This is Fly

It was fun to collaborate on an article for This is Fly Magazine Issue 18 with Jason Morrison on fishing photography. Check it out at http://www.thisisfly.com/ , on page 71 (back issues #18).

Bouldermania

There are strange things done in the Boulder sun
By the fools who moil for trout;
The mountain trails have their fishing tales
That would drive a man to scout;
The Utah nights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of a lake not large
I caught a hundred brookies.

I have long been a fan of Robert Service and since he was born in Lancashire, England at the head of the Ribble River I don’t think he would mind that I’ve adapted his words to fly fishing.

Boulder Mountain in Southern Utah is home to many species of fish, but the brook trout is perhaps its most sought after denizen. Dark green backs flecked with jewel-like spots are set on fire by brilliant red fins that cut through the water on ivory edges. Few things in life are as magical as a brookie in crystal clear alpine waters.

As callibaetis hatched this weekend in prolific numbers at 10,000 feet and eager trout demolished our imitations, life became a series of simple connections.

Hand to Rod

Rod to Line

Line to Fly

Fly to fish

My Grandfather fished Boulder Mountain in the early 1900s on foot and horseback. Almost a century after his first Boulder Mountain casts, at one of his favorite lakes, it seemed fitting to land a fish for every year that has passed since then. Thanks for blazing the trail, Grandpa.

Thanks to writer and photographer JayMorr for the good company on this trip. I'm sure some of his images from the weekend will be coming to a fly fishing rag near you. Don't miss out on his shots at Fly Fisherman Forum.

Something Wicked

Hemingway once wrote that he thought of the sea as “feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them.”

I have always viewed Henry’s Lake in much the same way. Fishermen often discuss this stillwater in hushed terms, theorizing that there are actually only 7 gallons of liquid in the entire lake. The rest of the volume consists of piggish trout gormandizing on the vast amounts of forage the shallow weed beds constantly make available.

Like the ocean, Henry’s gives or withholds great favors. Gluttonous cutthroats, hybrids, and brook trout lurk beneath the surface. Few places in this geography offer a better chance at fish over 10 pounds, but the lake is a fickle and wicked mistress.

The term “hatch” cannot really be used to describe what happens from time to time on Henry’s Lake. A plague of biblical proportions comes closer. At times, untold billions of chironomids rise from the surface and blanket every square inch of real estate within miles of the lake. Such are the choking clouds of insects that the only way to avoid inhaling them is to breathe through clenched teeth, pausing every couple of minutes to wipe the protein sludge from your incisors.

Naturals can be so prolific that convincing a trout to accept an imitation is like peddling tofu at a Texas steakhouse. Favors this weekend were withheld, as billowing clouds of black caddis and chironomids broke like waves upon the shores. Masochistically I always return to Henry’s, hoping to find the wild instead of the wicked.

Ririe Reservoir produced good numbers of runty smallmouth bass, and the occasional fine spotted Snake River cutthroat.

The pups got some field time too, which they can’t get enough of. My Mom’s mastiff puppy Harley is now up to 65 pounds, which will likely be about 25% of his adult weight.

Next week, it’s off to the Boulders in pursuit of brook trout.

Wings Up

Lately the rains have been hitting Utah with sufficient enthusiasm to cause several of my neighbors to begin gathering up two of every animal. The moisture has been causing some hatches in unusual places, so I decided to dust off the macro lens and grab a few shots of mayflies and damsels.

Buggy shots are a good time. If you want to take advantage of a hatch near you, set your camera's aperture to f/22, use fill flash, and go to town.

Fetha Styx

I noticed this morning that one of my trout snaps won April's photography contest at Fetha Styx, a purveyor of fine, custom fishing rods.

The winning shot:

Thanks to my Fetha-ed friends for selecting the image!

I added a few additional photos to the collection up at Currant Creek last weekend. The cutthroats up there are beauties.

