I have never done so much fishing in September before. This year has been one outing after another and it has let up this month either. September started out down in the Red Rock Cliffs country of Lake Powell in search of Striper boils, Smallie's on crawdads and anything that would take the bread fly. This years fishing at Powell was on the slow side, but the glassy wakeboarding water more than made up for the lack of fish. It was a great trip like always!!!For the past week I have been fishing the Provo a lot. In fact I have been there 3 times (Tues 16th, 18th and Fri 19th on Middle) already this week and plan on going again tonight for some Caddis action. On Tues night I noticed that the fish were rising on the west bank, so I changed sides and caught a few and missed a lot. (I was out by 8:30pm)
Thurs night was a ton of fun fishing with some great friends. It was the first time I was able to fly fish with my great friend "Elder" Brandon Carter. We had talked about fishing together while we were serving a mission in the Caribbean, but never found the time until now. As for the fishing it seemed like it was going to be fast when Carter missed one on his first cast and I hooked up on my second. The hatch didn't come on like we hoped, but we all managed to catch a few fish between the misses. 
(Rick was rocking the Bows) The highlight of the trip was Carters crazy Bat hookup. He had mentioned beforehand that it would be cool to catch a Bat, but as unbelievable as it is he hooked one mid-air as he was retrieving his backcast.
It was the perfect crisp fall night that all true Caddis fishermen would hope for. (Rising Trout, friends, and a challenge)Today I woke up restless knowing that I had until 2 pm to do whatever I wanted. I really debated about hitting the Weber, but decided against it in favor of the coveted Middle Provo.
Today I wanted to fish Hoppers and only Hoppers. So after a few fish on nymphs in the morning I switched to a tan Hopper and busted the banks. It was hard work, but I was rewarded just as I hoped. 
(Porcupine trying to steal my hole)
September to me is the best time of year to be in the outdoors. The rocky mountains come alive with a breath of crisp mountain air. The mountains show their true beauty as the leaves change into their colorful natural state. As I walked the banks I couldn't help but stop and think of how lucky I am to live in such a magical place. The inter feelings I get when I'm in the mountains are overwhelming, it brings out who I really am and where I come from.
Brent and Shawn were having equal success as Brent coached Shawn into a very nice Rainbow and they both missed plenty of other takers that just spit the hook. "DANG IT, I MISSED HIM" (You know the feeling) 
The highlight of the night for me was the largest Rainbow I had hooked out of Hoovers. It hooked up just feet away and went on a 50 yard torpedo run, before swimming upstream and back to where I could land it. It was a beautiful colored male, about 20" and shaped like a football. It totally made my night!!! PS Did I mentioned how dang hard it is to take a pic of yourself while holding a big fish...You'll see
We topped of the outing with a late night run to McDo for a little Chicken on a bun. So why do I fish the Caddis Hatch? You won't understand until you try it yourself...
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.
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.
