# The Hunchback of Flaming Gorge - 8/4-8/22



## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

A couple of months ago, I was listening to the newest Brad Paisley album and heard a new song that gave me an idea.

[youtube:1yu1j5tb]http://www.youtube.com/v/RJEsSgSW5DU?version=3[/youtube:1yu1j5tb]

When people take the test I took a few weeks ago, it is customary for their employers to give them some time off to recover from the supreme awfulness that is that test. I was no exception and my employer was kind enough to give me 3 weeks off.

Having just moved back to Utah from the east coast, Washington DC area specifically, I had a score to settle with some fish in Utah that I'd missed over the past 5 years. I made my yearly pilgrimage out here to fish, but that was more just so I could stay sane for just one more year until I got to do it again.

This was to be a once in a life time trip. This was my chance to go anywhere and do anything I wanted. I thought about Alaska. I thought about bluefins in Nova Scotia. I thought about sailfish in Mexico and yellowfins (etc) in Hawaii. But, in August, there is no fish I wanted more dearly than the elusive (at least to me) giant lake trout at Flaming Gorge. I determined to spend my time as Mr. Paisley suggested. I was going to spend "however long it takes" to get a lake trout from Flaming Gorge over 28".

The exquisite pain that was that experience was now to be rewarded with almost 3 full weeks at Flaming Gorge to pursue my quarry.

The first portion of the trip was with some buddies I've had since high school. We try to get together to fish every year. Though we missed the trip for the last two years, this year we were determined to re-start our tradition.

We met in Salt Lake and headed for Flaming Gorge on Thursday, August 4. Early on in the trip, we banned all talk about politics and the economy for the whole trip because, even though we all agreed in principle, we all found the political and economic situation of the country depressing. Thus, we agreed to focus on happier things for the whole trip, a wise idea, I think.

We stopped at the Traveler's America about 20 miles outside of Evingston to hit the Burger King there and to fill up the boat and the truck with gas. From there, we drove to Sheep Creek while discussing a fishing idea I had. My buddies, Relgatta and Raymond, turned it into a money making venture pretty quickly though I was more interested in just the fishing aspect of the idea. As we got closer and closer to Manila, they got more and more excited about it. It's something I'll work on over the next few weeks.

We arrived at Sheep Creek at about 2230 and it was long dark. Fortunately, I've made the pilgrimage from Sheep Creek to Hideout many times and on nights darker than the one we found that evening at the ramp. We got the boat in the water and made our way over to Hideout, arriving about 2300. We have always been able to get a walk in camp site on Thursdays in the past. But, this year, someone came in and paid for 16 days and then left the campsite empty. They are supposed to be first come, first served and occupancy is required for 24 consecutive hours in order to maintain your spot.

We didn't want to set up our camp and then have to tear everything down so we slept on the dock at campground number 18, which was vacant. Relgatta snores like he is sawing a goose in half. At first light, we wandered down to the campground host's houseboat to ask him about vacany in the campground. Unfortuantely, the campground host seemed unconcerned that no one was in the site, even though the rule was plastered on the side of his house boat. We were forced to head over to Kingfisher Island campground to camp.

We left hideout, motored over to Kingfisher Island, and set up camp. Even though we were annoyed that we couldn't camp at Hideout, we were excited to be fishing again. We set off for Wyoming at about 0800, a little later than we would have liked.

We got set up, which was a neat experience for me. It was the first time that I had made every rod that was in the water. We had 4 in the water, and I made all of them. It was neat to see that.










Karma smiled on us and it wasn't long before we had our first hits.










My camera took a dump and we lost a bunch of the pictures from the morning of Friday, August 5th. But, we got some of the morning's proceeds. We caught a bunch of little salmon that all went back. We kept 2 that were big enough to eat and one lake trout.










Raymond is relatively new to fishing, not having gone much before he started going with us about 4 years ago. He's really gotten into it since then and enjoys it more than anyone I know. He gets more excited about bringing in any fish than anyone I know. He loves to hike our fish up to Lucerne's fish cleaning station and throw them on the table.

We decided to run from the wind and headed back to the Canyon to try our luck in the Kingfisher/Red Cliffs area. The wind got too strong for us to compete so we went back to camp for eggs, bacon, and hash browns. Relgatta is a very organized camper. If there were a college level course in organizing for a camping trip, Harvard would hire Relgatta to come teach the class.

After lunch, we took a brief nap before our evening fishing exercise. We were going to fish around Kingfisher Island, in front of the wall at Hideout, and over into Sheep Creek in anticipation of Emmasin, our 4th man and our "spirit of the boat," joining us for the rest of the weekend.

The Canyon was spectacular.










An osprey was flying around looking for some dinner as well. He came in over top of us at about 20 feet.










He crashed down into the water at amazing speed. I thought the little fella was going to drown fighting with a fish but, soaking wet, he was able to eventually get his wings out of the water enough to generate lift. I tried to take some pictures. Here's one that will make LOAH proud: 










He flew away with an 8" rainbow trout, about the same size as what we were catching. That was the fourth time I've ever seen that and what was even more amazing, to me at least, was that I saw that twice in a week. I had seen the same thing at Grandpa's lake on the previous Saturday in Montana.

We trolled down past Kingfisher Island and caught a few small kokes and rainbows on a very small gold flatfish behind pop gear. Everything seemed pretty small near Hideout. So, as per our plan, we motored over to Sheep Creek to see if anything was interested there. We trolled around Sheep Creek until dark without even a hit. I always do pretty well there but rarely do I do well at Sheep Creek during a trip with my buddies. It's like the fish just don't participate because they want to make me look silly.

Emmasin got stuck in the traffic created by the construction on I-80 getting out of Park City and didn't arrive until 2300. When he arrived, we were tied up at the dock. It was good to see him, as he just finished the same test I did. We took it together. But, his employer didn't give him any time off. There's a lot of back story to that, but suffice it to say that he got kind of a raw deal in the hopes that his current employer will keep him on full time so he can continue to feed his family.

We went back to camp for Bratwursts cooked over the fire, BBQ kettle chips, and corn on the cob. We were all tired when we turned in for the night. But, we still agreed that we were going to Wyoming at first light.

At 0530 on Saturday the 6th, we got out of bed and Emmasin heartily agreed that Relgatta's snoring sounded like he was sawing a goose in half all night. But, much to my personal dismay, he said I sounded like Darth Vader, only a little more sinister. That is a characterization I dispute. :mrgreen:

We got up to Wyoming and fished the Wild Horse area without much happening. We decided to troll north to the Brinegars area when we happened upon a spot where a bunch of Lake Trout were hanging out. Emmasin connected with a nice 19" pup first.










We ended up going through the same area for most of the morning and picked up a bunch of fish, including at least 3 doubles (one of which belonged to 2 of my rods :shock: ).























































Raymond's hot lure was a pink and holographic curly's lure behind an RMT pink crush dodger. Emmasin was catching his macs at 98 feet with a Lhur Jensen orange dodger (#000) and a small silver hammered krocodile. We had 3 doubles in a row catching lake trout once we found the school. We also caught a bunch of nice salmon, in addition to the little 2nd years I was catching.

Raymond got a really big hit on his downrigger and snapped out. He got the fish to the boat and Emmasin went for the net. What happened next is a story that will turn into lore and legend, but without assigning fault to any party, the fish was lost. It was the biggest lake trout Raymond had ever seen. Worse yet, the fish left with his lure. He was crestfallen.

I caught more 2nd year salmon than I care to remember. But, we came back to Lucerne with a nice stringer for Raymond, which lightened his mood. Fortunately, Raymond's luck was to turn that evening.

After cleaning the fish at Lucerne, we went back to camp for pancakes and sausage and a very long nap, to recover from the late night and early morning. Emmasin napped in the boat, away from the [Relgatta's] snoring.

