The Greys River is about 60 miles long. When I started fishing the Greys some 15 years ago it took me a bit of time to find the “sweet spot” where I was consistently catching fish. I narrowed in on a five mile section and pretty much stuck with that for ten years without much of a problem finding fish and avoiding anglers. But over the past five years or so there has been an increase in fishing pressure and a corresponding decrease in fish in the “usual” areas.

So the last couple of times Dan and I have tried to expand our horizons a bit and find some fresh waters to fish. We have a few favorites, but we try to add a couple of miles to the home stretch. We hit a couple of new spots on the way up the, with Dan catching seven or eight fish and me catching a couple.

This year we wanted to camp near a spot we have had both success and frustration on before. One nice thing about the river is that there is open camping along almost the entire river. There are about five National Forest campgrounds, but you can also just find an open spot and pull over and camp. We found the place we wanted to camp available, so we pulled the trailer in. I hopped out to check the area because I thought I saw something in the bushes. It was a couple in their side-by-side four wheeler pulling away from the river.

We had a nice chat and he offered the nugget of advice that the fishing was slow (they hadn’t pulled anything out of the the hole they had just fished, which Dan had taken at least five nice fish from last year), but the few hits they had caught in the last day had been on large Adams and dark elk hair caddis. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that we had picked up about ten fish in the hour or so it took it to drive and fish our way up the river with Dan using an Adams and I was using an elk hair caddis. Along with the advice, he also offered me a beer. It was not quite 11:00AM. I have my suspicions about his lack of fish.

After dumping off the trailer, and grabbing a bite to to eat, we headed upriver for a full day of fishing. When I say a full day of fishing, I mean we fish – hard. It really hasn’t hit me until recently that when Dan and I fish, we might not be typical in the amount of time we’re on the water. We are either fishing, or driving to the next place to fish. We might snack on things we have in the truck, but there is no stopping to look around. We don’t hang out on the river’s edge looking at the water. We don’t wait for a hatch. We fish. On this particular day, we got to the Greys around 10:00AM. Fished a bit driving to the campsite. Then Fished from about 11:30 until dark – about 9:30. We drove to multiple places, but I would imagine during that ten hour span we fished at least eight hours. Meaning we were actually waving flies around and setting them on the water for eight hours. That’s typical. If we are on the river by 7 in the morning, we’re not done until dark. Fishing the entire time except for driving, meaning ten to twelve hours of fishing. Are we atypical, or typical? Give me some feedback.

So it ended up being an incredible day for me with something like 25 fish caught. Anybody would feel good about a day like that. Right? Well, I was somehow feeling a bit let down. When I catch that many fish on the Greys, the bulk of them are usually between 12″ and 18″. Most of my fish were between 8″ and 14″. But the biggest thing causing me to feel less than adequate was the day Dan had – he caught over 60 fish, with a good chunk of them in that 14″-18″ range! Every time I peeked his way it seemed like he had a fish on or he was releasing one – it was something to behold.

We got back to camp and I cooked up some potatoes, onions and t-bone steaks. Dan spent a little time patching up his waders. Neither of us had anything appropriate, but he did have some nail polish (I think is what it was) with his fly tying kit. He applied a liberal dose and put some yellow rubber legs on to it to help give the polish something to hold on to (see pic in the gallery at the bottom of the page). Then it was time for some sleep.

I’m an early morning riser by nature (I can rarely sleep past 6 – it drove my parents crazy when I was always up at 5 and messing around). I actually got Dan up early and we hit the water shortly after 7. He tends to sleep in a bit later and I’ll often fish an hour or so then go back for breakfast and pick him up. He finally caught the vision of fishing with the rising sun that morning as he got into a hole that produced 6 16″ cutts and another hole with an eighteen incher. I landed a couple of fish as well, but Dan had his sights set on a 100 fish trip as he continued his count from the day before.

