Uintah Mountains Utah

[golferjeff]

My wife and I spent the last week in and around the Uintah Mountains in north-central Utah.  What a great place!  We stayed at Falcon's Ledge near Altamont, UT.  It is an upscale fishing lodge at the base of the mountains.  Great food, good company, fantastic guides, cool weather, and most importantly, great fishing.  We went there because they offered a free Orvis Fly rod, Spouses stayed and ate for free, and it was 100 degrees in Texas.  There are so many mountain streams you can't fish them all.  They also have valley rivers, tailwaters, stocked ponds on site, and a few mountain lakes available to fish.  The largest 'River' was no bigger than the upper evening hole area on the LMF.  Flows were all between 50 and 200 CFS.  Some were in the wilderness, some were near towns, some were beneath reservoirs.  All had their own special charm.  It was a fantastic week to end our summer.

The lodge is about 2 hours from Salt Lake City airport, so I dressed appropriately and planned to fish on our way to the resort.  My lovely and understanding wife just brought her hiking shoes and a good camera .  First, I fished the Upper Strawberry river and caught a few nice little Bear Lake Cutthroats.  As we moved further East, I fished a little tailwater named Currant Creek.  Currant Creek is full of 8-14" Browns and I managed a half dozen in about 1 hour.  My last cast netted a nice 13" fish.  It was on to the resort from there.

Sunday dawned bright and sunny.  The stillwaters on the property are full of trout species.  They have 8 spring fed ponds/lakes that are stocked with Browns, Brookies, Donaldson Steelhead Rainbows, Rainbows, and Tiger Trout.  I had never caught a tiger trout, so I tried my luck that morning.  I came up empty on Tigers, but I did land a nice foot long brookie and one of the steelhead that ran about 20".  My guide and I headed off to the Duchesne River (the largest in the area) for a full day of fishing.  The Duchesne flows though farmland and a few small towns.  It was the closest resemblance to LMF from CLiffs to EH Bridge.  We fished about 1.25 miles of stream and it was all productive.  We dry-dropper fished all day.  Anything that could float a beadhead midge or PMD nymph was on top.  The fish were not super picky.  We used mostly stimulators and size 12 hoppers.  The Duchesne is noted as a Brown Trout fishery, but I managed to catch a Utah SuperSlam.  I caught several Browns up to 20", a few fat rainbows, a whitefish, a beautiful cuttbow, a Colorado River cutthroat, and finally a nice Brook Trout.  The Brook trout was only the second my guide had seen in the main river in 17 years of guiding.  Pictures from Sunday are below.  It was truly an epic day, one that I will never forget

Story continues below

[golferjeff]

The typical Browns from the Duchesne....

[brandon]

nice, thanks for sharing

[golferjeff]

MOnday we fished Rock Creek tailwater that flows from Upper Stillwater dam. Lots of small Brookies and Browns, but nothing picture worthy. Beautiful reservoir and great scenery though. Back at the lodge we tried for my first Tiger Trout. Came up empty again, but we did manage a steelhead/rainbow that taped at 23". Most of these fish were between 18 and 25" and fought like crazy. If you have never seen your backing on the reel, just latch onto one of these and hold on! Their runs and jumps are amazing to watch. Nice lake Brookie pic too.


Tuesday I spent fishing the lakes around the lodge.  I had gotten some insight as to which lakes held certain kinds of fish.  I was armed with a dry fly rod and a big streamer rig and ready for some fish.  I moved from pond to pond and caught more rainbows and brookies, but I came to a lake called Green Meadow that was supposed to hold some Tiger Trout.  My first cast produced this smallish but beautiful fish:



My very first Tiger Trout!  They are a hybrid of Brown Trout and Brook Trout.  They rarely occur in the wild, but are very popular with hatcheries in the west. The colors and markings are spectacular. After I released this little guy I fished for a few more hours. Several more rainbows came to net. I was landing a nice rainbow on another lake when I saw a wake I had never witnessed before. A big 'V' pattern came right at me from the middle of the pond. In about 2 seconds I was face-to-tooth with a 40"plus Tiger Muskie. He wanted my rainbow and I wasn't going to argue with him. He bit the rainbow in half, tried to come back for the upper half, then retreated to deeper water. I was left shaking and mesmerized. I had never seen anything like this before. I reeled in my 1/2 rainbow and tossed him to a few Ravens nearby. Later when I told this story, the guides told me that pond was stocked with 24" Tiger Muskies 4 years ago to control an unwanted population of chubs. They usually are only seen each spring at ice-off when they come to the shallows to feed. The largest caught has been 44". A few people have had the same experience that I did - a chub or rainbow gets attacked on the reel-in. A great end to a fun day on the lakes.