After we woke up, we decided that we would fish Red Cliffs because, long ago, Emmasin's dad caught a 35 lb lake trout there. The "spirit of the boat" knows.

We trolled out from Kingfisher Island directly toward the cliffs after strategizing a little bit. Emmasin went deep, to 98 feet. Raymond, on the other downrigger went to 88 feet.

Not too much later, a big fish came calling. We immediately thought it was a lake trout from how deep it was. We were wrong.

Emmasin's silver hammered Kroc had found a kokanee!










And a really good one at that! He had a nice hook on his snout and was thick through the shoulders. I was a little shocked that the kokanees were so deep, they were at Red Cliffs, and that it was so big! Mental note. 8)

Raymond hadn't had anything since his earlier miss in the day and was eagerly trading lures in the hopes of finding one that would produce. I don't recall exactly what color lure he found, but it was another Curly's lure. And, it produced his personal best lake trout to date.










I don't think there was a happier man in Christendom that night. We only found a couple of fish that night, but both were very nice, and made for some truly happy campers.

We headed back for our usual end-of-trip steaks, which Relgatta prepared so as to be tastier than $100 steaks "cooked" by Washington D.C. chefs. He could also show them a thing or two about cooking a man's steak. Emmasin required Relgatta to burn his steak beyond recognition. There wasn't a trace of pink left in it. -)O(- But, he seemed to still like it.

We sat around the fire and joked and talked for a while. Emmasin wasn't party to the no politics/economy rule and told us that the stock market had dropped like 800 points or some ridiculous thing the previous day. We were glad to be camping instead of watching the news.

We went to bed that night hoping to catch the morning bite in Wyoming before we had to head home. Relgatta went back to his goose, Raymond to his hammock, me to my cot, and Emmasin slept in the boat.

To be continued . . .


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## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

Sounds like a good trip so far. I look forward to part 2.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Nice work, Quasimodo. Glad you and your buds had a chance to reconnect and relax together...especially after that test.

I'm also looking forward to part 2.


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## wyoguy (Mar 4, 2010)

Great report and pictures. Sounds like a great trip.


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## johnnycake (Jul 19, 2011)

always a trip i have wanted to to try can't wait for the rest of your report.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Sunday morning dawned bright and beautiful. We were on our way by 0600 and headed back to our spot near Wild Horse in Wyoming. I'm not sure why but we had a pretty hard time catching anything on Sunday morning. I caught a bunch of cookie cutter kokes on our pop gear rod.










About half the way through the morning on Sunday, I realized that winding the manual downriggers up from 90 feet was pretty tiring. I figured by the time I was done with the whole trip, my right arm would leave me a hunchback from cranking the downrigger up so much.

We didn't get anything in the boat that was worth keeping. We already had a bunch of fish and enough to make our fishing widows happy, so we weren't too concerned. We enjoyed being out and headed back to camp around 1200 for some of Relgatta's patented griddle burgers. We cleaned up camp, got it all back in the boat and headed back for Sheep Creek.

We stopped at the market in Manila to pick up a car charger for our phones, each of which was dead and Raymond bought a round of cold ones for the road for everyone. And, by cold ones, I mean Gatorades and water, just for the record. :lol:

We wound our way back through Evingston, without a stop, and back to my parent's house in Salt Lake. I drove Raymond home and spent the night at home.

Monday morning, August 8, I drove down to Salt Lake to fix a few boat issues that had popped up with the boys. The vertical support on the windshield of the boat had come out and created a little problem for us on Sunday afternoon. I also cleaned up the boat and bought some slime rags for the boat. I replaced a couple of rod holders that had been struggling and re-installed with new screws so the rod holders would sit on the frame of the receiver rather than sitting on the rounded screw tops.

My wife's aunt was celebrating her birthday that night and so I hustled back up to Layton to make some recently-caught salmon for dinner and we went to see Cowboys and Aliens, which was truly awful. The whole premise didn't even make sense. **Spoiler Alert** Look, if you have the capacity to travel through space, you should be able to pretty easily discern what weaknesses humans have. We are big sacs of pink water, anything will kill us. It doesn't really require a lot of experimenting. How does crap like this make it to the screen and cool shows like Firefly, which is in a similar vein, get canceled? I don't get it.

The next morning, Tuesday, I headed back down to Salt Lake to finish prepping the boat, pick up the camper, get it on the truck, and get the boat on the truck. I drove over to the Fresh Market to pick up some supplies for the trip. The cashier asked me how long I was going camping without me saying anything at all. I guess that means I was stocked up pretty well. :O•-: I ended up spending about $150 on food for a couple weeks. I thought that was pretty reasonable.

I filled up with gas at the gas station across the street ($100) and some ice ($8) and drove back to my parents' house to get all my groceries loaded up. Relgatta had been sending me a few emails here and there and I was able to ask him what he wanted me to do with a jacket that he left in the boat. He was headed to Fish Lake the following week and was going to need it. At 1458 I rolled out of my parents house and dropped Relgatta's jacket off at his parents' house, which was nearby.

From there, I drove straight to the Traveler's America 25 miles outside of Evingston for a burger (I realized that I hadn't eaten yet) and to fill the boat and truck up with gas, which was another $100). I was back on my way at 1704.

I turned the corner into Manila and spotted water at 1802. I was so excited that I was hooting and hollering as I drove the last stretch down to Lucerne. My adventure was here.

I met Terry, the campground host who was on duty at the time, at the registration station and he gave me the VIP tour of the campground in the golf cart. Lucerne is in the middle of a 4 million dollar renovation for most of the campsites. Next spring, every site but one in each loop should be electrified and have water directly to the site. In the meantime, they created a temporary "B" loop near the trees across from the trailer parking lot near the launch ramp. I settled on site B16 and went back to fill out the paperwork and pay the folks. Camping was $18 per night even though there were no hook ups, water, or anything else. I thought that was kind of a raw deal, but the convenience would make it worth it. And, if I didn't want to stay in Lucerne the whole time, I could head over to State Line Cove later. I pulled into camp at 1848 and started getting set-up.

The camper was an absolute mess. It was coated in 2 years of non-use and needed a lot of work. So, for my own comfort, I decided to forgo fishing for the evening and start cleaning up. That was a good thing because I realized I forgot to buy dish soap, etc. for the trip. So I drove back to the Sinclair station on the UT/WY border to pick up some soap, antiseptic wipes, and some minnows for bait. I spent the remainder of the evening using every last one of the antiseptic wipes to clean up the camper. When I was out of them, I went out to set up 4 rods for the next morning. 2 jigging rods and 2 downrigger rods.

I finally made it to bed about 0030 hours and my alarm was set for 0445 hours. I was pretty beat but I was so excited to start my adventure that I couldn't sleep. I thought back to my trip to Flaming Gorge on Labor Day weekend of 2006, right before I headed east for 5 years. I thought of the miserable nights riding the metro home through the ghettos and avoiding the crazies on the train. I thought of all the times I got chewed out for no other reason than my "style" wasn't my boss' "style." I thought of all the nights I had run from work to school in a suit and tie to sit through class. I thought of the late nights and the weekends I had spent studying in my basement where I couldn't be distracted by the outdoors that I loved so much. Flaming Gorge was where my heart was. Every day I was miserable was one day closer to a few days at Flaming Gorge again. After 5 years, I was ready to end the trip that started on Labor Day Weekend in 2006. Ahab's Quest was about to begin. I probably dropped off somewhere around 0230.

Wednesday morning, August 10, found me still in the camper. I had kinked my neck terribly on the camper bed and pulled a muscle in my back lifting one of the coolers the previous day. I was so excited and stayed up so late that I missed the morning of fishing. :roll: I was furious with myself.

