Little Bear River

Today I finally made it down to the Little Bear River at the very southern end of Cache Valley. I've been wanting to make it down there for some fishing for a while now, and I thought today was as good a day as any.

The Little Bear is the smallest "river" I've fished, and the fish were easily spooked. I spent a lot of time on my hands and knees, crawling from hole to hole to avoid being seen by the fish. Despite all the stealthy precautions I took, I still spooked all the fish, but I still had a lot of fun sneaking my way through the water, trying to hook into the finicky fish. After about three hours of crawling, casting, and changing fly after fly, a light hatch of tiny midges broke, and the fish started rising, and I managed to hook into a feisty little brown trout. The the sun went behind a cloud and the fish and the midges were done.

After I'd had enough of the fishing, I got my camera out and photographed some of the spots that caught my eye as I made my way up the river.

Photo Dump

It's been a while since I've updated the blog. Here are a few images I've made over the last few months:

Island Park Scout Camp

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go to my Home of Island Park Scout Camp and spend three days there with my family. I got to help out at my favorite areas of camp: C.O.P.E. and Climbing.

That area of camp has a view of one of the best skylines in the world:

Thursday was pretty much just full of belaying climbers and rapellers at the climbing tower, and generally having a good time at the area I used to work at.
That evening some storm clouds rolled in, that didn't really do much, other than cool things off a little, and make for a nice sky to photograph.

On Friday, Fall River Electric delivered and set two utility poles for one of the Low C.O.P.E. elements that had to be retired until the old poles were replaced. We worked on that for a while, and then went down to lunch. When we got back, storm clouds were rolling in over Sawtell along the west rim of the caldera where Island Park sits.

We watched the clouds above us swirl in several different directions, and the clouds approach from the northwest.

We finally had to evacuate the group that was going through Low C.O.P.E., and run down to the lodge to escape the torrent. Just as we were closing in on the lodge, pea size hail began to fall, and after five minutes it turned to rain, then after 15 to 20 minutes of rain, the storm would let up for a few minutes then hail, then rain then subside.

The storm finally let up enough for me to go check my tent and make sure that I wouldn't be sleeping in a puddle that night, and to run to my car and get my real camera instead of using my phone. All in all I had about 10 minutes before a second set of clouds moved in and dropped more rain on us.

It was the biggest and most torrential storm I'd seen up there, probably ever. At least during the summer.
That evening, the remaining clouds made for a gorgeous sunset.

After everyone had left on Saturday, my family had the entire camp to ourselves, and we got to play around at the waterfront, and I got to cast my new 8 weight fly rod I'd just finished building (a post about that is forthcoming), and we cooked dinner over a campfire. Sunday came too quickly and catapulted me back into civilization, forcing me to bid farewell to my Home.

Bear Lake

Today I went for a drive up Logan Canyon to see how high the river was, and maybe wet my fly line. It didn't take long to see that 1300 cfs in the Logan is definitely too high, muddy, and fast to even think about swinging a fly. There are a few pools here and there that might be holding fish, but it's too dangerous to get to them. From the looks of things, it's going to be mid July before that river calms down enough to really be able to fish.
As is often the case, I kept driving further and further up the canyon, because I just "have to check out this one last spot." Before I knew it, I was heading down the opposite side of the pass, going down into Garden City. I thought since I'd gone as far as I had, I may as well check out the water level of Bear Lake as well. It's been a very long time (probably longer than I can remember) since I've seen that lake as high as it is, and from reports that I've read it's not even done filling up.

Can Winter Be Done?

I was okay with the rain we were getting today, but it soon turned to snow. By the time I got off work, there was a fresh coating of the white stuff on the ground. I'd left this morning planning on going photographing a bit this evening, and at 5 o'clock, I was still set on that plan despite the snow that had fallen and was still continuing to come down. I didn't come away with as many photographs as I would have liked, since I had to fight snow getting on my lens almost the whole time, but I did get these two that I really like (especially the second):

Trout Candy

I played around with my bosses macro lens today at work and photographed some of the flies I've been tying this winter getting ready for the coming fishing season. These little babies should prove to be pretty deadly on the water this year.

This Bear is Coming Out of Hibernation

Spring is well on its way here in Logan, and Logan Canyon is following closely behind. The Logan River is flowing about a foot higher than it normally is, and the water is getting pretty murky from all the sediment and debris being stirred up by the faster and more turbulent water. I got out yesterday after work and spent about an hour fishing. I didn't catch (or see) any fish, but it was still good to get out and get my line wet. After all, I don't need to catch a fish to have fun fishing.