Story continues below (after lunch!)

[TAStockton]

Sounds like an amazing trip man. Nice job on the tiger trout, Ive never caught one. they are beautiful fish for sure.

[golferjeff]

Wednesday we went to Yellowstone Creek (not river).  The normal flows were 60CFS and we had 400 CFS - blown out.  What we had not expected was that it was snowing up high and immediately melting.  We fished for a few hours, but called it a day and went up to enjoy the snow above 11000 feet.  I did catch two colorful fish (below).  The dam was similar to our re-reg dam on the lower LMF - it usually has one or two overflow areas and you can fish the area beneath it like in Zone III.  It had gates open, overflow pouring, and no fishable water at all.

_ 

Thursday dawned much better.  The snow and rain had moved on so we decided to fish the Strawberry River Tailwater.  The Strawberry is the most unique tailwater I have ever fished.  It ranged from open meadows to boulder strewn cliffs to narrow canyons and tree lines canopies.  SOme casts were 40 feet with a 3 foot window in the canopy.  I sruggled at first, but got the hang of it as we moved along.  The river is famous for its Browns - up to 30".  It also has a population of Yellowstone Cutthroat that move down from the lake above.  The water is crystal clear, cold, and the deepest holes were only about 4 feet deep.  Sight fishing was the preferred method.  Dry/Dropper rigs plumbed the holes and double dries (stimmy, hatch match) handled the rest.  It may be my favorite river to have ever fished.  Great water combined with scenery (Eagles, mountain goats, Grouse) made it special.  We fished almost 3 miles of the stream.

More below:

[mirvc17]

Awesome story and trip! Thanks for sharing.

[golferjeff]

We pulled fish out of most every likely spot.  The Browns loved the undercut banks and any structure.  I think in all we netted 30-40 fish and each one was more colorful than the last.  The Browns were either heavily spotted in leopard black or had vivid red spots surrounded in blue halos.  The casting was a chore for sure, but the reward was worth it.  The smallest brown was about 3" and the largest we landed was about 20.  We spooked several from undercut banks that would make even Bessett's heart jump.  Most of the fish took the dropper midges and beadhead rs2's, but a few took the dry fly.  Here are a few examples of Strawberry River fish:

 

More Strawberry Below:

[golferjeff]

 

The Browns were amazing in this river.  The fish of the day (my first ever) was a Yellowstone Cutthroat enticed out from under a beaver dam.  Spectacular colors of Gold, Crimson, and orange.  Pictures of him are below.

[golferjeff]

Yellowstone Cutthroat

 

To this point in my trip, this was the most beautiful fish by far.

[golferjeff]

Thursday night provided more lake thrills as I hooked into about 15 more steelhead/rainbows. I was tossing a streamer called a Meat Whistle (size 0) and these fish acted like it was something they had never seen before. I had witnessed a few crayfish in the ponds, so I knew they were in there. Bouncing it off the bottom in short, fast strips made the rainbows and brookies go nuts. www.intheriffle.com/fishing-videos/fly-tying/barrs-meat-whistle/

Friday meant a fishing day with the wife. She fishes once per trip and today was her day. Luckily, she was flirting with our guide and having a good time so she wasn't too worried about the fish. While she worked on her casting and presentation on the lakes with the guide (he was very Hands-on!!!!), I coaxed another 10 rainbows, a few Brookies, and a cutthroat to net. Figuring I better check on my wife, I headed up to the pond where they were 'Fishing'.  They had not had any luck, so I located nearby and tossed my streamer along the gravel bottom bank.  Before it even hit bottom the line went tight and it was fish on!  I ran the rod over to my wife and handed it to her and told her to land it.  the guides call this the 'hot-potato move'.  The rod gets flipped to a new angler after a connection.  While it wasn't the biggest rainbow ever, it did give a good battle for the more novice wife.  10 minutes of give and take later she landed a nice 18 inch fish. 