But, there was nothing I could do about it. The time was gone. I decided to make the most of it. The battery in the camper needed to be recharged so I hiked it over to the bathrooms for a plug in. While it charged, I bought some 409 and finished cleaning the camper, including the fridge that had a funky smell. Enjoying the comfort of the newly cleaned camper, I settled in for a breakfast of Coco-Roos and an apple.

I had a couple of other things to fix on the boat and on the camper so I spent some time fixing a few more things. I was glad I brought my screw gun. When I was done, the battery still hadn't finished charging and I had intended to go to Buckboard to the marina there to see what the big mac lure du jour was. They had an excellent selection and they usually have pretty good info. But, not on this particular day. I let them know that I was here to fish and I needed some lures if they could point me to the right ones. Lynette, the cashier, knew very little about fishing and could only tell me what others had bought. She suggested a plastic squid tube that was about 18" long. :?

I ended up buying a few things, some ketchup, mustard, and dill relish. I decided on a kokanee looking j-plug and another flatfish. I got back in the truck and drove back to Lucerne.

I forgot to mention earlier that I am extremely grateful for Wyogoob's excellent suggestions for preparing for my trip. While I catch pups here and there, I was far from knowledgeable on how to actually catch some of the bigger ones. In my mind, learning HOW to catch the big ones was just as important, or more important, than catching a big one was. Wyogoob's expertise was tremendously helpful and I want to thank him publicly for it.

The battery had finally charged by 1400 and the heat of the day was on. So I decided to catch a short nap so I could fish that night and the following morning.

When I got up, I hooked the boat up to the truck and pulled out of my campsite. About 20 feet later, I realized that I had left the third wheel down on the trailer and it was dragging on the rough road! Dummy! I ended up bending it to the point of near uselessness for the rest of the trip. It's a tough thing to take yourself fishing. There is a lot of work and a lot of jobs that you have to do. It's easy to miss one thing and really mess yourself up.

I got the boat in the water without incident and decided to go back to Red Cliffs since we had been doing so well there the previous week.

The fish were still there. I used the pink crushed dodger with a silver hammered kroc and a Lhur Jensen dodger that faded from pink to orange over the length of the dodger on my second pole with a glow pink crippilure. The kroc went to 98 feet and the crippilure was at 75. It didn't take long.



















Then I got a double. A double, by yourself, on downriggers is a true fire drill. I learned how to steer the boat and reel at the same time.



















I shook another 2nd year koke at the boat so no picture of him. But, then I got another double.










A 20" koke and a 20" mac at the same time! I caught 3 and a half feet of fish in 30 seconds! This was a great start.

I headed back to the cleaning station at dark to clean up my catch.



















As I was filleting the big lake trout, I was distracted by someone asking about the fish and it slipped out of my hands and down the disposal. I was very disappointed because it was such a nice fish. I felt terrible. It was a true accident but accidents like that just shouldn't happen. The others filleted just fine. I headed back to camp with my fish. I cooked a few bratwursts and washed it down with some chocolate milk for dinner. I made calls for the evening and headed to bed.

I was coming for the big ones in the morning.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Part 2 is still looking good.

I had forgotten about the laker down the disposal. You told me about it and I can sympathize, somewhat. While cleaning some fish in my ice hole, I had one slip out of my hands and down the drain. Crappy feeling, but mine wasn't very impressive. That's gotta burn.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

LOAH said:


> Part 2 is still looking good.
> 
> I had forgotten about the laker down the disposal. You told me about it and I can sympathize, somewhat. While cleaning some fish in my ice hole, I had one slip out of my hands and down the drain. Crappy feeling, but mine wasn't very impressive. That's gotta burn.


Yeah, it chaps my hide, but it's just one of those things. If you drop your keys in a pool of lava, you just can't get them back.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

The morning of August 11 dawned black and a little cool. 0500 was still dark on the docks at Lucerne but I was ready for round one with the macs.

I got the boat in the water and turned the key. It started but something was wrong. I turned around and saw the prop up! Dummy! I immediately shut off the motor and dropped it. It restarted just fine and I drove over to the dock to tie up. Once I was there, I raised the motor for inspection and it didn't appear that I had broken anything in the one second that the motor was on. I was relieved that everything checked out visually. I tried to drop the motor again and it wouldn't budge. "Great," I thought. Wanting to get off the ramp, I walked back to get the truck parked and think about why the motor wasn't going down. I realized that the problem was probably with the starter motor that raised and lowered the prop. A few taps from my 8# downrigger weight convinced the prop to go down. I finally left the dock at 0611.

Dawn at Flaming Gorge is incredible. The sun coming over the rocks is worth the price of admission by itself. In two weeks, I never got tired of it.










I was hoping that there would be other boats headed out to fish for macs but there weren't any. As I pulled away from the docks, I saw Conquest Expeditions, a local charter boat, pull up and put in the water. I thought about waiting to follow him, but I decided that I should try by myself first. I motored up to a spot just south of Pipeline and marked some big fish at about 80' down.










I started jigging with a 4" chub on a 6" tube in a spectacular setting. But, the air was moving and it was hard to stay in place well enough to jig on anything. So after about 15 minutes, I decided to start trolling with the downriggers. I put on a green and yellow T-50 flatfish at 100' and a 6" tube behind a flasher at 85 feet and started to run around.

After about 20 minutes, Conquest Expeditions drove up right next to me! I thought that was pretty funny. After he drove up, the armada was on me and there were boats everywhere. There were a few people catching fish and Conquest was no exception. They were bringing in lots of small-medium macs and a few kokes here and there. They were certainly outpacing everyone else in the area.

I got a little worried because I was not after the fish that I was seeing coming in. I varied my trolling speed, I varied my depths between 55 and 110 feet, changed to a silver hammered kroc on a pink crushed dodger (that had produced for me the night before), another glow tube, a j-13 chart rapala, and a rainbow flatfish. I got a hit on the rainbow flatfish but I doubt the fish that hit it did so because he was hungry. I got 10 or 11 clicks on my drag before it was gone. I trolled all the way back to Lucerne without event.

Coming in, I saw a boat with California tags that had a gaff standing up (and apparently well used) sitting in his boat. That's illegal at the Gorge so I called the DWR. It took like 15 minutes to talk to anyone that knew anything about the rules and, honestly, they didn't seem too concerned about it. I realize that it was a minor infraction, but rules are rules. I was disappointed that they weren't really interested in enforcing the rule. However, I think this was an isolated incident because when I have previously called, DWR has been very attentive and interested in enforcing the rules.

I got the boat in, stopped by the marina and bought a hot pink Curly's lure that Raymond had been using the previous week and a lemonade that really hit the spot. I cooked a couple of brats leftover from the previous night and had a caesar salad with some more of those BBQ kettle chips and took a nap.

I woke up around 1800 and found that the afternoon had gotten pretty windy. There were whitecaps on Linwood Bay and I didn't particularly feel like plowing through it to force my way back to Red Cliffs. I've been in Linwood Bay when it is blowing, and I probably will be again. But, if I can avoid it, that's worth it.

I was curious to see how Conquest did a little more up close but I guess he had pulled out by noon that day. I wandered over to the bathrooms by the launch ramp and met Mike, originally from Illinois, who works at the launch ramp for the DWR checking to make sure boats have filled out their AIS certification forms. He was a nice kid and we talked until about 1900. He has a rough job. Though most are nice to him, he gets a few jerks that have a fit about signing a piece of paper. He doesn't deserve that. Be nice to Mike, he's just doing his job and we all want mussels to stay out of our lakes.

I went back to the camper and made pork chops in mushroom soup with mashed potatoes, and made enough for lunch the following day. It was great. I also found a random box of pistachio pudding in the camper and I just happened to have a gallon of milk. It was an awesome meal.

