# Long, Crazy Day



## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Last week, I was had to change my fishing plans around due to impassible roads and figured I'd give it a week and check back.

Well, today was that day and it couldn't have taken any longer to arrive! :lol:

I was really excited to get back to that area and hopefully gain access to these new spots, but once I crested Fairview Canyon, I started to worry.

Winter just won't let go of this little corner of the Earth, it seems.

Last week's sled tracks were all covered with a thick blanket of pure, unadulterated, Utah White.

A little further down the road and my worries grew deeper as I looked on to see an even more solid Huntington than last week. :shock:



















And if you take notice in those photos, you'll see that those blue skies were about to be swallowed by the swirling darkness. :twisted:

"Then I shall fish in the dark!"

8)

So now I was en route to my target, but I had to pull over and pick on a couple of small browns for a couple of minutes. This one had some pretty parr marks:










Okay, enough lagging! A pristine mountain lake with nobody around awaited me...

...YEAH RIGHT! I was still blocked off at the same spot as last week and, after some map checking, I realized that hiking in from that point would take a LOT longer than I thought last week. :roll: So I turned it around again and went for plan B, again.

The good news is that I didn't get stopped at the big snow drift that blocked me before. I even got a couple of miles past that point and up into some really muddy road conditions. There were several more drifts that I had to hit with some momentum and plow my car through, and I barely made it through a gnarley one. It had my car high centered and I was going uphill, but I hit it just hard enough as my spinning tires connected with the mud on the other side. Tough little car. 

After that nasty patch of snow, the muddy road got REALLY muddy. The gradient had also increased slightly and I wasn't sure if my little street tires could propel me through the upcoming patches of snow. I drove up that mess for about a quarter mile and had to carefully pull off a slippery 8-point turn. I figured that if the roads were still this messed up, my little spots-to-be would have to be put on the back burner for awhile.

So on the way down, I came up to the nasty snow drift, but had to maneuver around a new rock in the path and that really cut my momentum. Like a dummy, I kept going rather than getting out, moving the rock, backing up and building up more speed first.

I got stuck. 

I only had another couple of feet to go and I was even going downhill! What a dork!  

I managed to pull off the uphill charge, but the easy part just had to be the one I screwed up. :lol:

The only part stupider than getting stuck going the easy way was not having much equipment to deal with this problem. I could use one of my fins as a shovel and dig my way out! Yeah!










Well, it was helpful, but it didn't cut the mustard. I chopped and scooped and dug, but the car was high centered on some very tightly packed snow (becuase of the friggin' car on top of it). I was working up quite the sweat and noticed some humorous irony just off the road, right where I was stuck:










Classic. :lol:

I started going through my gear and trying to find something that could help me out of this. The only thing I really could use would be the jack. I could lift up one side, scoop out as much snow as possible, jam some branches under the tires and then do the other side.

Well, luckily for me, as I was playing all of this out in my mind, I could hear a 4 wheeler approaching. A nice couple came up riding tandem and were very helpful. The man dropped off his wife and raced back to their camp a few miles away and then raced back to me with a tow strap and a shovel.

Meanwhile, I was trying out the jack plan. I had successfully lodged a branch under my left tire, but it was slow going on the hard packed snow under my car. I tried chipping away at it with other branches and whatnot, but it was still tiresome and rather ineffective.

Soon enough, my rescuer had returned with a tow strap. Little did I know that he had a troop of others (unassociated) with intentions of riding the same road.

The tow strap did the trick and I'm entirely grateful to those that helped me out today. It was looking like a really long, hard day until helped me out of a bind. Much appreciated, if you're reading. THANK YOU!










So with that chunk of time forever lost to a stupid mistake, I needed to get to some water! Electric Lake? Sure! Why not? Pretty cutts, good fight, maybe work the fly rod a little.

On the way, I noticed that the lower mountain valleys are turning pretty green, dotted with little wildflowers everywhere. I'm glad it's springtime somewhere:



















I also noticed another colorful little friend in someone's yard:










:wink:

Finally, I made my way to Electric and expected a large crowd. I was wrong. Just a couple of groups on the far side of the dam and I was free to cast where I pleased.

I threw out my minnow and started casting with the Blue Fox and started getting action from pretty little cutthroats immediately.