We made our way back to Mr. have-a-beer’s hole near our camp and caught a handful more 16″ fish. And then we took off for waters new and also unknown. It’s actually been nice to seek new places to fish. We had a couple of spots we found last year, such as The Cliffs of Insanity (see the picture to the left – click to enlarge and see if you can find Dan) which we headed to. We got into some nice fish and then worked our way into a few new spots which ended up being my Nirvana. This new stretch had just a few fish, but they were all over 16″ with the biggest being a shade over 20″. He was hanging beneath a couple of downed trees that were criss-crossed and formed a nice pool with the trunks providing nice cover. I positioned myself on the shore and just dabbled my line on the upstream edge of the lowest log. A fish nipped at my fly just as I was pulling it off the water so it wasn’t sucked under the tree and snagged. It appeared to be a good-sized fish and I was pretty sure it hadn’t felt the fly. So I gave it a few seconds to shake off it’s miss but tossing my fly upstream a ways a few times. Then I came back to him. On the fly’s first pass, I made sure to wait as long as possible, and sure enough, he hit the fly hard. I set the hook and quickly played him in the relatively small hole while keeping him away from the tree trunks. One nice thing about the Greys is that I’ve found a heavier tippet doesn’t seem to affect a fish’s willingness to hit my fly. So I was able to horse the fish to shore rather quickly, but he shook free while I was getting my camera ready.

The mountain ranges the Greys sits between ranges of mountains with peaks and ridges over 10,000  feet, so it can be a thundercloud generator, and this trip proved it. After waiting out a quick thunderstorm, we were soon back on the river. I continued to make up for my smaller fish day from the day before and Dan struggled keeping his insane numbers up from the day before.

In the end I had a great day and Dan got very close to his 100 fish mark.

I was back on the Greys about a three weeks later. This time I was with a group of young men from our church. We were rafting the Snake River and I suggested that the Greys River would be the perfect spot to camp since it was off the main highway and yet close to the rafting. A couple of the kids and an adult leader wanted to learn to fly fish, so I took extra gear. We arrived about noon on Monday and fished the rest of the day. I fished before breakfast the next two mornings before heading to the Snake River to raft. Each evening I fished until dark. Then on Thursday we had breakfast, broke camp and fished until about 4.

One of the boys, Cody, quickly caught a fish after about an hour’s worth of instruction on the first day. He’s got a great natural casting rhythm (he’s a soccer player and on a dance team, so maybe that’s why). The other young man, JJ, I had taken fishing last year on some local waters with another fishing newbie. On that trip he hadn’t caught anything, but he did witness me take only my second ever plunge into the water. He likes to remind me of that frequently. Anyhow, I figure I can pay him back by including a picture of where he spent a lot of his time – in the trees!

JJ actually picked up a three inch fish (the first day, I think) and then two fish on the second evening of the trip. So it was good to see him finally catch one.

That just left the adult, Kody. His dad had been a fly fisherman, but Kody had never had an interest while he was alive. His father had actually had a heart attack on a snowmobiling trip with Kody up the Little Greys, not too far from where we camped. His father died on that trip, and Kody had wanted for some time to try fly fishing. I was happy to provide some [questionable] expertise. I’ve only helped a few people learn to fly fish, but one thing I notice is a propensity to want to throw the fly like a lure or bait. I harped on Kody pretty good about that on Thursday. Along with the timing and not dropping the rod tip too far on the backcast. Anyhow, I put Kody onto some of the most consistently producing holes I fish. To no avail. The fish were there, but Kody was having a hard time setting the hook – either he saw the take to late, or he tried setting the fly so hard that it just ripped out of the fish’s mouth.

He was getting a bit frustrated, but it was time for us to start heading back to get ready to go home. A couple of my old favorite corner pools hadn’t had anybody parked along that stretch of the road all day, so I decided to take a risk and give them a shot. I had been staying with him the whole time trying to help coach him into that first fish. During the day he had at least two fish on briefly, but could never land them. About half an hour into these final holes, he finally had his breakthrough moment and landed an 18 1/4″ beauty. He was ecstatic, and it was a satisfying moment for me.