I looked at my map and decided to go to Swim Beach to do some trolling on the humps there. On the Labor Day trip in 2006, we arrived at Swim Beach very late at night after sitting in traffic on the UT/WY border near Evingston for almost 4 hours. There were drunk people passed out everywhere and parties still going on. Trailers were everywhere, clothing was everywhere, tubes were everywhere, boats were everywhere, it was a mess. It looked like a hurricane came ashore right there. From then on, we referred to the area as "Refugee Beach." Either way, it was where I was going in the morning.

I made my calls and went to bed for the night.










At 0500, I was up and out. Launching went without incident that morning so I was out fishing a little earlier than I had been. Once I got there, I started trolling a T-50 frog flatfish and a J-13 rainbow rapala. It was tough. I couldn't find any humps so I was up and down a lot on the riggers, which with one man, is a lot of work. After quite a bit of work, I found two humps about 750 feet apart that were 116 and 118 feet with a gully between them down to about 135 feet. Both had fish on them. I set the other rigger at 90 feet and ran back and forth between them, almost circling a buoy on the state line.










I was sure I was going to hit something because I kept seeing this image appear on my fish finder. There was no way I could hit so many fish dead on and not get a hit. And those were big arches, the kind I was looking for.

After a little while, I decided to put on a pearl flatfish and modified the hooks on it a little bit. I also put a chunk of chub meat on one of the hooks to give it a little chub smell. I dropped it back down to 118 feet to make another run on my hump.

Two or three minutes later, I saw a hit. It was a weak hit but it was definitely a hit. The strong action of the flatfish made it a little difficult to see soft hits, but I knew it was a hit. So I snapped out and reeled in a bunch of line. Once I only had about 60 yards out, I could feel a fish yanking back. When I first saw it, I thought it was a burbot. It wasn't.










It was another 20" lake trout. He hit the hook on the flatfish with the chub meat and totally missed the back hook. The greedy sucker just wanted the meat. His head and eye got messed up by the trailer hook so he went in the box. While I wasn't sure, I thought that fish was telling me I was doing something right and I needed the confidence boost that morning.

I trolled until 1100, having gotten a few snags that all came free. At one point, I saw a big bottle floating off Refugee Beach. How things don't change! It was a gallon jug (empty) of Sangria floating in the middle of nowhere. I netted it up. I got back to the marina around noon and it was a circus. I'm convinced that the world is full of _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and it keeps them all on boat ramps. People were cutting in line to get to the dock, tying up weird so no one else could, just sitting there on the dock, swerving in front of other people on the launch ramp, etc. I was glad to get the boat out of the water. I bet that gallon jug came from a boat ramp somewhere.

Mike and his buddy were doing a creel survey when I got to the top. Mine was the only lake trout they had seen all day.

I drove the boat to town to fill up. I had only used 7 gallons of gas so far. Our little trolling motor is pretty darn efficient on the gas. I went back to camp, ate my lunch and took a nap.

At 1700 I geared up and headed for Red Cliffs. As I was driving out of the marina, I was almost hit by 4 ladies in a Glastron wake boarding boat that read "Lucerne Valley Marina" on the side. I had to use my horn on the boat for the first time ever. They were totally clueless. I learned over my remaining time there, to watch out for boats that said "Lucerne Valley Marina" because those boats were captained by people that were missing a clue. I've seen people leaving the marina in 14 foot aluminum boats marked "Lucerne Valley Marina" when I've limped into the marina to get out of a passing windstorm in a 19 foot boat with a V6 motor! Things can get dangerous on the Gorge in short order. It's a wonder more people aren't killed up there.

I trolled in my spot near Red Cliffs for most of the night at the same speed, same depth, and with the same lures and only ended up losing a nice 4th year koke at the boat. It was ok though because the setting couldn't be beat.




































I stopped at another spot where big macs are known to be picked up and tried to jig on them a little bit, but that wasn't happening. On my way back to the marina, I drove through Linwood Bay where I didn't mark a single fish. I couldn't believe I drove over that much water without a single hit. It truly was the black hole of fishing.

Back at the marina, it was nearly dark. I tied up at the dock and walked up to get the truck over to the ramp. I said hello to a couple of guys that were watching their 16-17 year old boys catching crawdads and fishing at the ramp there and asked them how the fishing was. They said it was ridiculously slow. I pulled the truck down the ramp and passed by them again on my way to the boat and we got to talking.

They were both named Paul and they were very nice guys. I told them why I was there and what I was doing and one of the Pauls pulled out his phone to show me a 40 pounder he had caught recently. He's now listed in my phone as "Flaming Gorge Paul." It turns out that the Pauls really know their stuff on the Gorge. They gave me a few tips for the macs and I gave them a few for kokes. We had a long chat there on the ramp, that I thoroughly enjoyed. Very good people.

I made some pulled pork sammiches for dinner, had some more salad, and a glass of chocolate milk before bed.

Tomorrow could be the day was my last thought before I drifted to sleep. :mrgreen:


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## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

Thanks for all of the updates.

The suspense is killing me...


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

I know from experience that it takes awhile to put this much info together. I appreciate that you're doing this so you can share all of this with us. 

Now you've got us hanging...


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## bwhntr (Sep 12, 2007)

As always I appreciate your Flaming Gorge reports. Looks like you had a great time!


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

It's my pleasure guys, really. This is kind of a way to extend my trip an extra few days by reminiscing on it a little bit. I don't know if many people are actually reading the whole thing but, especially since I was alone for most of the trip, this is a fun way to share it and make it a little more memorable. I try to add a little more fishing detail to make it worth the read.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Saturday morning, August 13, was another beautiful morning. I woke up at 0445 for some cocoa-roos, the supply of which was rapidly diminishing, in some chocolate milk for breakfast. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to eat cocoa-roos in chocolate milk and never did. I thought it would be too chocolatey but I liked it that morning. It was refreshing.

I was first on the ramp, as usual. I liked being the first person to get the ramp wet on each particular day. But, I decided that on that day, I would switch up my routine a little bit Instead of unhooking the boat from the trailer winch before I jumped in (standing on the trailer tongue), I thought I would jump into the boat and then unhook the trailer winch. Big mistake. My weight pushed the D-ring on the boat down past the rubber V-block that the bow of the boat rests in when it is on the trailer. As it slipped, it pulled the strap loose on the winch causing the gears in the winching mechanism to spin. My left ring finger just happened to be right on one of the gears. As they spun, they broke my fingernail, clean off, and took a big chunk out of the tip of my finger. Dummy!

Fingers bleed everywhere, and this one was no exception. I couldn't tell how badly it was messed up because it was still dark and I was trying to get the boat off the trailer. I wrapped it in a towel (I had some towels that were clean before they became slime rags) and drove over to the dock. Some thoughtless person decided that he would camp with his boat tied to the courtesy dock (yes, the one with a 15 minute docking limit) that night and was still there. I know he was camped there all night because he was there when I came in from fishing the previous night and while I was talking to Flaming Gorge Paul. This thoughtless person also didn't pull into an out of the way place on the dock. He was front and center, which made tying up a little more difficult for me. Launch ramps . . . It's universal.

My first aid kit was sorely understocked on the boat and I needed to wrap my finger with something (which was rectified that afternoon). I saw a bass boat coming into the docks way too fast and grabbed it so he wouldn't bang his boat on the docks, which he would have had I not grabbed him. He was grateful that I saved his boat and I told him that it wasn't a problem. He had a couple of bandages that I used to wrap up my finger. The tericloth towel had soaked through but had caught most of the bleeding.

I parked the truck and headed back to the boat where Conquest was jonesing for my spot at the dock. I apologized to Captain Kyle (of Conquest Expeditions) for my delay in getting off the dock, and he was very gracious. I asked him if he was going for kokes or macs that day. He said "a little of both."