I caught a few more on the BF and saw the minnow rod spitting line.

On the other end was this mature cuttie:










That's my biggest out of E Lake so far. I was impressed with the experience. :mrgreen:

Now that I'd caught fish on hardware AND a minnow, I was curious to see how I would fare with the fly rod.

I tied on a black egg sucking leech and made a fool of myself for a moment until I got a real cast in (slowly coming along). Once I got the cast I wanted, I got a hit! Problem is, as soon as the fish took, it snipped my tippet and stole my leech. :x Crappy tippet!

I tried several different knots to tie the fly on, but lost another fly as soon as I got a strike. I really think that they were just nipping right through the tippet. They have really sharp little teeth and I'm thinking that I got a bad brand of tippet material or something.

I lost about $10.00 worth of flies from whipping them off while tying air knots with my line/leader. Great fun. I eventually got sick of messing with it after I untied a ball 'o mess just to lose the first thing I tied on. It was fun to get some action on the fly rod, even thought it didn't end up with me holding fish. I paid attention to what seemed to work with my cast and then with my retrieve. Notes taken and next time should be fun too.

Back to hardware and minnows. 

The bite had slowed, but I still some luck with the Blue Fox and then the kastmaster, and even the pointer.










Kept 2 and left to try some of the open water at Cleveland, a place I'd never fished.

I got down to the shore and tried a whole bunch of different things with no results. I was getting low on time and wasn't catching anything! That sucks!

It sure is a pretty area though:



















I watched as some other people down the shore caught several and finally got a hit of my own off the bottom. I didn't know what to expect from a new reservoir, but I was hoping for something a little nicer than a finless wonder bow:










Oh well. It was nice to catch a fish, finally.

Well, that sun was making its way toward the horizon and I needed to get back home, so I called it a long, crazy day and made my way back to the top of the world for some spectacular sunburst moments:










Do the mountains ever end? They shouldn't.










Fairview Canyon is gorgeous right now.










So the day didn't go anything as planned, but that's all part of the fun of getting outdoors. Thanks to some very helpful people and their ATV, I was afforded enough time to have a great day of fishing.

Happy Fishing, Humans.


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## Pavlik (Sep 11, 2007)

Sounds like you need to get yourself some thicker tippet. I found that the wal-mart tippet works just fine. Just have to be gentle on your hooksets when fishing the thin stuff.


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## Riverrat77 (Sep 7, 2007)

LOAH said:


> Now that I'd caught fish on hardware AND a minnow, I was curious to see how I would fare with the fly rod.
> 
> I lost about $10.00 worth of flies from whipping them off while tying air knots with my line/leader. Great fun. I eventually got sick of messing with it after I untied a ball 'o mess just to lose the first thing I tied on. Back to hardware and minnows.


I have never gotten an "air knot" while casting hardware or plastics... and you were catching fish anyway. :lol: Man, you must have the patience of Job.... Those are the kind of things that scare me away from baitcasting and fly fishing. Just kidding... sounds like you are having a great time messing with new things and your pictures as always.... are awesome. Thats cool that you have a tough little economic car that lets you take trips like that. You sure see some beautiful country man.


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## hunterfisher (Sep 14, 2007)

Nice i need to hit E lake. I never get tired of you reports LOAH.


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## plottrunner (Apr 3, 2008)

Awesome Report as usual LOAH..... But one question.....Are you out of your freaking mind...... O-|-O Taking a 2 wheel drive car through drifts like that. Wow thats what you call dedication........ Glad you got unstuck and had a good day fishing.....


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## hunterfisher (Sep 14, 2007)

Ya i wouldn't go up there in a 2 wheel drive car but you must really really and i mean really want to fish all you can. But then again who doesn't want to fish all they can.


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## Chaser (Sep 28, 2007)

Awesome report! Those cutts are B-E-A-UTIFUL! 

As far as the tippet goes, try picking up some Mirage. It is expensive, but its really strong because its fluorocarbon. You can get away with using a thicker diameter with leeches and stuff, so try a 3x 6lb. Save the smaller diameter stuff for drifting dries through Uintah streams.