It was a great summer on the greys for me this year, and I’m already looking forward to next year’s visit.

.

Dan’s Bonneville Cutt on the Cub River

What a hectic several weeks. By the time next Friday comes around, I’ll have logged over 7000 driving miles – yikes!

Here’s a quick overview with some more specific trip reports later.

A few days after our bull trout trip we spent a day on the Cub River catching Bonneville cutthroat. It was fun, but the water was maybe just a tad high to get into the bigger fish. We did try a couple of new places. Dan caught the nice cutty at the top of this post (yes, I remembered the camera).

The following week was the annual trip to the Greys River. We spent two days there. There will be a separate report on that trip, but here is a pretty little fine-spotted cutthroat I caught to whet the appetite.

Bonneville Cutthroat Art

Dan and I returned on Wednesday from that trip, then turned around on Monday for a five day, five subspecies, 2200 mile circuit of the southwest for Colorado River cutts, Greenback cutts, Apache trout, Gila trout, and Rio Grande cutts (large-spotted and regular). While our loved ones sweltered at home in the mid-9o’s, we enjoyed low 80′s and bushwhacked through the tropical rainforests of northern New Mexico. There will be an in-depth report on that one later too.

Paul stalking Rio Grande cutts in NM rainforest

I had a two day break, then it was my 25th wedding anniversary, so my wife and I took a 2000 mile motorcycle trip along the Oregon coast then to Seattle to spend a few days with my aunt. I did hook up with Gary Marston in Gig Harbor, Washington to add a few coastal cutthroats to my life list. I’ll probably have a short post on that one in the future.

The day after tomorrow I’m off on a 1000+ mile motorcycle trip into Wyoming, Montana and Idaho passing some of the most storied rivers of the Northern Rockies.

Then next Monday through Thursday I’ll be heading back to the Greys River to take the 16-18 year old boys from our church river rafting on the Snake River and fishing the Greys. Depending on the amount of fishing done, there might be a report on that one too.

At the end of that trip, I’ll be done for the summer since I have to get back to teaching a week after that.

As with many of our trips, we started out off heading through the deserts of southern Idaho in arid land. This year it has been especially dry. Bull trout are in need if cold, clean water. Our goal was to hit some tributaries of the Little Lost River system. It’s in the heart of the Lost River Range which is home to 12,660′ Mount Borah. A mountain range of some of the highest mountains I have seen, that are so godforsaken to look at. Usually (unless you’re talking southern Nevada stuff), when you get mountains that are over 4000′ you get some nice forests covering at least the northern slopes. Not these mountains. They are barren looking from top to bottom. So it was a real surprise that our destination for such a coldwater fish was in such a place. Anyhow, we were traveling across the heart of the Snake River Plain when I realized I had left both cameras at home. DOH! I did have my iPad (not very practical to carry in your wader’s pouch or slip in a back pocket) and my cell phone.

Um…about me and cell phones. I don’t own a “real” cell phone. For some reason this info always comes as a surprise to my workmates and friends. I’m “the tech guy” at school (I’m a teacher) and always address people’s tech questions and help to keep as many of our computers (about 150 of them) running as smoothly as possible. If something comes up, and they say, “Well, just check your phone,” I tell them I don’t have one and they’re shocked. “You don’t have a cell phone?” Then I launch into this lengthy explanation that I do have one, I just don’t carry it (hey, I like to be unplugged, OK?). Well, I do carry it, but only if I’m on a trip. So, I had the cell phone with me, but it’s a TracFone. That’s a pay-as-you-go phone (I get like 1000 minutes a year and only use about 200 of them – I think I’ve texted three times in my life, all last year). Anyhow, I had the phone, I took pics, and there they sit, on the phone (apparently the only way to get them off is to get a bluetooth dongle). So here is a second post in a row without a full set of photos because some dodo brain is still trying to get his act together.