I went back over to my spot circling the state line buoy at Refugee Beach. There were plenty of fish underneath me but none of them were interested. I had on my big pearl flatfish on a Shimano Talora rod (I hadn't finished my heavier downrigger rod before I left on the trip) and, because of Flaming Gorge Paul's suggestion, the only needlefish I had on the boat. I trolled and trolled and trolled and trolled and trolled some more. I was getting so frustrated I could hardly stand it. Just the same as yesterday, I saw this more times than I care to admit.










All of the sudden, after hours of trolling without so much as a bump, I got a hit on my needlefish. I ran over to snap out of the downrigger. I came out and got tight to the fish, or so I had thought. The next second, nothing. No resistance whatsoever. I kept reeling and my line came in with a little curled twist at the end. My needlefish was gone. The line also wasn't attached to the downrigger release anymore.

I stood up and hit the end of my rope, right there. I shut down everything, brought in the other line, shut off the motor, turned off the fish finder, I even turned off the GPS. I just sat there, cursing. And cursing loud. I didn't know what else to do.

I saw a guy near me jigging for some of the big ones. He said he caught a 20# that morning closer to the northern point of the bay. I said "what the heck," since this is a PG rated website, and broke out the jigging rod. I found a fish and started jigging on him. Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, NOTHING! :evil:

Frustrated beyond belief, I decided to call it for the day. It was after the morning hours when the big ones were supposed to be active anyway. About 1000, I packed up and headed in. On the way there, I thought "Why not go over to Antelope Flats and do some recon for tomorrow." So I did.

When I got there, there were fish everywhere. I hadn't seen anything like it anywhere on the lake. They were everywhere. EVERYWHERE! The bottom of my fishfinder was a solid mass of fish arches. Since I didn't know what the bottom structure was like, I broke out the jigging rods again to get a feel for the bottom. I jigged for about an hour until 1100 and got absolutely nothing. I had time to record a few picturesque scenes.










After that picture, my camera took a dump, again. So I took some nice ones but they are lost to the electromagnetic ether.

A couple in a boat was trolling near by and whatever they were doing didn't look right to me. I couldn't figure out what they were trying to do. They were shouting to another boat about a 23" lake trout they caught that morning. They had downriggers on the side of their boat, but their rods looked like they were going straight out the back. That's weird, especially when the water wasn't very deep where I was, at least relatively.

So I figured they were probably trolling steel, since trolling steel was a mystery to me. Not wanting to get caught, I shouted to them "Are you guys trolling steel?" The woman, very polite, and trying to be helpful shouted back "No, we're trolling flatfish!" :lol: I stifled a laugh and the man in the boat said "No, we're using heavy 30 lb. monofilament." I thanked them for the info and said "maybe I'll fire up the trolling motor."

Frustrated and desperate for anything, I reset the riggers and started trolling. I trolled in a relatively straight line, parallel to shore to keep the depth about constant. There were plenty of fish, so I figured it wasn't a bad thing to try. At the Gorge though, the bottom can come up in a real hurry. So, downrigging in a new spot is always a little bit of a risky proposal. It's usually best to get a feel for the bottom and where it comes up and down before you set. But, I didn't have that kind of time. I was Captain Ahab that morning and an uneven bottom wasn't going to keep me from trying for my white whale.

All of the sudden, my 80 feet bottom turned into 140 feet of water pretty quick. I was back in fishing oblivion so I turned around to make another run at the hump. As I approached, I saw the downrigger ball with the flatfish snap out of the rigger. I had hung up on the bottom as the bottom came back up. I reeled on it to make sure nothing was there and started to reel the downrigger weight up. All of the sudden, over my shoulder, I saw that familiar "wham wham . . . wham wham wham" of the rod tip, which I refer to as "twiggling" on my homemade kokanee rod. I ran to the other side of the boat and snapped out.

I immediately was tight to the fish, which was headed for Aruba, and in a hurry. He was peeling drag like it wasn't even there! I knew that this was a good fish. Once I settled down, ok . . . fine, Once my heart rate had gotten back to the low 200s, I realized that I had 2 steel cables hanging off the sides of my boat and a big flatfish line hanging out the back of the boat. That was bad. Really bad. Stainless steel cable and the 15lb mono I had on between me and the fish never go very well together. Odds that I was going to get this fish up were not good.

The fish swam under the flatfish line and over to the other side of the boat. I wound my rod under the other rod and time seemed to slow down as I saw the line slowly working its way closer to the downrigger cable. I'd reel on the fish to get some pressure on him and I'd reach over and reel on the downrigger cable with everything I had in me. I reeled on the fish, reeled on the rigger, reeled on the fish, reeled on the rigger, reeled on the fish, and reeled on the rigger some more. I started to see the tell tale golden profile of a p'd off lake trout coming into sight. The profile was the biggest thing I'd ever seen in the water at Flaming Gorge. This wasn't just a good fish, it was a GREAT fish. The net was too far away to reach so I was going to go for him barehanded. (Give me a break, in the heat of battle there was very little blood reaching my brain).

I got him close and went for the grab. With one splash of his tail, he sang another 100 feet of line of my reel and was back to the bottom. As he went, I saw him swim around the downrigger cable. I yelled "NO! NO!" and screamed obscenities not fit for discussion here. All the sudden, the familiar green dowrigger weight hit the boom on the downrigger. I saw my line wrapped once around the weight.

As soon as I realized I was wrapped, I backed the drag off a touch to give me some slack to free the wrap from the line. The fish decided to unwrap himself and swam around the ball like a streak of lightning and took off again, with my drag loose. I looked down and saw my reel birdsnested unbelievably. There was line sticking out 3 inches from the spool. It was a Gordian's knot that no mere mortal could ever hope to untangle. I sunk down into the rear facing chair in the boat, defeated. I pulled on the line to see if there was any weight left on the rod. There was none. The fish was gone. I was crushed.  I've caught some big fish in the ocean before but I'd never seen anything like this in freshwater, especially a place where I knew that big fish existed. This was the fish, I knew it. It was the one I had worked for and it was gone.

I started trying to untangle the mess in my reel. I'd make an inch and lose a foot. I got so wrapped up in it that I wasn't paying attention to anything else. I kept pulling loops and trying to get it lined back up to pay out line so I could bring it back in. This went on for a couple of minutes.

All of the sudden, the knot was clear and line was singing off my reel. Some unknown force from the deep had pulled the line past the knot and cleared the birdsnest. I hit my drag back up and I was tight to the fish again in just a couple of cranks of the reel! I still had him. He was still there! I hooted and hollered. This time I was prepared and grabbed the net and set it near by, so I'd be ready.

The fight was epic. He would run and the reel would slow him down. After a few more minutes, the fish was on his side at the boat. I scooped him up with the net and brought him in the boat. I got him! My silver hammered kroc fell out of his mouth in the net. I can't say enough good things about Avet reels (an Avet SX in my case). It was a winch and performed flawlessly, except for my own user error. It was amazing. I credit the reel with the catch but catching it on a rod I made was even a little better.

Since my camera had taken a dump, I lost all the pictures that I took of the fish when I got it. The only one I have, pre-cleaning was on my camera at the fish cleaning station, later that day.










He measured 6 pounds on my rapala scale and was between 25 and 26 inches. He was the biggest freshwater fish I'd ever caught, and though a little short of my goal, he was a great fish. I threw him in the box, elated.