After I was done, I walked through a grove of trees and thought I should make a few photographs. Here are a few that I came away with:

First (real) Snow

It snowed a little bit off and on during the weekend here in Logan, bringing us about four inches. Today we got another six.
Tonight I was shoveling the driveway, and I saw the shadows of these trees cast by the streetlight and had to photograph it:

Adventures in Rod Building

The first fly rod I ever had was one that I built myself about 14 years ago. It was pretty fun and rewarding fishing with a rod I'd built. So, I decided to build another rod this month. I either wanted to go with a heavier, longer rod, such as a 7 or an 8 weight rod to go after bigger fish like steelhead and carp, or a lighter, shorter rod such as a 2 or a 3 weight for better access on the Logan and the Blacksmith Fork Rivers. Since I spend most of my time on the smaller streams, I decided the better choice right now would be to build a lighter rod, and I had my eye on the Sage VT 2, 3 weight, and 7'9" long. I got the blank and all the components at the beginning of this month, and got to work.

In a nutshell, building a rod goes like so:
One of the first steps in building a rod is to find the spine. Then the placement of the line guides are measured and marked on the blank. Another step in the process is to epoxy the reel seat and the cork grip to the butt section of the rod. Then the guides can be placed on their marks along the blank, and taped to the rod, after which thread can be wrapped around each side of the guide. After all the thread is wrapped, thread finish (a flexible epoxy) is applied to the thread wraps and let to cure. After about 10 days, the rod is ready to fish with.
I photographed some of the steps along the way throughout the process:

The cork grip can either be bought pre-shaped, or you can get cork rings, and epoxy and shape them yourself for a complete custom grip, and that's what I chose to do (and this was the most fun part of the whole project; if you think you want a custom grip, let me know, I'd be glad to make it for you).
Here is what mine looked like right after I'd epoxied each individual cork ring together that would make up the grip:

The rings are put on a piece of all-thread, with a few wing nuts on either side, then spun in a lathe, or, if you go the cheap route like me, it's spun with a drill, using sandpaper of varying grits to shap it. Here's my grip beginning to take shape:

And here it is finished:

Before the reel seat is put on the rod, two arbors need to be made (using either tape or graphite arbors that can be bought) that the reel seat will sit on.

Here's the butt section with the reel seat and grip epoxied:

The first guide that gets epoxied to the rod is the tip top guide:

Here's the blank all marked out for the guides and spine:

And here are all the guides taped in place, and ready for thread:

Wrapping thread is probably the most tedious and probably the most critical step. Wrap it too loose, and the guides will be easier to break off and out of alignment; too tight, and they change the flex of the rod, and risk breaking the rod.

Here's the finished product:

I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and it casts like a dream, though it took a little while to get used to casting such a light and short rod. Despite the crummy weather today I couldn't stay off the river, and went up to my favorite stretch of the Logan for the rod's inaugural trip. After trying a few nymphs with a few yarn strike indicators that I'd made myself, which failed miserably, I switched to Royal Wulff. A few casts later, a good size Brown Trout rose. I missed the hook set, and I whipped the fly off on my next forward cast. I decided to put on a chartreuse Humpy, and two casts later I'd hooked into the fish:

I was just happy to be casting on my creation, but to catch a 14" brown on it's first outing really made my day.

Falls River

This weekend I got to go up to Idaho and see the family, and do some fishing on the Falls River. When my dad, brothers and I all got into fly fishing, the Falls River was the first place I remember going after we'd all gotten our rods and reels, so it was good to return after having not fished that river in I don't know how many years. And it was all made better by the fact that my dad, and two of my brothers, Casey, and Riley came along as well.
On the way to the river, we drove past this burned and collapsed potato cellar, and I had to photograph it:

The stretch we always went to along the river was under an old rail road bridge. In the years we've not gone there, the bridge has been made far safer than it ever was. There are now cable hand rails, and an even deck on the ties, so there's no more danger in falling. I kind of liked the idea of risking life and limb crossing the bridge back in the day. It kept you on your toes.

After fishing the Logan River and Blacksmith Fork all year, it was a bit of a new experience fishing such a wide river again, and it really wore my arms out having to cast so far. After a few casts and a few fly changes, I finally caught a whitefish on an X Caddis. Then a little while later, after tying an Olive Serendipity to the bend of the hook of the X Caddis, I hooked into a nice Rainbow Trout. He was in the 14-ish inch range (I really need to get a tape measure), and fought like a mule. I finally landed him, and my dad got this photo:

After we'd finished fishing, we hiked back to the car, and I grabbed my camera and returned to the river to make this photograph:

Saturday, the whole gang got together at McCowin Park in Ammon for an awesome lasagna lunch, and to take some family photographs. If any of you saw pigs flying this weekend, or saw the weather report from Hell and saw it had frozen over, the reason is because I finally made "people" photographs. This is what the Duncan Clan looks like as of October 16, 2010: