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LOAH
05-26-2008, 11:48 AM
Last week, I was had to change my fishing plans around due to impassible roads and figured I'd give it a week and check back.

Well, today was that day and it couldn't have taken any longer to arrive! :lol:

I was really excited to get back to that area and hopefully gain access to these new spots, but once I crested Fairview Canyon, I started to worry.

Winter just won't let go of this little corner of the Earth, it seems.

Last week's sled tracks were all covered with a thick blanket of pure, unadulterated, Utah White.

A little further down the road and my worries grew deeper as I looked on to see an even more solid Huntington than last week. :shock:

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2165.jpg

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2166.jpg

And if you take notice in those photos, you'll see that those blue skies were about to be swallowed by the swirling darkness. :twisted:

"Then I shall fish in the dark!"

:cool2:

So now I was en route to my target, but I had to pull over and pick on a couple of small browns for a couple of minutes. This one had some pretty parr marks:

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2168.jpg

Okay, enough lagging! A pristine mountain lake with nobody around awaited me...

...YEAH RIGHT! I was still blocked off at the same spot as last week and, after some map checking, I realized that hiking in from that point would take a LOT longer than I thought last week. :roll: So I turned it around again and went for plan B, again.

The good news is that I didn't get stopped at the big snow drift that blocked me before. I even got a couple of miles past that point and up into some really muddy road conditions. There were several more drifts that I had to hit with some momentum and plow my car through, and I barely made it through a gnarley one. It had my car high centered and I was going uphill, but I hit it just hard enough as my spinning tires connected with the mud on the other side. Tough little car. :mrgreen:

After that nasty patch of snow, the muddy road got REALLY muddy. The gradient had also increased slightly and I wasn't sure if my little street tires could propel me through the upcoming patches of snow. I drove up that mess for about a quarter mile and had to carefully pull off a slippery 8-point turn. I figured that if the roads were still this messed up, my little spots-to-be would have to be put on the back burner for awhile.

So on the way down, I came up to the nasty snow drift, but had to maneuver around a new rock in the path and that really cut my momentum. Like a dummy, I kept going rather than getting out, moving the rock, backing up and building up more speed first.

I got stuck. :oops:

I only had another couple of feet to go and I was even going downhill! What a dork! :oops: :oops:

I managed to pull off the uphill charge, but the easy part just had to be the one I screwed up. :lol:

The only part stupider than getting stuck going the easy way was not having much equipment to deal with this problem. I could use one of my fins as a shovel and dig my way out! Yeah!

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2173.jpg

Well, it was helpful, but it didn't cut the mustard. I chopped and scooped and dug, but the car was high centered on some very tightly packed snow (becuase of the friggin' car on top of it). I was working up quite the sweat and noticed some humorous irony just off the road, right where I was stuck:

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2175.jpg

Classic. :lol:

I started going through my gear and trying to find something that could help me out of this. The only thing I really could use would be the jack. I could lift up one side, scoop out as much snow as possible, jam some branches under the tires and then do the other side.

Well, luckily for me, as I was playing all of this out in my mind, I could hear a 4 wheeler approaching. A nice couple came up riding tandem and were very helpful. The man dropped off his wife and raced back to their camp a few miles away and then raced back to me with a tow strap and a shovel.

Meanwhile, I was trying out the jack plan. I had successfully lodged a branch under my left tire, but it was slow going on the hard packed snow under my car. I tried chipping away at it with other branches and whatnot, but it was still tiresome and rather ineffective.

Soon enough, my rescuer had returned with a tow strap. Little did I know that he had a troop of others (unassociated) with intentions of riding the same road.

The tow strap did the trick and I'm entirely grateful to those that helped me out today. It was looking like a really long, hard day until helped me out of a bind. Much appreciated, if you're reading. THANK YOU!

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2178.jpg

So with that chunk of time forever lost to a stupid mistake, I needed to get to some water! Electric Lake? Sure! Why not? Pretty cutts, good fight, maybe work the fly rod a little.

On the way, I noticed that the lower mountain valleys are turning pretty green, dotted with little wildflowers everywhere. I'm glad it's springtime somewhere:

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2180.jpg

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2179.jpg

I also noticed another colorful little friend in someone's yard:

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2181.jpg

:wink:

Finally, I made my way to Electric and expected a large crowd. I was wrong. Just a couple of groups on the far side of the dam and I was free to cast where I pleased.

I threw out my minnow and started casting with the Blue Fox and started getting action from pretty little cutthroats immediately.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2184.jpg

I caught a few more on the BF and saw the minnow rod spitting line.

