So last week was pretty dang adventurous. After feeling pretty fat and sluggish for the past little bit . I decided it was time to hit my Mtn bike again and tackle some hills instead of going to the meat market gym. In fact that is a good point, I hate going to the gym and always have. I would much rather get my work out in on my bike, rowing the driftboat, snowboarding or any other outdoor activity.
So on monday I rode the Big Springs trail up Provo Canyon (almost passing out) and on the way down I hit the Provo river (at the bridge) for about an hour as the Caddis were just starting to come off. I hooked into a few nice fish and it was fun to fish the same spot I caught my first fish at on the lower provo. On Tuesday Wayne and I decided to ride the Tibble Fork trail up American Fork canyon. The ride was awsome, but the fishing afterwards was not so hott.
The fish were rising and we hooked and broke off one, but for the most part they were just toying with us the whole night. On weds morning I went deer scouting and shot my bow. Then that night Wayne and I meet up once more to ride AF canyon. This time as we waited for Wayne's little bro. We hit a quick down hill romp and then meet up with the others to ride Tibble Fork again. This time there were a couple nice wrecks that changed Norms color and almost sent Wayne to the ER.
The rest of the week was our Cali trip to go visit my bro and his family. Over the weekend we went to Hollywood, Yankees game, Newport beach, hung out at his pool, and a ton of driving.
With the Archery hunts opening this weekend. I am completely focased on hunting and only hunting. I am pretty confident this year I am going to be able to harvast an animal no matter what the size is. Elk here I come!
So, I decided enough with the hunting for a night and hit the Provo for what I consider a for sure bet on success. When I approched the river I noticed that it was still running higher than usual for this time of year and a bit off colored. (probably due to the Dam construction) As was about to cross the river in preperation to get to my favorite hole. I saw a couple good rises in the run in front of me. So like any die hard dry flyer would do, I tied on an X Caddis and an emerger and tried my luck. I went 1 for 4 in that hole and was pretty upset with my hook sets. 
So as the darkness settled in. I decided I better get to my hole and see if I could find any Caddis rising fools. As I arrived there was no sign of a hatch or let alone a fish. So I took some time and retied my outfit with 4x floro instead of the weak 6x mono, just incase I got a big one on! I'm glad I did because on my first cast I missed a nice fish that spit the hook and on my second I hooked up with a heavy 20-21inch Brown. It fought really hard and after a couple hard runs came to the shore. Man they eat good at Hoovers! 
The rest of the night was one of my worst outings this year for hook ups and landed fish. I would hook them for a second or miss the fish every time one would come up for my dries and if they actually were on, I somehow managed to lose everyone before it was close to the shore. (I missed about 10 good fish) Oh well, I guess all this worthless hunting is starting to take a toll on my fishing skills. One other side note, fishing at night alone is dang scary, I mean really scary. I totally phyce myself out everytime and start to hear things and think I am going to be eaten by a Bear or Cougar and the headlamp it doesn't really help...
So we left to Lava around an hour and a half late, due to some slow moving folks (The Browns). It was alright because not only were we going to Lava, but we were also going to relax and just hangout for the weekend with 8 of our best friends. We got to the cabin a little early so the Browns and Liz and I decided to hit the local private pond for some evening fishing. When we got there I was pretty taken back the pond was really low and 75% covered in moss. This didn't stop us though we strung up our poles and with-in a few casts we had fish hitting our offerings. That night I keyed on to the PMD - Midge hatch and brought countless fish to the shore. It was awesome to set the hook 40 ft away and have the Rainbow trout just explode out of the water. Scott and Jocie also caught a couple on spinners. 
That night we stopped by the local bar to play BINGO with a bunch of rough old farmers and country folk. It was great fun and wouldn't you know it Scott even won 21 Bucks! The next morning I arose before the rest of the group snuck out of the cabin and headed back up to the new found honey hole. When I got there conditions were very similar to the night before, fish were rising periodically and there seemed to be a nice Midge hatch. 
I tied on the Single Midge #20 and the #18 PMD Hackle Stacker and a tung red blood midge. Right off the bat the Bows were keyed on to the dropper. I caught and released many bows on it then I decided to start playing around with patterns. I then caught a bow on a beetle, green hopper and a tung PT. It was fun to prove to myself that its not so much the pattern as it is the presentation. 
The last bit of the morning I spent looking at the bugs on the water and trying to figure out what they were. I was really blown away by the beauty of the gray mayflies that were hatching late morning. They would sit on the pond banks with spent wings making an easy target for hungry trout. 
The morning fishing ended when the girls came up to the pond on their morning workout saying "we were supposed to tell you it time for breakfast". It was a great morning on the pond and one that I will soon not forget. The rest of the day was spent swimming in the local pool, riding down the river and hanging out in the hot sun. After dinner I talked Scott into hitting the pond for the golden hour before dark. I strung up the rod with the same patterns as the morning. (midge/hackle stacker) I gave Scotty the rod and within a few shallow casts Scott had his sweet cast back and was hooked up with a big bow. The next 45 mins produced several hard fighting bows to Scotts dries. It was great to see the excitement and fulfillment in Scotts face as he "knocked em dead". This last outing with Scott has been very long awaited. We grew up chasing fish together from catfish and White bass at Utah Lake to sitting on the shores of the old Berry patch waiting and hoping that a fish would bite our worms. Scott and I have been fly fishing many times as we were new into the sport, but haven't been in the past 2-6 years. I wanted to show him that now I knew what I was doing and that we could in fact catch some fish. What it came down to is that I missed fishing with my best friend Scott and this was an outing that we will both never forget.
