearly the help online that there is now from the extensive websites and youtube. I also began tying flies sometime around then,

One of the many sunset pictures I had.

Had to be awhile ago in those waders
In the beginning of the change

Old Glory, Woment want me fish fear me

The annual Kyle's butt kicking from Collin

Matt with a recent slab

Later years

Alot has happened in the last few years at Blue Springs. We had a couple epic seasons that produced many fish days often. The fishing got so good it seemed like I was taking lots of friends that wanted to learn to fly fish and families to fish with there kids. I took teachers that used to allow me to sluff class once in awhile so I could go fish(I think it was a good trade off), fished with lots of family I started taking a fair amount of clients, so I could get out on the water for work. It is a lot like the beginning years. I take a lot of different people because of the high volume catch rate and large fish.

Some of the Barney clan.

Matt Hirischi with his first catch on a fly rodErickson FamilySuwyn with a slab this early spring21"

Last Supper

The Last Supper
Got an early start up to Blue Springs with Matt this morning. We got on the water around 6:30 and got fishing. Not much later Desert Rock showed up and started fishing. They got one quick fished and released it. They figured it would be one of many to come. At about 10:30 they picked up and left without another fish, not even a bite. Matt had one bite and we were started back to the truck at about 11 and I finally hooked into a real fighter. I decided to keep this fish to give to my Grandma. She has been asking me to bring her fish since I quit keeping them about 5 or 6 years ago, so I figured I would surprise her with a fish.

I don't fish Blue Springs nearly like I used too. I have discovered more moving waters that I enjoy to fish more often. There are many memories that were not shared or could not be shared, but we all know what they are. I have a bunch of fun old pictures from the glory days of blue springs. I'll put a link of my Picasa account for anyone wanting to see some of the old shots. If you have any to contribute please do.

Blue Springs

Fish 5050

Jeff Turner wanted to send his son off to college with a memory that would last with him forever. The goal was to fish 50 trophy waters in 50 days. They have recently completed there journey and have the entire trip logged on there website with video clips to journal entries. Definitely worth a read.
http://www.fish5050.com/index.html

4:1 Ratio & Bad Juju

4:1 ratio is hours to fish for me Saturday. Out of 12 or 13 hours fished only 3 fish, but caught one hog so not such a bad deal, and I guess the company was okay?

Sometimes Dan feels bad for me when I don't catch fish. My hero!

Matt with a hog. Think he caught it on green sparkle power bait nuggets.

Oh look Dan caught a fish. Firefighters are such better heroes than cops.

In your face shot

Big SmileGrip'n Grin

Tying one on, something I did a lot of that day if you ask Chucko and the Donut Eater

A little golden light.

Saving the best for last.....If you think that this pig is so great because he is always catching the hogs. Well here is his secret, lots of weight to get down, just enough weight to hook the fish on the back. That's right, picture proof of Danny boy releasing his foul hooked fish something that happens for him more than not. Thanks Chucko for allowing me to shine light on this glorious fishermen. A fine fishermen indeed you might add.

Hoppers

Here's some pictures of a couple awesome days of hopper fishing with Matt and Mike. We had our first run in with a landowner using our Conatser rights granted to us at Congress' last session. The first day we ran into Steve, he was quite sure of kicking us out. He understood the law, but was upset to see someone using their rights. He was sure we couldn't pass a certain pool, and would assume trespassing if he saw us past that point. After we easily waded through the hole we saw Steve again and he was flustered and obviously upset. We kept fishing and he left. We caught lots of fish on hoppers and a couple slabs. On the way home Matt and I started fishing a little creek that was thought to have fish and sure enough caught some native cutts and brookies.

Couple days later we went up again to enjoy some more hopper action. We ran into Steve at the same spot as before. He was very courteous and seemed to be getting used to the fact that this was going to happen. We talked to him about politics and ranching. We invited him and eventually pleaded him to come throw a line with us to see why we loved fishing. He declined, but attitude was much different than the trip before. Matt and I were excited to have that over with and thought we were done with problems from the landowners. Not 1o minutes later I hear Matt yell, " thanks alot" and look up to see an old man and younger guy throwing boulders and logs into the water. After a couple minutes of the childish behavior I yelled, " we have every right to be here". He told us to get the hell out and leave. I yelled to Matt, "get your videocamera and film this guy" he hurried back to his 40' diesel.

Pretty crazy, but what do you do? Keep fishing! Catching started off slow, but when a little breeze picked up and the heat turned on we started getting into them. We walked further up than the trip before and caught some slabs. Although great fishing, it is very tiring walking up river, but I think its worth it.

Mike with his slab of the day

Whitefish before troutNice shot by Mike

Extended arms like so make fish look bigger. Matt's secret

Matt loves his whitefish. Maybe becauase he catches so many of them.

When the day was almost over and my legs were so tired and missed a couple footsteps and ended up in the drink to cool off.

Day 2 not in order

Day 1 in order

Went up north with Josh to meet Dan and do some fishing. We fished the same river most of the trip, but hit the Provo for a bit on Friday night.

This fish was caught amongst all the 6" Bonneville cutthroat you could want. I think Dan foul hooked it, but I don't remember.

First fish I've ever seen Dan let go. I guess he forgot his stringer.

Saw this cold one in the Provo waiting for someone to pluck it out it out of the frog water and slam it.

Luckily.......

Here's the snake they through on my side of the car, it started climbing down the window. After the fishing Dan made us steaks at his place which were pretty scrumptious considering we ate the hind end of the cow. We went down to get some malts in Heber and ended up at Dan's place of employment, The Police Station. Dan knows that I think most cops are just plain idiots, but everyone thinks that, right? We ended up watchin police vidoes and shooting the breeze with the Sarge and some of the other cops. After a couple of hours hanging out watching videos and telling stories were just about to leave and Farva thought it would be funny to have his dog scare me a little bit. I don't like police dogs, but I guess cops aren't so bad after all.