Feels Great to Cast

[LOAH]

Ah, what a relief it is to get some more casting in! On Sunday, my buddy and I took a drive to see if we could keep the soft water luck going from last week. We actually got a pretty early start this time and there was still plenty of morning left when we pulled up to the lake.

As nice as it was to cast, we were sure to get our fill of it quickly. The fish weren't very active and the bite was quite slow. Neither of us got so much as a bump for a long time.

While we were toiling away, a couple of float tubers made their way toward us and they turned out to be sawsman and his brother Gabe. Nice to run into them again. We exchanged greetings and shot the breeze for a bit and they kicked off toward their vehicle. As they were leaving, the first fish of the day grabbed my hook.

A stubborn fighter, it didn't let me move it very easily, although it didn't give much play either. At first, I figured it to be smaller since it wasn't running, but then I saw it and was quite pleased with its size once it was landed. Feeling the full weight was nice when hoisting it up for the photo.



After carefully measuring it, we came up with 22", although the photo doesn't do it justice. The belly was huge and I couldn't snap a pic of it very well on my own, with one hand. Here's another shot of it on the rocks:



A new personal best rainbow. I'll take it!

Another long dry spell passed and I was graced by the visit of another rainbow, but nowhere near the size of the first.



After that, neither of us could get anything going on. Eventually, we called it quits. Poor Holdsworth got the skunk after catching a 23" beast last weekend. Too bad. Hopefully he can chase off that skunk next week. It might be his last Utah trip for a long time...

On the way home, we got a wild hair and decided to detour at Palisade Reservoir for the sake of catching something, we hoped. I was a little saddened when I realized that "the tree" was gone. Chunks of it were scattered along the shoreline and dam.



*For those of you that haven't been there, an old, dried up tree used to stick up out of the water (high water) and is now gone.

A much nicer surprise was that sawsman and Gabe had stopped at Palisade too! Like minded fish junkies, I think. They reported slow fishing (again), but had both entertained a fish or two so far.

We didn't have any luck right away, but I ended up with three or four smaller bows there and Holdsworth got skunked, yet again. OOF! (I'm blaming the sunblock.)







The brothers were just getting out as we finished up and we got to see the nicer tiger that sawsman hauled in.



Holdsworth and I couldn't help but check on Six Mile Creek, just up the canyon from Palisade, but the water was far too cloudy to interest us. It was time to leave and let a skunk be a skunk.



Happy Fishing, Humans.

[offpiste]

[accadacca]

Damn! Nice looking fish!