My family reunion (the McCann-Winterbottom Reunion, which has been held every year since 1947) was this weekend at Bear Lake. There was a lot of swimming, lounging, sun burn, food, and singing. And precious time spent with family.
I got up early each morning and came away with some photographs that I'm pretty excited about.
It's been a while since I went out specifically to photograph, but this afternoon a rain storm rolled through the valley and left behind some pretty dramatic clouds and I couldn't not go out and photograph them.
I'd never been out to Newton Dam before, so that's where I ended up. I've heard that there are Musky out there that I'm going to have to go try and catch once I get the necessary tackle for landing such a toothy fish. Anyway, here are some of the photographs I came away with:
Tree Swing, Newton Dam, Utah, 2012
Cut Bank, Newton Dam, Utah, 2012
Graffiti Angler Sign, Newton Dam, Utah, 2012
After some time at Newton Dam, I swung by Cutler Marsh and made a few more photographs:
Cutler Marsh, Utah, 2012
Reeds, Cutler Marsh, Utah, 2012
I first thought I'd make this a top ten kind of list, but I couldn't really think of ten,Mose here are six things that get my goat in the backcountry:
6. Litter and trash left behind
5. Being loud and obnoxious
4. Wandering off or blazing a new trail where there is an established trail
3. Fireworks
2. Unattended fires
1. Empty campsites with still-smoldering coals
Friday after work I headed up Logan Canyon for a little fishing. The fish either weren't in that particular stretch of water I fished, or they just weren't interested in anything I was tossing to them, because I didn't see or spook any fish at all.
Afterwards, I went up Right Hand Fork (a small tributary stream to the Logan River) and found a place to pitch my tent. As the sun was setting, a PMD hatch came off, and the little mayflies were swarming all around the place I had set up camp.
Here's a video to get you stoked for fishing this weekend
Well, it's over. May is done, and so is the Every Day in May challenge. I'm actually a little relieved. It was fun, but it was also a little annoying at times trying to come up with something intelligent or poetic to say. So, some days I took the easy way out and just posted videos. Other times, I was completely BS-ing, just trying to basically fill a quota just to fill a quota.
After having done the challenge, though, I've gained a bit more motivation to post more regularly. Before this month, the last time I posted was in October. Doing the challenge stirred up a bit of creativity that's been pretty dormant for a while. It'll take a while before I can start to realize the ideas I have in my head, because there's a bunch of new equipment and software I need to buy, but I'm real excited to start.
Grand vistas, good music, family—these are a few things that inspire me.
When I hear the words inspire, or inspiration, I think of things that uplift. Uplift me mentally, and spiritually. It's always been at the forefront of why I photograph. The Apostle Paul (in Phillipians 4:8) summed up my goals:
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.
Being an avid back packer, fly fisher, and climber, there are several things on my bucket list. Maybe by writing them down here, I may be held to getting a few of them crossed off.
Fly fish Patagonia
Fly fish New Zealand
Backpack the entire Continental Divide Trail (even if I have to do it in stages)
Climb El Capitan
Climb The Grand Teton (no, I've never bagged that peak)
Go after steelhead in British Columbia
Fly fish for bonefish, tarpon and redfish
I'd put down a trip up Everest, but I have to be somewhat realistic with this list
Lastly, I think the biggest thing on my list is to just be happy and enjoy life whether I'm half way through a pitch on the Nose of El Cap, double hauling to bonefish on the Florida flats, or sleeping under the stars somewhere between Canada and Mexico.
If fishing the Logan River has taught me anything, it's this: fly fishing can be inconsistent, frustrating, puzzling, but above all, satisfying and rewarding, even when I walk away without having caught a fish.
Almost every day on the Logan is different. One day there will be plenty of fish holding in exactly the spots you'd think they are. They'll take the first fly you float past them, over and over, and, if you don't lose it to a tree, fly changes are hardly needed. Then the next day, you return, with more or less the exact conditions as the day before, and the fish will be nonexistent. You'll change flies at least a dozen times, trying to hone in on what might be in or on the water. Or, those blasted trees just won't stop reaching out and sucking every fly you tie on.
