Kissing Suckers....

Memorial Day 2012.   Like so many others I knew that today I had to do some fishing.  With plenty of Honey-Do's to get done I could only sneak/justify a half day on the river.   After some discussion with Jack we decided to sleep in an extra hour and leave at 6am rather than our traditional 5am.  A weekend full of rain and colder weather meant that this morning it was around 40 degrees in the canyon but the sky was clear and we knew it would warm once the sun crested the mountain tops.  Our biggest challenge is we needed something closer to home to make that half day fishing worth it.  Decision was made to try a piece of state land in Peterson that I had heard fishes pretty good.  That is 25 minutes from home so just about right.   On the way up Jack tortured me with an article from Field & Stream magazine about doing the Wyoming Cutt Slam (http://www.cuttslam.com/) which makes me now ask publicly, "When are we making this happen, Jack?"

This stretch of water is between the irrigation diversion in Morgan and the overflow water return in Mountain Green so the water was a bit skinny.  In fact there were several holes that would have fished MUCH better with some more flow and current in them.   In the first hole I fished I popped a little Brown Trout.

We got into some of the slower pools and we found a big bunch of Nerf Sharks (Utah Suckers).   Some took the fly and others just got in the way enough that the hooks found them.   These were all pretty big fish. They are like reeling in a submarine.

I told Jack to kiss it and he did.  This picture went straight to his wife's email.

We even pulled off the super rare "Double Sucker"

At another deeper hole I was able to convince a decent little Bonneville Cutthroat to take a freestone caddis fly.   Thanks to Steve and Sam whom we met on the river today because Sam took this picture for me.  These are the Cutthroat trout that are of major interest to the State biologists.  Some of the Trout Unlimited work we have been talking about is reconnecting the small creeks that feed into the Weber to allow these fish to migrate up them and spawn and then allow the fry to live in those creeks for a fish year or two before they return to the Weber.  It is always a special thrill to catch one and watch it swim away.

Bonneville Cutthroat

 Because we had to be home by noon for Jack to head to work we started making our way back down river before 10am.  The thought was to hit the big holes on the way and see if we could stir a few more trout to hand.  Well that was foiled by every big hole having a fisherman in it!!  Who would think when you pull into a fisherman's access point with 4 cars that making theirs the 5th car is a good idea??  Apparently some do.  We skipped down river faster than we thought so now back at the hole where I fooled the brown trout, Jack and I were engaged in conversation when I flat out missed the set.  I was asleep at the wheel.  I had the fish for a few seconds and then it was free and gone.  Ridicule from across the river was well deserved.  So to redeem myself I shut my mouth and focused.  Two casts later I was locked into battle again.  I was hoping for a Mountain Whitefish to make the day a 4 species catch, but it wasn't to be.  After a few seconds of no head shaking or big runs upriver I figured it was Nerf Shark time.  When this submarine came to hand you just couldn't believe how big it was.  We rough measured it at 25" and it had to be 10 pounds.  As wide across at the head as I can stretch my hand.  Normally I wouldn't pose for a picture with a sucker but this one was picture worthy.  Not a bad end to the morning.

2nd photo of a "Double Sucker"