This is a continuation from the Portneuf Post (so read that one first if you haven’t already).

We finished the "disappointing" fishing on the Portneuf after about four hours, an hour after my deadline imposed by Talking Bull. So it was time to head back to the West Fork of the bear River.

As mentioned in my bio, I’m pretty much interested in fishing for native species. Dan shares my passion. We love to find the streams that have cutts, and does the West Fork ever have them.  In fact, I have often wondered if it’s possible to get tired of fishing, and I think today’s events answered the question!

We made a quick trip back to West fork and stopped at our usual stopping place. Dan hopped out at the lower part. I drove upstream to the two-thirds point and parked. The plan was for Dan to fish the lower third and I’d fish the  second third. He’d pick up the truck and drive it to our stopping point, walk down to meet and we’d fish the third third together.

I stopped the truck and walked downstream 40 yards to this hole:

That creek is about eight feet wide. This hole had at least eleven cutthroat in it over ten inches.

I cast the following beetle (this is the actual beetle I fished with for about the first hour):


(sorry about the two different backgrounds, the front view shot didn’t turn out too well in my vise)

My first cast produced a strike with a fish on long enough to feel its weight. The second cast floated back to me freely. Third cast produced this:

That scratch along his flank was like that when I caught him. He measured 13". Check out the great red coloring on the gill plates and the lack of spots except the few large ones near the tail.

My fourth and fifth casts each caught a fish about 10" long. My sixth and seventh casts were ignored. My eighth cast produced a strike, but I couldn’t land him. My ninth through eleventh casts each caught a fish 11" – 13". My twelfth cast was a miss. Thirteenth cast caught a 10". My next three casts produced one strike and two misses. The seventeenth and eighteenth casts caught two more, one about 11" and one about 13". The next several casts were blanks, but by that time I was into the riffle above the hole.

That’s eight fish 11"-13" landed with three more misses in about 20 casts in the first hole I fished. That hole was about 8′ x 20′ and only about 2′ deep at the deepest.

The next two and a half hours were pretty much like that, though not as many fish per hole as the first hole. Some holes  produced nothing and a couple of holes produced multiple fish no larger than six inches.

There were several fish in the 14"-15" range as well:

By the time Dan caught up to me I had only fished about half of my section, but I had caught over 30 fish. Dan said he did about the same. Together we figure we caught and released over 70 fish in three hours in a half a mile of river.

We were both pretty much fished out by the time we stopped and headed home. So yeah, it is possible to get tired of fishing. But what a way to go!

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