I trolled for another hour without too much else happening. I decided to head back to the dock and who else should I find there but Flaming Gorge Pauls. We talked a little bit at the dock and I showed them my catch. They were very pleased for me. In all honesty, I know there are better fish in the lake, but I had worked pretty hard for the fish I had and I was pleased to have him. Gracious, as always, the Pauls were happy for me too. They were going out for kokanee and I gave them some of my secret weapon. They returned the favor with a few needlefish and showed me their go-to lure for big lake trout, a secret which I promised to take to my grave. Sorry fellas. They told me how they fished them, a method for which I was unprepared and basically opened their little chest of secrets and let me look inside. Like I said, good people.

I got the boat on the truck, cleaned Graboid, as my wife later called the fish, and went to the marina store for some neosporin. They didn't have any so I took the trailer off the truck, with great difficulty because of the messed up trailer wheel, and drove into the market in Manila.

I was so tired when I got there that I could barely stand up. I had to rest several times to keep going. The early morning, coco-roos, and the excitement of the fish had worn me out. I bought some things to re-stock the first aid kit in the boat, a deli sandwich (which was awful but just what I needed) and a root beer, hailing back to Mr. Paisley's "catch all the fish and drink all the beer" song that started the whole adventure. I felt immediately better.

I came back about 4 and took a nap until 6. I made a celebratory steak for dinner with a little more root beer for good measure. I took a little shower in the camper trailer, worked on the boat a little and pulled up a chair. My dad was coming up after work to spend Sunday with me. He was also bringing a new generator to keep me electrified for the rest of the trip. He arrived about 2130 and we talked until about 2300.

0445 comes early. But, such is mac lust. The next day began the search for Graboid's grandpa.


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## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

Good job on the nice fish! Thanks for typing this up. I'm really enjoying it.

o-||


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

o-|| o-|| o-|| 

Clarq's not alone.


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## orvis1 (Sep 7, 2007)

Wow quite the tale.... No bueno on the injury but glad you got the fish at the end of it all... Kyle is good people..


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Sunday Morning, August 14, I woke up at 0445 again and got after it. Papa Dodger was a little slow getting out of bed but we made good time getting over to the boat. I had a banana for breakfast with a little chocolate milk. I thought that might not be enough but I wanted to get fishing so it would have to do.

We launched by 0530 and we were the first to get the ramp wet, as usual. We were also the first boat over to Antelope Flats. Papa Dodger brought me a few replacement needlefish that I was trying out on one rod and I kept the ever faithful silver hammered kroc on the other. The water was a little choppy as we headed out. We really got rocking to the point where I could only run one rigger with one rod and drive at the same time. So I pulled one of the rods and kept trying. I could see fish on the finder, though not as many as the previous day but none were interested. It was just too choppy to put your lure near too many fish.

We pulled out by 0900 and went back to get some sleep. The weather didn't get better as the afternoon wore on. So, I took a little nap, talked to Brother Dodger (my brother) on the phone for a few minutes. He was headed back from an internship in Indiana via I-70 and was scheduled to come up on Monday or Tuesday. Afterwards, Papa Dodger and I took a little driving tour of Stateline Cove and Swim Beach. It looked a little more refugee like when I drove through this time. Of course, it was the weekend instead of a Tuesday when I drove through the first time. There were a bunch of pronghorns everywhere, and a couple really nice sized ones with thick horns. There were a bunch of people at Swim Beach and they were parked on, you guessed it, the boat ramp. :roll:

I got a text from Flaming Gorge Paul telling me that they were killing the fish all afternoon and didn't go more than 10 minutes without a bite for most of the afternoon. He told me how they were doing it, it was something I had never done. He explained it all by text, which was very nice of him to do, and told me to try it out. I said it before, and I'll say it again. Good people. I'll keep in touch with them for sure.

Papa Dodger and I waited out the heat of the afternoon and the wind by sitting in in the shade and talking. It was nice. We were interrupted by a trip to the bathroom where we found this little guy, all tummy tuckered out from a night of eating mosquitoes.



















It was kind of neat to see that.

At 5:00 we got down to business and decided to go back to my spot at Red Cliffs, hoping the wind wouldn't be too bad down the canyon. I love sunset in the canyon.



















We trolled all over the place, even down the north side of Kingfisher Island. All we caught was a small rainbow we shook at the boat and the rest of Fox News Sunday on XM radio. I don't normally mix politics with my fishing, but I can make an exception for Papa Dodger. The weather ruined the fishing, but not the time with Papa Dodger.

As we drove back into Linwood Bay, the waves were really rolling, quite a contrast with what we saw in the canyon. Even the marina at Lucerne behind the tires was rolling quite a bit. It was a little tough to get Papa Dodger to the dock to pick up to boat and get it on the trailer. I stress out about things like that, especially on multi-day trips because one mistake can end it all and send you home. My business here wasn't finished.

We parked the boat and walked back across the field through where the antelope were sleeping. They saw just better than we did at night so they knew we were coming. I made a habit of whistling as I walked across the field, just in case any hadn't been eating their carrots. We fried up some burgers for dinner and retired for the evening so we could be out early the next day.

Monday, August 15 found us up early and snacking on a banana as we walked across the field to the boat. The rain overnight had accumulated in the boat so I pulled the plug to drain most of it out of there. I struggled again with the prop to get it down a little bit and had to smack the starter with the rigger ball a few times before it would drop. We're going to have to get that looked at.

During the prop lowering episode, I saw that there was lightning well to the south of us. Since it was far enough away, and we were basically headed to another boat ramp, in case we needed it, we pushed off. We got over to our spot in calm water. But, when we arrived and got set, it really started to blow. Even though the lightning was a good ways off, I was still a little nervous and kept a close eye on where it went. Fortunately, it never got very close.

The water got really rough and was being blown to the north, coming out of the canyon. We really got rocking to the point where I could only run one rigger with one rod and drive at the same time. So I pulled one of them. The water started really rocking. Really rocking. I could see that Papa Dodger was visibly nervous because of how rough the water was. I knew that it would stop when the sun came up so I ended up jogging into the wind and waves for about 20-25 minutes when the wind shifted. I spent another 20-25 minutes jogging SSW until the sun came up, when it all stopped. Papa Dodger will exaggerate the story for years to come and the storm will get worse and worse as the years go by, I'm sure. And, though he was nervous, Once it was clear that the lightning wasn't coming any closer, the rocking wasn't a problem for me. I'm proud to say I fished through it, even though not much fishing was happening since the boat wasn't really moving for the wind.

It finally calmed down at 0648 and I got a bunch more texts from Flaming Gorge Paul with some more tips for how to rig the setup he told me about. After a little while, I got a hit on the needlefish rod (I used the same setup as the previous day) and pulled in a nice 22" lake trout at about 3 lbs (2.9 on my Rapala scale). He was a pretty good fish.










We fished until 1030. And then I fished until 1130 while Papa Dodger slept. No more hits, no more fish. But, I did see Capt. Jim from fishflaminggorge.com out there. He knows his stuff and if he was around, I figured I was in a pretty good spot.

We drove back in, pulled out and parked. Papa Dodger packed up his stuff and took off. I cooked myself a burger for lunch and ate some chips and salsa when I found out that my lips were pretty darned sunburned. That salsa really did a number on my lips, I felt it for at least a couple hours afterwards. It was finally dulled by a little nap.

I woke up around 5 and walked over to the boat. I had previously invited Mike (and the other Mike) from the DWR to come out fishing with me after work. They are the guys that sit on the boat ramps and make sure everyone fills out their mussel certification forms. On Flaming Gorge Paul's advice I took them north to the pipeline area. There were a bunch of fish down there and I tried the new setup he told me about. But, I think I had bad bait because we didn't have any success with it. While we were out there the Mikes talked about how they sat and looked at the lake all summer and hadn't caught a single fish out of it yet. I was hoping we'd get something for them.

After a while, we switched to the silver hammered wob-l-rite and a rainbow kroc. Mike caught a nice little mac at 15-16" at 65 feet with the wob-l-rite.










