Another year gone....... the new bucket list!

So it's late April and it's been a full year since I made the 2010 bucketlist.... Here's how it all went down......as well as the NEW BUCKET LIST!!!

1) Tiger Musky AND N. Pike on the fly(Still workin on this one..... LOTS OF FOLLOWS!)
2) Fish a streamer A LOT! (I got this done, catching some sweet fish on dungeons.)
3) The Green River (Been there, done that.......and WOW what a river!)
4) Steelhead in Idaho (Did it........when the river was chocolate......sucked:()
5) Chinook in the summer (Never made it up.....)
6) 24 inch brownie (CLOSE! SO CLOSE!!! I'll keep this one on the list as well)
7) Enjoy watching my Daughter reel in innumerable fish on the fly. Gunner, you'll soon be old enough buddy. (Awesome, I love watching Addie set the hook!)
8) I almost forgot, an 8lb largemouth is also on the agenda :) (Not eight lbs but I caught a hawg that anyone would be proud of. See post in May 2010)
9) Brownie on a mouse. Go ahead and check 22in Cuttie off the mouse list, ( ADD rainbow to the list. Yeah baby!)
10) Remain sane as I try to juggle life, school, work, an obsession, and most importantly, my FANTASTICLY SUPERB family. (Difficult, but I'm alive aren't I?)


2011 Bucket List
1) Tiger Muskie on the fly including one on topwater
2) 24" Brownie
3) Crystal Creek
4) Win a new Sage Rod (on wait, I already did that!)
5) 27" Carp
6) Double dry hopper landed
7) 25" Henry's Lake hybrid
8) Get my dad out on the Green
9) Slough Creek
10) Fish stillwater...... (I suck at stillwater.)

The RIO VERDE

Good times on the Green the past couple weeks.......did I mention I was working??!! (No... these are not electrofished. All were caught on a fly) Wahoo! Enjoy! Still Smilin' :)

The Mickey Mouse Club

Paul and I spent the night on the Green below Flaming Gorge sampling bugs........
Paul felt like throwing a mouse so we did............
The results were astounding.
That was fun Paul :)
Still Smilin'.

Tiger Muskie

No words necessary.........

Egg Mania: Part II

Joe and I had a great trip on Fish Creek... the browns were spawning and????.... I slipped and almost broke my back/pelvis/hip!!! Oh well, I recovered and made it through the day.... AND OH!...what a day it was...
STILL SMILIN :)

A lot to catch up on....

Well......it happened.... I slacked for a while. Life has been so stinkin' busy lately! Our relay is finally over and I have super sore legs and a weird lung problem to prove it. Back to fishing.......

Forever ago I fished Sevenmile across from the cabin and slayed the brookies. It was a super good time and I caught over 100 on a single.....that's right, ONE...tan Rainy's Grand Hopper. Talk about a well constructed fly! I also caught some nice fish on a foam beetle. It was sweet. I caught my two best brookies ever (out of this particular system) the largest of which was caught on a streamer, but it was too dark to get a pic :( It was a fun trip. Check out the milk steaked fins.......... All I need now are some cookies!








Last week, Paul and I hit up some of his local spring creeks. He pulled out his big net when we left to go and I jokingly said, "I hope we need that." Little did I know.......... He landed this 22in HAWG on a chunky chernobyl!!! (black and green). Nice fishy Paul..... He's mine next time. Oh! I almost forgot, I hooked and lost a fish on a Grand Hopper in the same size category as Paul's fish that jumped and gave us a sweet look. You can bet that I'll be back to get him in the dark...........with a mouse.





Speaking of mice.... Paul and I shocked up a 13" fish this week in RHF of the Logan River that had not one but TWO massive mice in its gullet. Cooler than Frazzles in wintertime. What a studly little brownie. Did I mention it was only 13 inches!!!!










Well, that's all for now, but stay tuned for dark....moonlit... eerie pics of monster browns and bows with hairy rodents hanging out of their mouths.

Still smilin.........

Provo Drakes

Gil and I hit up the Middle on Monday and had a blast. I nymphed for a while in the morning and I met up with Gil about an hour before the hatch should have got going. Fishing was stellar and Gilbert hammered a stud bow right off the bat on a Green Chunk ( one of Gilbert's new sick drake nymph patterns). To put it into perspective, the seemingly small nymph hanging out of his mouth is a size 10!!!! That is a BIG bow!






The fishing got better and better as the hatch progressed. At about 12:30, the adults showed up and the real action began. I used a drake epoxyback emerger from Rainy's and the fish couldn't get enough. One on of my first casts with the emerger I stuck a nice 16 incher.







After that I missed a HAWG four times in about 2 minutes....talk about sucking it up. As I moved upriver, I caught another nice fish in riffle. While I was fighting him, I saw a smaller fish flash behind him and I new that he had taken the dropper suspended behind the hooked fish. Two fish on at once can be problematic, but it sure was sweet! Lucky for me, Gilbert was right below me and he landed my double. Cool stuff....






We continued catching fish VERY consistently over the next couple hours..... Seriously, I can't remember the last time I had such good action on the top! I probably caught 25+ fish on the Provo in a couple hours mostly on DRIES none-the-less! I love throwing BIG stuff at nice fish. Of course there was the one haunting moment that I broke off a monster fish as he gave a high spirited leap.....why I was using 5x I will never know. The fish probably would have eaten drakes attached to WIRE! Oh well, that's what keeps us going back. . Thanks Gil for the sweet pics, netting assistance, and most of all... a STELLAR trip. Gilbert messed em up as usual with his mastered french/czech nymphing techniques. It will forever amaze me. Still smilin'..................