Just north of Howe, Idaho we entered the Little Lost Valley. We had about 50 miles to go until we actually entered the mountains. Luckily some signs of splotchy green appeared on some of the mountainsides a few miles up the valley. Our road turned to oiled gravel half way there, then to gravel. We could see a low pass in the mountains with quite a bit of forest in the background and knew this must be our destination.

Just after entering the foothills, we came across the best sign of the trip: “Angler’s: You are in Bull Trout Country!” (we’ll forgive the spelling error, but just barely) We needed to go another five or so miles to get to where we wanted to fish. But when you have water that looks like this, it’s hard to resist for long.

We resisted, barely, until we found our creek. It seemed like it was going to be a rough day when in my first 10 casts I lost two flies and didn’t raise a thing to the surface. But I got the jitters under control and hooked my first bull trout about 15 minutes into the fishing. Wow, what a pretty little fish it was (there is a fine picture on my cell phone – next time you’re in the area, ask me, and I’ll show you). It wasn’t very big (about 7″), but he sure was a looker.

I caught my second bull trout a few casts later, and he would end up being the most gorgeous fish of the day with an incredible golden belly and about 10″ long. (Again, I’ve got a great pic on the phone.) The day would end up going like that, with a fish on my line or Dan’s pretty much every few minutes. We must have caught 40 or so each in the six hours of fishing we put in.

I love my cutthroat trout, but combined with the scenery and the look of the fish, wow – I’ll play with dollies in the desert any day, and that’s no bull!

Recent evidence demonstrates that plants are able not only to perceive and adaptively respond to external information but also to anticipate forthcoming hazards and stresses. Here, we tested the hypothesis that unstressed plants are able to respond to stress cues emitted from their abiotically-stressed neighbors and in turn induce stress responses in additional unstressed plants located further away from the stressed plants.

Rumor Has It…: Relay Communication of Stress Cues in Plants

It’s actually an interesting article. But the good part is that there are already people arguing for plant rights as seen in this opinion piece in the NY Times article, If Peas Can Talk, Should We Eat Them? by Michael Marder. Now, before you sperson too much, the Swiss are already a legume up on everybody with a publication from their Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH) titled “The dignity of living beings with regard to plants: Moral consideration of plants for their own sake.”

Of course, there is also a backlash. Here are a couple:

• “Should communication between pea plants raise tough issues for vegetarians?” by Adam Merberg on his blog Say what, Michael Pollan?
• “Good grief: Now, it’s pea personhood!” by Wesley J. Smith at The Daily Caller.

So, with a shortage of potential food stuffs and biotic things that people want to worry about, there is the possibility that those who are of such persuasion will be out of the gene pool soon, and we won’t have to worry about the issue. Just biding our time…

Scott’s 15″ YCT.

Based on my recent aversion to fishing (see previous blog entry for explanation), I was a bit happy when Dan called me up Tuesday morning and said that he wouldn’t be able to do our two day trip to the Little Lost in search of bull trout. Yeah! But we could go for a day of toeing the Utah/Idaho border and fishing both sides all day Wednesday instead, he said. Uh…yeah, sure, I agreed. I figured I could toe the line of sanity for one day.

The huge, dry bowl known as the Great Basin (or Basin and Range) comprises around 185,000 square miles (for comparison, Great Britain and the rest of the UK are about half the size at 95,000 square miles). It covers more than half of Utah, nearly all of Nevada, a swath of Oregon and a chunk of California. It drains much of the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevadas on the west, a smidgen of the Cascades to the north and the Wasatch Mountains to the east. It is host to 14, 505’ Mount Whitney (the highest peak in the contiguous US) and 85 miles away the lowest point, Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level.

In a land of such extremes, life in the Great Basin can be tenuous at best. As early white settlers moved into the Basin they quickly tapped any available water resources. Because of this, today, intact natural watersheds within the basin are basically nonexistent. This has left the Basin’s only trout species, the cutthroat trout, toeing a perilous line in willow-choked headwaters and cattle-ravaged drainages.