It absolutely inhaled the lure and got it caught in its gills. So he went in the box. I was surprised that given the general slowness of the fishing that this fish would be hungry enough to hit the lure that hard. Something didn't seem right. The Mikes struggled a little bit with the downriggers. I think that since I've been using them so long, I forget that other people haven't used them at all. So, my instructions were probably a little lacking. But, that said, new downrigger users are so cute. Except for LOAH. He picked it up like he'd been doing his whole life, but that's a story for later.

We saw some dark clouds rolling in and decided to call it. The other Mike didn't get his fish. As we started running, we saw lightning and a fairly sizable storm moving in. We got the boat on the truck right as it started to pour. And, I mean pour. All of us were soaked. I drove the boys back to their place and went back to the camper for dinner.

I had left the vent open on the camper and so my bed got soaked from all the rain. As I was wiping it up, I got a call from Brother Dodger on a number I didn't recognize. He said that he had been in an accident between Lonetree and McKinnon. He said he was fine but the cow he hit had gone home to Jesus. He needed a ride.

I ran back across the field to the truck with less difficulty because Papa Dodger had brought my hi-lift jack and I ran to get him and I mean ran. It took me 30-40 minutes to get there and the police beat me there by a minute. I had arranged for a tow truck to come get the car and had a little argument with the police about having them tow it. They relented.

I can't get into too much of the details of what happened here because the Ranch the cow escaped from has refused to pay for the damages, even though Wyoming law requires them to do so. Suffice it to say that the car was pretty much totaled and my brother is lucky to be alive.

This is a picture taken by the tow truck driver the next morning.










Like I said, he is lucky to be alive and I am profoundly grateful for that. I'm not very good at stating the seriousness of a situation, mostly because I don't think it generally helps to scare people by explaining how serious something is. It tends to help them make bad decisions. But this was a serious accident.

Brother Dodger had glass in his eyes and his hair and generally all over from where the windshield exploded. I got him back to camp and we tried to wash it out to no avail. We immediately left for the emergency room in Rock Springs. The doctors there took the glass out of his eyes and gave him some medication with the advice to get further medical care. He was fairly miserable for the rest of the trip.

We got back to the camper at about 0400 but there was no fishing to happen that morning.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

So I'm banking on the likelihood that the ranch will end up paying for your brother's car. *Ahem* Just a hunch.  

Best of luck with all of that! Poor guy. That was a nice looking car!

Man, this trip really gave you the treatment! Like you said about Papa Dodger, I'll assume your fish tales of this adventure will also find some embellishment. :lol:


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## trophyonly (Jun 12, 2011)

Great post! Hope your brother is doing alright, keep the updates coming!


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

LOAH said:


> So I'm banking on the likelihood that the ranch will end up paying for your brother's car. *Ahem* Just a hunch.


 :lol: I would definitely say that your hunch is an accurate characterization of what is going to happen.



LOAH said:


> Best of luck with all of that! Poor guy. That was a nice looking car!


It was. It was a very nice car. My brother loved it.



LOAH said:


> Man, this trip really gave you the treatment! Like you said about Papa Dodger, I'll assume your fish tales of this adventure will also find some embellishment. :lol:


Ouch. :lol: At least it is all in writing so I can't take too much creative license from here.



trophyonly said:


> Great post! Hope your brother is doing alright, keep the updates coming!


Thanks. He's doing better now but the ophthalmologist isn't done with him. More updates to come. There's still at least one pretty nice fish in this story. :mrgreen:


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Sorry for the delayed updates to my trip. Since I've been fishing more than I've been doing "family things," my weekend had been scheduled and the schedule didn't include me playing on the internet. I'll try to get this wrapped up in the next couple of days.

The morning of August 16 technically started on the road to the Rock Springs emergency room. Brother Dodger got some eye drops that relieved the left over pain from the glass in his eyes (which was removed) but that made his eyes very sensitive to light. He ended up stealing my sun glasses for a while or using the "boat glasses" that were scratched beyond usefulness. It was no wonder I saw all the hits before he did.

We woke up around 11:30 that morning and I was happy to see a bunch of texts from Flaming Gorge Paul with some more info. He had me call the other Flaming Gorge Paul to get some more info about how we were supposed to setup our downriggers. Both Pauls are the best.

Based on the info I got, I needed some hooks that I didn't have so we went into Manila to get some at the Market. By the time we got back, a storm had rolled in and kind of shut us down. We tied some new setups on our poles, made some boat repairs, and finally got the boat in the water around 5:00.

We headed up to Rawlins bay and started trolling. We trolled through the whole area and it took us a little while to find the fish. But, as soon as we did, Brother Dodger got the "welcome" from the lake.




























He was tagging fish like crazy on Flaming Gorge Pauls' suggested setup. I was glad to see him having a good time, especially after the previous night. The macs he was catching weren't huge, but they were plentiful. I ended up losing one at the boat.

Just before dark, I got a call from LOAH confirming the plan to join us on Saturday for some fishing. We had a good conversation and he sounded pretty excited about coming to catch some kokes. I think Brother Dodger had at least a couple of hits while LOAH and I were talking.

We got back in around dark, cleaned fish, and parked the car in the parking lot. It was a lot easier getting the boat on the trailer with Brother Dodger around. He wasn't comfortable backing up the truck so he got the job of putting the boat on the trailer, which is the more stressful of the jobs anyway. So, we had a good arrangement.

We made some hamburgers with a bag of salad for dinner. Brother Dodger is a little bit of a gourmet so he cut up some tomatoes and onions for burger toppings. It was a good dinner. I made some calls before bed and planned to get up early for some Antelope Flats action.

At 0458 we were the first boat in the water for the day, as usual. We hoarked down our cinnamon toasters a little faster that morning because we were both excited to have the morning time to go out and try for the big ones. We started at antelope flats and trolled and trolled and trolled. Captain Jim showed up before long, stayed for a while and then headed off towards Linwood Bay and I could see why. The storm that kept us off the water yesterday had scattered fish everywhere. Where they had been consistently on the humps, there were now suspended everywhere and nowhere. You'd drive over a bunch of fish and turn around to make another run at them and they were gone. I got two hits and didn't convert on either.

I got frustrated pretty early because the fish were so scattered. I just wasn't in the right state of mind to deal with crappy circumstances. So I turned the steering over to Brother Dodger and had him go for it. He wanted to go to Linwood Bay, so we did. As we got in there, I caught an 8" second year koke on a silver hammered wob-l-rite, first for the day, which was immediately released.










About 1200, Brother Dodger had to refill a used gatorade bottle and handed the steering to me. I turned to look at our direction, the fish finder, and get oriented. As I turned around, I saw the biggest hit I've ever seen. WHAM WHAM WHAM! The rod bent in half. Brother Dodger, occupied, yelled for me to get it. I ran over and grabbed the rod and snapped out. I couldn't move the fish anywhere. It was just sitting there. I couldn't get it to budge and it wasn't really pulling back. Brother Dodger finished up in a hurry and ran over to get the downrigger cable up. The fish started to move.

He got the weight back up and looked down at the release. The line was still in it. It turns out I never snapped out of the release and missed the hit completely. I was shaking and ticked off. :evil: Brother Dodger's reply "It's all fun and games until you pee on yourself."

It was good to have him along.

I caught another second year 8" koke, the lake toying with me, mocking me.

We hit medium rare at about 1330 because it was pretty hot out and decided to go in and have lunch at the Lakeside Grill. It's basically a trailer that has been converted for food service. I ordered a bacon cheeseburger and Brother Dodger got a mexi-burger, all for the bargain basement price of $17.65. :shock: :shock: :shock:

They mislabeled our burgers when they came up 25 minutes later and Mr. Hoover was halfway through my bacon cheeseburger before he tasted the first bite and realized that he had the wrong burger. I didn't really care because I was roasted, frustrated with the fishing, and tired. I chomped through the rest of my adopted by default mexi-burger and laid down on one of the benches on our picnic table. I guess I was out for about 20 minutes. When I woke up, I decided a little longer break would do me some good.

