Idiot With a Bow: Catch of the Day

Before I was an idiot with a bow, I was a stud with a fishing rod. My big bro Greg got me interested at a young age by taking me trolling in his aluminum boat. Then the old man taught me that small streams and #4 gold bladed panther martins with the black bodies were made for each other. And the rest is history. For whatever reason, I have caught the fishing bug again. One problem is that it is coming back to me at a slow pace. Few fish have been yielded from the local waters so far this year, not because of a lack of effort. Doesn't matter. Just a great reason to be outside. Here are some highlights of '08 angling.

A nice cut pulled out of the berry on a rainy/snowy Memorial Day. Very fun trip consisting of Richard, Fara, Greg, Michael, John and myself. About a dozen cuts (all in the slot minus one)were caught. 33 by Dad's count.

G-Rat posing majestically with a planter 'bow he power baited out of Strawberry on a less fruitful outing than the week prior. Still fun to spend time with the Gary Robbins family.

Little Dell.... Have never caught a fish in this confounded, cursed, gorgeous body of water. Since it's close to home (only 15 minutes away) and very picturesque, I keep trying.
Just for fun, here is a picture of a filthy moose frolicking in our water supply.

A beautiful Utah stream filled with visible lunkers.....on private property.

A beautiful brown I persuaded to hit my lucky craft pointer out of that same stream. Don't worry, I was fishing in the 100 yards of public stream when I landed this fish.

Huge!
My most recent trip to the Utah waters was today after work, and the inspiration for this post. Lorin and I were working near Heber, Utah. An early start and a stellar work ethic got us off the job early. We drove over to nearby Wallsberg where we met up with Michael and fished a special stretch of stream. Fishing started off slow. I wore out a dozen different holes resulting in little action, only a few hits. Soon I found myself heading back to the truck, trying a hole here and there until I was back where I started. Even though all three of us pulled everything we had in our tackle boxes through that first hole unsuccessfully, I decided to give it another try. This time from the opposite bank. First cast, a hard hit. Second cast, nothing. Third cast, another hard hit followed by the familiar tug of a well hooked trout, then a more aggressive tug that brought my rod tip to the water. At that point my eyes got a little bigger. My line was running all over the stream at mock speed. In between the runs were violent thrashes. This particular trout wasn't very acrobatic but I knew I had a toad on the line without even seeing it. I yelled for Lorin who was downstream about 100 yards, because I knew I would need some help getting this fish to hand. Lorin got to me just in time to see the fish at the end of the fight. All wore out (me and the fish) I landed a beautiful brown. Measuring in at a girthy 19.5 inches and weighing approximately 3 lbs this was my best brown to date. What a surprise.