On the other side of much of the northern divide of the Great Basin is the Columbia River Basin’s eastern section, the Snake River Plain, home to redband trout and several subspecies of cutthroat trout, predominantly the Yellowstone cutthroat along the southern edge of the Plain where it rubs against the Great Basin.

All of northern Utah, with the exception of a toenail’s worth, is within the Great Basin and was historically home to Bonneville cutthroat (our usual prey). That small piece of Utah not within the Basin is in the Snake River Plain. And it has a few Yellowstone cutthroat hiding out in small pockets of headwaters in tributaries that no longer make it to the Snake River. It was to a few of these headwaters in this little piece of the Basin and Range that Dan and I headed to last Wednesday.

It only took a few moments on the road to get the old fishing juices flowing. The air had that early morning chill you get in the summers in the high desert. 80 miles and an hour and a half after leaving my house, weaving our way across the invisible boundary between the Great Basin and the Columbia River Basin, brought us into Idaho and the southern edge of the Snake River Plain. We’ve had an unusually windy June, and there was some dust in the air, but we could still see about 100 miles across the Plain to the north where the white tips of the Sawtooth Mountains surrounding Sun Valley and the Big Lost River showed themselves.

Swinging our view to the south, we looked across the Utah border and into the Raft River Mountains that we hoped would hold the Yellowstone cutthroat. We made our way into a canyon, passed a handful of campers and parked along a little creek with clear-flowing water. My first fish was a little cuttbow hybrid and the rest were rainbow. Dan hooked into rainbow and brookies. We spent about 45 minutes fishing, but without any Yellowstone cutts, we were ready to move to a creek we knew had only Yellowstones.

We drove back into Idaho, then back into Utah. Worked our way past cattle that a few years before we had a little fun with. Saw abandoned cabins that I couldn’t help but wonder about the inhabitants who first settled there trying to “tame” the land. Farmers still work the soil, scratching out their stake in the sagebrush plains and hills and suck down every last drop of moisture they can find to do it. Dan made a few token casts on what used to be the largest tributary to the Snake River in that mountain range. The water was tepid as were the casts. We made our way over miles and miles of dusty dirt roads before finally making the turnoff to our destination.

When one of the first things you see on the road of your fishing place are cows, that is typically an omen of the crappy fishing to come. But crossing a culvert, I spied a fish surface feeding in the plunge pool below it. A good-sized fish for the rain-gutter-sized creek that held it. We stopped. Dan approached, but the road-savvy fish knew what was up and dropped to the bottom of the pool.

Most of the creek is open, flowing through grazing cattle. Occasionally it tumbles through small stands of small willows. About half of the basin it is in is fenced off, the private property protecting the headwaters. I have a hard time with huge swaths of land in the middle of national lands being fenced off for private ownership. But in this place, it probably saved the fish.

We pulled ahead of the culvert fifty feet, parked near a patch of coyote willow, and began to fish.

There are days, halcyon fishing days, that you remember with fondness for ages to come. Those days that I imagine an old man, when his joints and muscles keep him from fishing, can look back on to balm the body, mind and soul. Dan and I experienced that day as we plucked proportionally large  Yellowstone after Yellowstone from the little creek.

On those fortunate days of fishing, there is a time when things hang in the balance and you toe that line between satiation and gluttony. After a couple of hours, and 40 or so fish later, we decided to tube the rods and have lunch.

I had stashed a couple of bottles at the bottom of my cooler, covered in about four inches of ice. With such an incredible time fishing, I figured it was time to celebrate. Being the teetotalers we are, the bottles were nothing more than IBC root beer. But did they ever slake the thirst and tamp down the heat. As is our usual habit, we divvied whatever food we had potluck style (I contributed peanut butter and bread sans honey or jam because of my diet (see previous post), so Dan was a little bummed about that).

After eating our fill we made our way back to Idaho and headed for a little creek that promised more Yellowstone cutts.

We were at that point of the trip where we were a little giddy with our success, the sun and heat was working on us, and we were getting a little slaphappy. Dan is an ecclesiastical leader in the region’s predominate religion, so we have a lot of esoteric doctrinal discussions while we drive. I believe we were discussing the theological correlations of kingly coronations at the time (see this 1911 Britannica entry for some insight into what we may have been discussing).