Run for the Border

In some kind of twisted humor, the non-fisherman Murphy has enjoyed a phenomenal Spring. Here in the Rocky Mountains, April and May weekdays have been full of sunshine and warm temperatures. Weekends, on the other hand, have been below freezing and stormy for 2 solid months. At long last Spring broke through just in time for our Mother's Day trip to Idaho.

I was excited to meet Mom's new English mastiff puppy, Harley. At 14 weeks he tips the scales at 55 pounds and is expected to absorb voluminous quantities of nutrients until he reaches 200 lbs.

The dogs love Idaho. Kaiser and Sadie at first were very intimidating to the soon-to-be pituitary giant, but before long he warmed up and began his bid for alpha male status. The sunsets in Ririe provided some soft light for photographing the pups. Sadie is now 2, and Kaiser is about 22 months.

I tested the waters on Ririe Reservoir, which is a sleeper spot for large splake, fine-spotted Snake River cutthroat, and smallmouth bass. The runoff from Willow Creek had the water extremely off color, and I caught good numbers of kokanee salmon that were inexplicably in very shallow depths. Several fine-spotted cutts also made it to the net, but nothing over 16".

This was a good time to put my new Outcast PAC 9000 through some paces. The low-profile quad pontoon boat covered about 2 miles of shoreline with far less effort than I have been used to in the past. I plan on writing a short review of the boat in the next week or so.

My friend Lynn of BS Flies was nearby in Rexburg, and kindly offered to show me around. Lynn is an experienced guide and as I approached his truck I noticed a considerable gravitational field surrounding the F150 that was pulling nearby objects into shallow orbits. He explained to me that through careful research he has developed a system for never forgetting important fishing gear. The premise of this solution is simple and brilliant: Take everything with you, all the time.

On the drive North we stopped a few times in order to trigger controlled avalanches of equipment in the extended cab to avoid creating a dangerous situation should the brakes ever need to be applied.

We arrived at the fishing destination just in time, as the combined mass of my gear on top of his seemed very close to collapsing upon itself and forming a white dwarf.

The genius of the Large Fishing Collider soon became apparent when we discovered the all-important boat plug was broken and useless. Lynn walked over to his vehicle and proceeded to delve into the cubic hectare of valuables in the back seat. At one point I believed that he had been swallowed up by the leviathan, Jonah-like, but he soon emerged with a brand-new rubber boat plug and we were in business.

The full moon and clear skies over the previous night made for slow fishing but the potential was there!

Lynn runs one of the only guide services that I'm aware of that focuses almost exclusively on stillwater. Contact him (info@bsflies.com) if you want a world class experience on Henry's Lake, Island Park Reservoir, Ririe, or Sheridan Reservoir.

Of course we couldn't pass up opportunities to photograph a few birds. There were bald eagles, osprey, all manner of waterfowl, rough legged hawks, and American avocets surrounding the open water. We got a few photos of the avocets and a rough legged hawk.

Thanks again to Lynn for great company on the water, I'm looking forward to the next round.

Storms, Sails, and Rainbows

HDR is a technique where multiple photographs are taken in a series using bracketing, where some images are both under and over exposed intentionally. These images are then overlayed to create strong contrast and graphic compositions. Over the past couple of weeks I've been experimenting with this concept out at Utah's Great Salt Lake.

Drenching rains, which kept me from fishing today, had subsided. Unstable air chasing the front was perfect for sailing.

There was some verga to be seen, and a few drops of rain spattered down on the rocks.

Saltair isn't exactly what most would hope to find at the end of rainbow, but this one formed for all of 30 seconds before disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Looking East from the marina towards Salt Lake, plenty of storm clouds were still gathered.

I like the effect that HDR has on stone, and this compass at the observation deck is a good example.

Every time it storms I'm tempted to visit the Great Salt Lake. The skies and sunsets are spectacular, and this guy had the right idea with an ice cold one, a lei, and a caribbean style hat.