On the other end was this mature cuttie:

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2186.jpg

That's my biggest out of E Lake so far. I was impressed with the experience. :mrgreen:

Now that I'd caught fish on hardware AND a minnow, I was curious to see how I would fare with the fly rod.

I tied on a black egg sucking leech and made a fool of myself for a moment until I got a real cast in (slowly coming along). Once I got the cast I wanted, I got a hit! Problem is, as soon as the fish took, it snipped my tippet and stole my leech. :frustrated: Crappy tippet!

I tried several different knots to tie the fly on, but lost another fly as soon as I got a strike. I really think that they were just nipping right through the tippet. They have really sharp little teeth and I'm thinking that I got a bad brand of tippet material or something.

I lost about $10.00 worth of flies from whipping them off while tying air knots with my line/leader. Great fun. I eventually got sick of messing with it after I untied a ball 'o mess just to lose the first thing I tied on. It was fun to get some action on the fly rod, even thought it didn't end up with me holding fish. I paid attention to what seemed to work with my cast and then with my retrieve. Notes taken and next time should be fun too.

Back to hardware and minnows. :cool2:

The bite had slowed, but I still some luck with the Blue Fox and then the kastmaster, and even the pointer.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2191.jpg

Kept 2 and left to try some of the open water at Cleveland, a place I'd never fished.

I got down to the shore and tried a whole bunch of different things with no results. I was getting low on time and wasn't catching anything! That sucks!

It sure is a pretty area though:

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2192.jpg

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2193.jpg

I watched as some other people down the shore caught several and finally got a hit of my own off the bottom. I didn't know what to expect from a new reservoir, but I was hoping for something a little nicer than a finless wonder bow:

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2195.jpg

Oh well. It was nice to catch a fish, finally.

Well, that sun was making its way toward the horizon and I needed to get back home, so I called it a long, crazy day and made my way back to the top of the world for some spectacular sunburst moments:

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2203.jpg

Do the mountains ever end? They shouldn't.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2205.jpg

Fairview Canyon is gorgeous right now.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii272/justisaurusbucket/IMGP2209.jpg

So the day didn't go anything as planned, but that's all part of the fun of getting outdoors. Thanks to some very helpful people and their ATV, I was afforded enough time to have a great day of fishing.

Happy Fishing, Humans.

DesertWoodrat
05-26-2008, 12:36 PM
Awesome report and pictures. :hail2thechief: That sucks about getting stuck but at least there was some help. I was at Electric Saturday as well. When we got there it was full but after a while everyone left. The fishing was great we caught a bunch. I was in a group on the farthest side. We got a 16" cutt, the biggest of our day. One fish even took of with a lure. :frustrated: http://desertwoodrat.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/electric-lake/

LOAH
05-26-2008, 04:29 PM
I read your blog. You should bring a fine mesh net or a minnow trap next time. Those little fish along the shoreline are awesome bait.

You have to kill them before using them, but they're still very effective for weeding out the small fish from the hogs.

They're great for Scofield, Strawberry, Huntington,..Anywhere that has a population of larger, predatory fish. Check it out.

Glad you guys had fun fishing. I was there yesterday though (Sunday), so I wouldn't have seen you.

DesertWoodrat
05-27-2008, 11:12 AM
My bad, I was there Sunday. These long weekends mess with my perception of time.
I am going to try this year to learn more fishing techniques besides worms and spin lures.

JP
05-27-2008, 07:25 PM
Holy Crap :eek2: That white stuff is still out there :eek2: I'm feeling for ya, 81 here today and the weekend was prime :nod: I guess all this late snow is going to help your water table, taking the good with the bad :ne_nau:

Did I see a Blue Fox in that first Trout's mouth?

Just like the sand pics, ya have to stay in it, speed through those snow piles :mrgreen: I'd first get out and check to see if it was soft stuff or packed ice :mrgreen:

LOAH
05-27-2008, 09:19 PM
Yeah, that snow pile was hairy. I actually made it through that on the way UP the hill. I saw some even nastier drifts that I wouldn't touch and turned around. I still can't believe I got stuck going down. Oh well. It's a Sentra. :haha:

And yes Sir, that was my go to #2 in brass. I'm pissed that I lost 2 brand new BF's that day. That's definitely my favorite and most productive spinner.

The Lucky Craft pointer minnows are expensive, but they're great too.

VINIA
05-28-2008, 10:06 AM
Awesome pictures!