It was then, in the middle of sagebrush, dirt roads and dust, that we saw ahead of us four silos. Not exactly silos, but stacks. Not just stacks, but those slightly flanged stacks you see on nuclear power plants. There were also a lot of small, fenced-in buildings dotting the landscape. It was taking on a funky Area 51 vibe.

I reached for my camera to snap a few shots, but my camera wouldn’t work. My brand new camera. It wouldn’t even turn on. Things were going Mulder on us quick. But we Scullyed back to earth when I realized that the battery was dead. One of the only problems I found in looking at reviews for the camera was that it went through batteries quick. So the night before I made sure I charged up the extra battery. And then promptly left it on the counter as I walked out the door.

A little while later we rolled past a sign that pointed back the way we had come that said “Geothermal Energy.” (link to the project here) It was a disappointing ending to toeing the X-Files line ever so briefly.

We topped off the gastrointestinal tank with pastrami sandwiches at a little market in Malta. Then we headed out to try Eightmile Creek. After spotting dozens of hawks (Swainson, Red-tailed and one I could swear was a rough-legged, but they don’t summer in the lower 48) all day, we finally saw a golden eagle. I say “finally” because Dan mentioned several times that he had seen a golden eagle once before on a trip like this. We also saw a family of pronghorns, some whitetail deer and coyote, but no cougar. Yet. It’s our hope (and fear) that one day, in one of those Podunk places we seem to visit, we’ll see our first cougar in the wild.

When we finally made it to Eightmile, we hopped out of the truck and were immediately assaulted by two Red-tailed hawks. They screeched at us and circled us for a few minutes. We figured they must have a nest nearby, so we looked around. Sure enough, we had nearly parked under the tree that that had a nest with a baby hawk peering over the edge at us. As we hiked upriver, we spooked at least two more birds from creek.

It was a very small creek that had too steep a gradient to hold fish for the nearly mile we hiked it. Having damaged my ACL (see previous post), I was in no mood to continue hiking after having spent much of the day taxing the limits of my body already, so we returned to the truck and made our way to the final destination of the day.

Driving away a bit disappointed we couldn’t help but reflect on the day we’d had so far. Although it seemed like we struck out at Eightmile (which we did fishwise), after seeing so many animals, we couldn’t help but feel that it was a homerun anyhow.

Our last spot of the day was more of a “what-the-heck-let’s-give-it-a-try-anyhow” kind of place. We typically stalk native fish, but we’re not averse to swinging a fly in the direction of anything with fins. Sublett Reservoir has two small creeks feeding it that are supposed to contain Yellowstone cuts. However, I’ve found on small creeks that feed reservoirs that are stocked with non-natives, there is a high probability that the feeder creeks are going to be infiltrated with those non-natives. The reservoir has been stocked with browns and some warm water fish. Browns are not very good at toeing artificial lines, like reservoirs—if there is free passage past those lines, as is the case with Sublett, they’ll fin right past them.

Sublett Creek above the reservoir is a beautiful, spring creek looking water. It reminds me of Silver Creek with its clear water, fine-graveled bottom, and various aquatic plants creating channels.

I was feeling great about the day and didn’t need to fish anymore, so I had taken my waders off and was in my sandals. Dan was still in fish mode and his waders, so he jumped at the chance to catch a few more fish. I went ahead and took my rod to the water’s edge, but found that I was still about six feet from the actual water and had to stop because the ground was marshy. I tried to cast, but with only a sixteen inch corridor of water through the aquatic plants, I kept hanging up in the tules. Dan was hooking into some nice brownies, so I drove the truck upriver a hundred yards and let him get the last handful of fish out of his system.

We packed up and headed home with a very satisfying day behind us as the sun toed the horizon on the western edge of the Snake River Plain.

