Lately I've been suffering from cabin fever. With decent camping and fishing weather fading, I've been trying to get out as much as possible. Friday, I headed up Logan Canyon after work and pitched my tent along Right Hand Fork, a tributary to Logan River. I spent the evening photographing, and came away with these:
Saturday morning, I got up early, broke camp and was on the river with my fly rod at 7:30. I only saw two fish the whole morning, one of which shook itself off of my fly. After I'd had enough of not seeing any fish, fighting snags in trees, and wind knots, I put the rod away, and got my camera out and came back to this little riffle:
Afterwards, I drove further up the canyon to Red Banks, cooked lunch, and then started fishing again. Two casts after getting in the water, I had a 14-ish inch Cutthroat trout on; my first Cutthroat ever. A few casts after that I hooked into another 14-ish inch Cutthroat. A little further upstream, I saw a nice pocket that looked to maybe be holding a fish, and sure enough, the second I placed my Red Humpy on the water, a fish struck, I set the hook and the fight was on. After a short fight, I finally had the beautiful Cutthroat in my net. It was the biggest fish I'd ever caught, and measured about 16 inches. After not seeing any success at all in the morning, I was feeling pretty good about the afternoon. I continued upstream, catching a few small 6-8 inch fish, and a few others 10-14 inches. After a tippet change, I put the Humpy back on, and started heading to a hole I knew holds plenty of fish. Just a few yards downstream, I cast my fly to a small pocket, which sucked the fly under the surface a few inches. I saw the flash of a green back, and a white mouth, and set the hook. It didn't take long to know I had another big fish on. He swam upstream to hole after hole, and when he jumped out of the water, I had a good idea of just how big the fish was. He finally swam to the hole I was headed to, where I finally landed him. He didn't even fit in my net. Without a real tape measure, I couldn't get an exact measurement, but he was about 2 inches longer than the longest measurement of my net, which is (according to the specifications) 17.25", so I figure he was in the 20 inch range. I really wish someone was there to photograph this gorgeous fish, or somehow find a way for me to photograph them myself without stressing them more than necessary. After I'd landed that one, I figured it was a good way to end the day, so I packed up and headed home. All in all, it was, as the title of this post suggests, a very successful weekend.