 

We thought that would be a good end to the lake fishing, but our guide (also Jeff) wanted to hang out a little since I seemed to be on to something with this streamer rig.  We CPR'd the rainbow and went back to fishing. I rigged back up and on my very next cast felt a gentle tug after a few bounces on the bottom. Strip set, fish on. This fish did not act like any I had caught previously. Instead of line screaming runs and jumps, it headed for the bottom and just sat there. No wiggle, no struggle, no movement. I had the Meat Whistle attached to 2x fluoro and sink tip line, so I just pulled it off the rocks. I was pretty excited when I saw some orange/brown colors flashing. I thought maybe I had hooked a nice Brown. As it got closer I got even more excited - no spots on this fish, only squiggly lines. A few seconds later I had my (almost) trophy Tiger Trout. The pattern on this guy was amazing. Greens, silvers, orange, and browns covered his body. Pictures could not do him justice, but we did our best. He was the fish of the trip, no doubt about it. Taped  and perfect 50/50 markings.




I was already thinking about getting a nice framed picture or a mount of this fish, so I measured it, CPR'd it, and put my camera and phone away.  I was chatting with the guide about where to go river fishing while getting packed to leave.  We had already high-fived and he had gone back to assisting my wife trying unsuccessfully to entice a pod of rainbows to take the dry/dropper rig.  I had loaded all my gear in the car and even the guide was arranging his stuff.  Janet was actually a little bummed that she had not caught a fish on her own.  We told her to reel her line in so we could get moving.  Begrudgingly, she began to reel in.  The guide and I had just turned our backs when she yelled out, " I think I got one!".  Sure enough, her line had gone tight and her dry fly was swimming away from us.  Something had eaten her dropper.  Nets back out of the cars, we stood beside her like 2 anxious new parents, waiting for this fish to show itself. It had dropped to the bottom of the lake and begun a barrel roll type of fight. Janet gave it line as needed, reeled when she could, and fought this fish perfectly for about 5 minutes. As it began to wear down, she gained line and brought it to the surface.......

[golferjeff]

TIGER TROUT!!!!  And a big one at that!  Both the guide and I dove into the waist deep water and tried to net her fish.  Guide Jeff got the angle and netted him.  More scrambling to get the cameras and iphones back out, and we kept the fish in the water to let him breathe.  More high fiving, lots of smiles, and a quick grope BY my wife.  We were alternately taking pictures and putting the fish in the water.  Since the water is so clear and cold, he would revive pretty quickly each time.

Here are the first few pics:

  

20.5" with a great pattern too.  I couldn't resist, so I had to take a few photos with it as well

[golferjeff]

More Tiger Pics....






After this, there was no way we could top it.  Janet was on cloud nine and my adrenaline was pumping.  I never knew my wife could get so excited over a fish.  As it turned out, it may be a record.  Yeah, I know, it is watered down, but it may be the largest Tiger Trout caught by a female, catch and release, stillwater, 4 weight fly line or under in the state of Utah.  Pretty impressive for a girl who fishes twice a year at most!

The rest of the trip was less than expected, so I won't even bother to write about it.  This Tiger topped it off.  No amount of 23" rainbows can compare to that experience.  We will definitely go back in 2016.  I kinda have to take her somewhere else for a 10th wedding anniversary next year.... Hawaii. 

Hope y'all liked the pictures and managed to read most of the story!

Golfer Jeff (Cook)

[TAStockton]

great pics man, and thanks for sharing. When you heading back up to the LMF?

[breeden3]

Nice pics! Are you going to post pics of the 20 in brown or big rainbow/steelhead? I'd like to see them!

[breeden3]

Nice

[bradbessett]

I think Peter was looking for the pictures of the big fish