Things have been a little weird in my life over the last year or two. For nearly 25 years fly fishing has been my life’s obsession. My muse. My balm. I spent hours reading about it, writing about it, thinking about it and actually doing it. And then, in what seems a flash, most of that came to a stop. For no apparent reason, desire left me.

How can a passion end so abruptly? I do not know. All I know is that in the past two years I’ve written almost nothing. I have not read one iota of fishing related things online (blog or otherwise) during this time. I’ve read one book related to fishing (only because it was given to me by a dear friend). I’ve only fished a handful of times. And it wasn’t simply a lack of doing these things, it was a clear avoidance.

A couple of years ago, in the heyday of my fly fishing nirvana, a few of us interested in fly fishing writing started Rise Forms. And then a short time later I crashed. I got to the point where I loathed the idea that something would be in my email related to Rise Forms. I slowly started to skip checking my Rise Forms account for a week or two. Then months at a time.

I have multiple email accounts and I dreaded opening my personal ones for fear that I would see something fishing related. Then, I just stopped opening all my personal accounts and only accessed the one related to work. I completely disabled my email account associated with this blog. I disabled my RSS feed readers because I couldn’t bear the thought of having to see something related to fishing.

Luckily I didn’t curl up and blow away entirely – it seems like a fishing-apoplexy only. I threw myself into my job (I’m a teacher) and spent most of the time I freed up by not fishing with school related stuff. In the summers I’ve thrown myself into yard work (a definite clue as to the madness that consumed me).

I’m not a big, not small, but by no means big either. I’m 6’-1”ish. During this past winter I hit 226 lbs on the scales. I’d been hovering around 220 for a few years. I’d noticed along with the bit of weight gain that I seemed to be a bit sleepy all the time too—I’d want to take a nap shortly after getting home from work each day.

All of these little signs seemed to add up to some depression.

I’m not a New Year’s Resolution kind of guy. I figured they were for sissies. But when January 1, 2012 came rolling around, in my mind I said, “Gee, I really ought to lose some weight.” But it kind of stuck there for a bit without really doing anything. Then one day in early February I swung past a gym about a mile from where I teach. They had memberships for $10 a month, so I figured, what the heck, and signed up. I started going after school for about an hour.

After a couple of weeks I thought, “Gee, I’m not really going to lose much weight by just working out but keeping the same lousy eating patterns.” So I started to count my calories religiously for a couple of weeks and read a bunch of stuff about losing weight. I then cut my caloric intake in half and upped my protein intake and by June 1 I had dropped to 190 lbs and lost 4.5” off my waist.

And I was feeling good! Things were really humping along. And then I was silly and thought I could play a little rugby with the youth group I work with at church. Oops! As I was making a move on the guy with the ball, I planted my right foot. He cut to my left so I pivoted left. There was a “pop-pop” in my right knee and I buckled. I eventually hobbled off the field.

A doctor’s visit and orthopedist’s visit later and they have me convinced that it’s ACL/MCL and meniscus issues. An MRI will sort that out (stinking health insurance has me at a $2000 deductible, so I’m seeing if things will mend on their own).

So I guess what I’m saying is that despite the hobbley leg, I’m feeling pretty good. Am I 100% back? I don’t know. Right now, this very moment, I feel great. Tomorrow? I don’t know. I’ve fished twice in the past week and plan on leaving here in an hour or so to fish some more. Dan and I are leaving for our southwest trout trip in about three weeks. I have some pictures of fish ready to be uploaded. Yeah, I feel good.

We spent this past week talking as a family about improving the talents we have. My wife is a great artist, but she hasn’t painted for years. My daughter loves doing things with photographs, but she ends up spending most of her time Facebooking instead. I like to write but I haven’t done anything about it for at least a year. So we made goals.

My goal was to get a fishing post on my blog about last week’s trip. I was supposed to have it up by yesterday. I figured I’d write this little piece first to explain my absence. Not that I need to explain myself to you, but I really needed to explain myself to me. It’s been cathartic. Isn’t the one of the first steps of AA to admit that you have a problem?

