July 3/4

On the third of July, my friends Ben and John decided to do a late night trip to Cutler Dam. I have always wanted to head that way and I wasn't disappointed in the scenery.

We fished right at the dam next to a small rocky island for a while and while both Ben and John caught some mudcats early on to get rid of their skunk, it took me a while to catch one as well. I finally landed a baby carp and it was fish on from there. The only problem was we weren't catching anything but mudcats. I was using marshmallow on my hook to help it float off the bottom, and added worm to it for a tasty meal for fish. Ben was using I believe worm and beef liver and John I believe was using shrimp and worms. Ben finally got a big one on his line. In his own words "It was by far the biggest fish I have felt on my pole this year" (And he has caught some pretty big fish already. Unfortunately he said he could feel the line running against rock as he was trying to bring the fish in and before he could maneuver his position the line snapped. Now I know that fisherman tend to exagerate their "fish that got away" stories, but Ben is an honest man and had no need to lie to us. That fish was big, and one of these days we will probably go after him again. The action from there turned to just mudcats so we decided to switch places and head back up the canyon a ways. By that time the sun had set and night had come but the moon was so bright it lit up the canyon quite nicely. We settled near a rocky cove and I cast my line into the cove. I landed my biggest fish of the night there...

He wasn't a monster but was okay sized. From there I kept my line in the cove for a while and pulled a few more channels, though they progressivly got smaller. I cast out the other side of the boat into deeper water and changed one of my poles to a minnow. The minnow was a big hit, but only for more mudcats. Ben pulled out the biggest of the fish (20 inches) but he was in his own boat so I didn't get to snap a picture. We stayed there for a while longer then headed home. It was a great night out, it stayed about 70 degrees the whole time. JULY 4th... My brother Ben and his wife came up our way for the 4th. We went to a parade, had a nice BBQ and finally convinced our wives that it was a good idea to head up the mountain a bit to fish. We went up Blacksmith Fork canyon a ways and started fishing. We couldn't get the fish interested in any of our flies at all but it sure was some nice scenery.

All the scenery reminded me of why I love fly fishing. I've been so consumed with cat fishing lately because of a contest I'm in that I forget there are other fish in the sea (pun intended :))