Despite all the frustration of untying wind knots, or pulling a fly from a branch, or fighting swift current on slick rocks, I still drive away rested and calmed. Not always physically, but mentally, as well as spiritually. After all, I've just spent that time among God's handiwork, wading in a river He's made. Some places, I think, He made just for me. All places, I know, He made for us all.
Some day I hope to be this hard core.
Can you imagine Chihuahuas on tenkara?
...or as Red Green puts it, safety forst.
Here's a video of some examples of what not to do while fishing:
The runoff here on the local rivers hasn't been at all as bad as it was last year. I think it's about hit its peak, and won't be long until they recede back to normal (perhaps lower, considering this winter's low snow pack) levels. The fishing hasn't been hit as hard as it was last year either. Mostly because the rivers are actually safe to wade in. Well, safer than last year.
Once the water does recede, you can be sure I'll be on the water even more than I have been. I just hope I've stocked my fly boxes with enough flies.
Recently, I've been getting into making time lapse videos. Here are my first two attempts from Logan Canyon, which has changed from the dead brown grass and leafless branches to full green.
If only fishing were that easy.
Then again, the puzzle of fly fishing, and the mind games that you sometimes have to play are things that attract me to fly fishing. I don't think I'd enjoy it nearly as much if the fish simply jumped into my hands.
After the rod, line, and leader, we finally arrive to the fly.
One of the earliest records of people using artificial flies to catch fish dates back to around the Meridian of Time, from one Marcus Valerius Martialis, who wrote:
...Who has not seen the scarus rise, decoyed and killed by fraudful flies...
...they have planned a snare for the fish, and get the better of them by their fisherman's craft. . . . They fasten red wool. . . round a hook, and fit on to the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles, and which in color are like wax. Their rod is six feet long, and their line is the same length. Then they throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the color, comes straight at it, thinking from the pretty sight to gain a dainty mouthful; when, however, it opens its jaws, it is caught by the hook, and enjoys a bitter repast, a captive.
A good rod can turn over a long leader. A good leader can turn over a small dry fly delicately to convince those picky fish that the bit of thread, feathers, and fur tied on that piece of sharp metal wire is really a delicious meal.
About two years ago, I read an article on, I think MidCurrent, all about furled leaders, and how great they were. So I did some searching the Internet, and found little company that made and sold them, and I paid the higher price (furled leaders are generally 2-3 times more expensive than monofilament leaders), and I soon got the leader in the mail and attached to my fly line. It was almost life changing, not to be too overly dramatic. The leader turned over the smallest dry flies with ease, and beauty. I enjoyed watching the thing lay out almost as much as I enjoyed the whole act of fishing. I learned that they're a little more high maintanence than mono leaders—being made out of thread, they absorb water and eventually begin to sink, so they have to be treated with floatant periodically—but I found it was a trade I was more than willing to make.
After a few months, I started looking into how to make my own furled leaders, and it wasn't long before I had bought the materials to make a jig. I first made the jig according to a formula that some guy shared on a forum, then began playing with my own lengths and tapers, and after a few weeks I had settled on a satisfactory design. The way a furled leader is made, is thread is wrapped in interlocking loops around a series of pegs attached to a board, set at varying distances, and then the thread is twisted together to form a sort of cord, or rope that tapers just like a monofilament leader would, to taper down from the fly line to the tippet, to transfer the energy generated by the rod and line down to the fly to place it in range of a feeding fish.
I've since been selling my leaders through a few different places. It's not as profitable as I'd really like it to be—I'd like to make enough money for it to be my main source of income—but so far it's put enough money in my pocket to pay for my fishing licenses here in Utah, and Idaho.
The leader—and tippet—can really make or break a day on the water. Too big, and they can spook fish, or slap that tiny midge on the water and mess up that needed delicate presentation. Too small, and they fail to put that big hopper out where it should go.