“Hi! My name is Scott, and I’m a recovering non-fisherman.”

I plan to have a post(s?) and pictures by the end of this week on my recent fishing escapades. Especially the amazing day in the deserts along the Utah/Idaho border.

So, what’s a guy to do when he’s getting a bit stir crazy and the fishing’s lousy? Head to the desert! A little place called Valley of Fire State Park (VOF). It’s in Nevada, about 60 miles northeast of Lost Wages. It was 30° F and snowing at home the morning we left. Eight hours of driving later, we were in VOF, basking in the 80° F heat. It had been nearly seven months since we’d felt temps like that. It didn’t even bother me that I was hours from the nearest native trout stream.

We spent four glorious days working on some serious sunburns. Hiked some pretty trails. Took 500+ pictures. Not a care in the world.

I though I’d share some pics with you (a bunch) in case you want to enjoy some vicarious warmth.

Enjoy!.

One such “extinct” trout was the Pyramid Lake strain of the Lahontan cutthroat. Historically found in ancient Lake Lahontan and its tributaries, its territory shrunk as the lake receded. The fish were still found in Pyramid Lake and its tributaries into the early 20th century until the lake became a source of water for irrigation. When the lake levels dropped too far, the Pyramid Lake Lahontans could no longer reach their spawning tributaries. And the fish was thought extinct by the 1940′s.

In the 1970′s, a fish was found in the Pilot Peak range in Utah that didn’t belong in the Utah mountains. Don Duff sent information to Dr. Robert Behnke about this fish. Dr. Behnke identified the fish as the missing Pyramid Lake strain of the Lahontan cutthroat. (I hope to provide more of this story at a later time.) These fish have subsequently been restored to Pyramid Lake. A brood stock has been kept at Pilot Peak to help supplement the National Hatchery’s brood stock. The Pilot Peak project is on the property of Steve Doudy, who has been the caretaker of the population in the creek and in the brood stock (both of which are on his property).

This past Wednesday I had the privilege of spending the day with Dr. Behnke and some of the morning with Don Duff and Steve Doudy at the Pilot Peak brood ponds where we planned on helping spawn the Lahontan cutthroats. (More about the Pilot Peak project in another post later.)

Interestingly enough, Dr. Behnke, who was so instrumental in the identification of this strain of cutthroat, had never been to the Pilot Peak brood ponds. So my fishing buddy, Dan Line, decided to invite him. Since our trip seeking the extinct Alvord cutthroat a couple of years ago, we (actually Dan) have been in contact with Dr. Behnke as efforts have been made to try and keep at least a phenotypical remnant population of the Alvords alive. Dan invited Dr. Behnke to spend the morning with us at Pilot Peak and then help us give a presentation later that evening to our local TU chapter (Cache Anglers) about the Alvords.

My memory stinks—I’m lucky to remember details of what happened yesterday, let alone a year or more ago. Dr. Behnke’s got an incredible memory. The day was filled with his remembrances. Just ask him a question and he would fill us in with all the minutiae of dates, people, places and events. It was incredible to learn firsthand a few of the many things Dr. Behnke has been involved in with the conservation efforts of native fish and also with the furthering the world’s knowledge about fish.

I would imagine that someone as knowledgeable and experienced as Dr. Behnke could easily become snooty, arrogant or condescending, but he was extremely polite, patient and entertaining. And there is a fiery side to him as well, especially when it comes to tracking a fish’s ancestry through meristics versus genetics (Dr. Behnke is firmly in the meristic camp). (Hopefully some more about this topic in another post.)

I think I’ll write a couple other posts about this day and issues and conversations that surrounded it. I just needed to get a post up now while I had the time and inclination to write it. Hopefully I’ll become a bit more of a regular writer again.

Don Duff  is another instrumental and passionate man when it comes to fish. I’ll have a post dedicated to him later too.

PS The next issue of Rise Forms is nearing completion (Scott’s been a very busy man, and therefore very lazy about anything writing related, but things are getting better.)