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## LURCH (May 26, 2008)

What a fun day. Not every day i can assist someone in something in my youner years I would have done myself. We were able to get within 1/2 mile of Petes hole, but the fishing thats best is about 250 yards further up the same road as petes hole and it is a natural fishery. go to the far side of the lake buy dirt road and the little inlet stream you will see during times of the year little fishes. I have seen 20" fish pulled out of that little lake. I use to fish electric lake all the time and also Little huntington (Planters in Huntington) but all fun. The wife said you doug like a miner the whole time I was gone. Glad you had a great day. I have not seen that much snow up joes valley for over 5 years


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## Pavlik (Sep 11, 2007)

Must have been a great honor running into LOAH like that. Man, LOAH, you are like a fish celeberty in this state!!! Maybe one of those days I will run into you fishing.


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## Greenguy88 (Sep 7, 2007)

Sweet report LOAH, pretty scenery up there and good looking fish! Sounds like you got some bad tippet, sooner or later youll get one on the fly rod... Still water fly fishing is my fav way to fly fish.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Hey, thanks for the great help LURCH! Glad you could join us. Watch out though...Once you start reading this forum, you might not stop. :wink: 

Glad you remembered the name of the site.

You saved me a LOT of sweat and time by helping me out and these fine folks on the forum would've had to settle for a "digging report" instead.

plotrunner-

Yeah, just ask rapalahunter what I think about snow drifts in the way. Our little trip to "Vivian" :wink: involved another nearby lake and the road up there required some "Sentra plowing". :lol: 

Good stuff. Hopefully, I've learned my lesson for awhile.

fatbass- Yeah, you're right. Using the fins as a shovel just doesn't work unless it's loose snow. A tow strap would also be handy.


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## rapalahunter (Oct 13, 2007)

I crapped my drawers riding with loah. We get to this snow drift and its as high as his hood. He starts to back up and I thought he was going to turn around. Instead it was to get a full head of steam when he hit it. :shock: He just blasts through this thing. The CO's that talked to us later that day thanked us for blazing a trail. Otherwise they wouldn't have come up to check out the reservoir we were at... they were in a big ole truck. :shock:


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## Poo Pie (Nov 23, 2007)

You are crazy.  Reminds me of the night Puddles and I spent at Jordanelle this winter with my truck burried in the snow...wish some 4-wheelers would have happened along that night. Thanks for the report.


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## fixed blade XC-3 (Sep 11, 2007)

LOAH You must have a giant sac. :lol:


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## Riverrat77 (Sep 7, 2007)

fixed blade said:


> LOAH You must have a *giant sac*. :lol:


To keep this fishing related... you'd be talking about an egg sac right?? Same as a "spawn bag"?? :lol: Dang gutpilers anyway....


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

fixed blade said:


> LOAH You must have a giant sac. :lol:


...To hold giant fish...yeah.

:wink:


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## hockey (Nov 7, 2007)

Sound to me like your sac is bigger than your brain.
I guess we were all young and dumb once


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## fixed blade XC-3 (Sep 11, 2007)

hockey said:


> Sound to me like your sac is bigger than your brain.
> I guess we were all young and dumb once


I don't think LOAH's that young! :lol: Huge sac though. :mrgreen:


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## orvis1 (Sep 7, 2007)

Another quality report, love to read them keep them comming. A sentra is not an offroad vehicle, let me repeat myself a sentra is not an offroad vehicle. Glad to see a fellow ATV guy could help you out or a jam and another new forum member to boot. Score 1 for the good guys!


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## Guns and Flies (Nov 7, 2007)

Thanks for the report LOAH, sounds like fun. I as well try not to let the fact that I don't own a truck limit where I go fishing.


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## deadicated1 (Mar 17, 2008)

nice report loah. i also hit up cleaveland, and had similar results, but with less fish than you.. whats the deal with this lake?? it should be good, and its prime time for fishing, but we fished for about half an hour, and tried everything with no luck. whats up?


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

I'm not sure what Cleveland's problem is. I think it's a powerbait lake. :lol: Bunch of planters with no fins.

I'd still like to try the inlet by the dam though. That looks fishy.


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## deadicated1 (Mar 17, 2008)

i even stooped to the level of using power bait :lol: , with a color combination that never lets me down. NOTHIN. oh well, electric was fun, huntington was fun to watch melt (or freeze), and the boone and crockett porcupine we bagged with the truck on the way home was fun too


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