We headed back out around 01600 for our continued beat down. Rawlins was where we determined that the lake would beat up on us. And, beat us up it did. We trolled everywhere using the same method as the previous day and found no takers. We trolled over to the mouth of the pipe. I caught an 8" second year koke; the lake apparently not being above dealing out sucker punches.

I got one other hit that was there and gone. The fish missed the hook, I didn't even have time to snap out. We trolled all the way back to Lucerne with 3 8" kokes our proceeds for the day, each of which was still swimming. That storm really messed us up because the fish were so scattered.

We were pulled out by 2100 and headed back to the camper. Brother Dodger made some pork chops with mushroom soup and stovetop stuffing. He liked doing the cooking and I was all for it.

We hit the sack not knowing where we would take our revenge on the lake the next day.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Thursday morning, August 18, we were a little later getting the boat in the water after our Cinnamon Toasters. We finally got the boat wet at 0515 and I put Brother Dodger in charge of our course for the day. After the better part of 2 weeks of driving the boat, I was just fine to let Brother Dodger have a go. Plus, it was a good opportunity for me to teach him a little more about running the boat. That's not to say he isn't good at it because he is. When I have 5 rods in the water (i.e., we have 4 fishermen), I don't turn the steering over to just anyone. But, I do turn it over to him.

He wanted to go to Antelope Flats to do some "ridge bombing." I told him about catching Graboid and he wanted a shot at another one like him. I had been keeping track of the bottom on the fish finder and marking way points as I went when I found humps and other structure. So, by the time August 18th rolled around, we had a bunch of waypoints on the finder. I made myself a little sonargram by naming each waypoint with the depth of the water at the waypoint. So he picked a couple of waypoints that were relatively close to each other and that were a similar depth and we went to it.

We approached each hump with our downrigger weights at about 15-20 feet below the highest point on the hump. And, as soon as we saw our weights hit the bottom, we would reel them up at a steady even pace, that quickened as the weights came over the ridge on the hump, which is what I had accidentally done when I caught Graboid, and which I didn't realize at the time. As we increased the speed of the weight as it came over the hump, the speed of our lures (which were about 10ft behind the weight) also increased. It looked like a panicked baitfish running over the hump in a hurry. The lake trout sit on the ridges on the humps waiting for exactly that.

Ridge bombing is a lot of work and a lot of cranking. After a couple weeks of cranking up downriggers, I could get the weight from 122 feet to 0 feet a lot faster than I did back with Relgatta, Emmasin, and Raymond. My transformation to hunchback was nearly complete. But, if there are fish on the ridges (which you don't know until you are on top of the ridge), you can usually get a strike out of them at least.

Brother Dodger struck first.










Did I mention that fish from ridge bombing were a little nicer than suspended in the middle of the black-hole of fishing fish? They are. So, look for ridges, fire up the old shoulder and elbow and crank like crazy. It might be worth it. :O•-:

I was feeling a little cynical since Brother Dodger was catching a bunch of fish and I hadn't caught a lake trout in a couple of days so Brother Dodger was good to put up with me. Still, the numbers of fish on the humps at Antelope Flats was still nothing like I had seen the previous Saturday. We plied a few fish off those ridges, but they were hard fought.

I caught another 8" 2nd year koke. It was almost funny. :x Those fish do not belong at 75 feet down.










We got tired of ridge bombing and decided to troll some suspended fish in Linwood Bay. I wasn't paying attention for a while and all of the sudden, I heard a terrible grinding noise and the trolling motor immediately shut off. I thought "oh no, this is not good." Both Brother Dodger and I ran to the back of the boat to see what had happened.

Apparently when you are trolling at 122 feet on a downrigger, the angle of the cable through the water on sharp turns is such that it is really really close, maybe even too close to the prop on the trolling motor. We pulled the trolling motor up and started working to free the cable. Brother Dodger held the weight of the downrigger weight while I worked the cable free of the prop. It had only looped 3 times so the fix was fairly fast. The big question was whether or not the trolling motor would start again.

I kicked it into neutral and pulled the rip cord. It fired right up. There was a brief smell of burning something but the smell was immediately gone and we were back on our way, with a few things said about the apparent sharpness of turns when the downrigger is at 122 feet.  I'm fairly confident it won't happen again.

We went down and back and down and back and finally, I got a hit.

I jumped up and snapped out like a samurai warrior unsheathing his sword. I was out of the release and there was no question this time. It had been 2 days since I had caught a lake trout and this one was going to break my streak. And coming up from 122 feet, he had to be a good one. I felt him pull a little bit and he made one run before I saw him coming up. He came up about 30 feet behind the boat and he came up from so deep that he had some bends action going on because his reactions were very sluggish. He was a good fish, probably 22-23" and he had a little belly on him.

As I reeled him across the top, he moved his head ever so slightly and my needlefish came loose. He sat there on the top for about 20 seconds, knocking the cobwebs out of his head, and took off back for the bottom. I cursed. And, when I say I cursed, I cursed in such a manner as to make the cursing I have previously mentioned look like a lesson in proper vocabulary, grammar and diction. I was a little unhappy at having lost the fish.

We continued trolling without incident or action until about noon. We got the boat back on the trailer and pulled out. Brother Dodger cleaned his fish and Mike came over to do his creel survey on it.

Almost ever lake trout we caught that was over about 19" was just full of small crawdads. Graboid had about 8 of them in him. We had one with 5 crawdads and most of the others had 3 or so. But, all of them had at least 1. Crawdads were the meal du jour.

We went back to the camper and had some Chef Boyardee raviolis from a can. Brother Dodger called his wife to see if she wanted to come and join us for the rest of the weekend since Mrs. Dodger was coming up that night. Not only did he convince her to come, he also convinced her that it was her idea to come. I'm going to have to learn this trick. :mrgreen: They were set to arrive at about 2100.

We took a nap in the camper to get ready for our last night of pure mac fishing. The girls need a little more action from kokes than the lake trout can provide. And, we needed to pre-fish so we would know what to use when LOAH showed up on Saturday. So, this was it for the targeted mac fishing. It was catching the big one that night, or not catching him at all.

We put the boat back in the water at about 1700 and Brother Dodger decided that he wanted to go to Rawlins Bay again and try again with Flaming Gorge Paul's suggested rig. We got set and immediately started getting hits. It was one right after another all the way until 9 o'clock. We were so busy that we didn't even have time to take pictures, which is just as well because the camera took a dump AGAIN after the picture shown above.

We probably caught 14 or 15 lake trout that night though the biggest was probably only about 18". But the action was fast, the scenery was beautiful and the company was great. Besides, after the car accident, I could have been at a funeral that night instead of on the lake with Brother Dodger beating up on lake trout.

We pulled out at about 9:00 in anticipation of the Girls' arrival. Brother Dodger cleaned a few fish while I talked to Drew and his dad Scott who were there in a really neat red boat. They had just finished re-doing the whole thing, inside and out, and it looked great. It was an older boat from the early 70s probably and it just looked immaculate. I told them they should be very proud of their boat. We got to talking and they were wireline fishing for lake trout. They had some custom rods that they showed me, which were well constructed. I showed them my koke rods and they seemed to like them. Drew asked me how much one would cost and I told him to send me an email. I don't really sell rods because there is no money in rod building and I'd probably be better off staying at work instead. I build them because I like doing it.

They caught a 28 lb mac on the previous day dragging steel near refugee beach. I admit. I was jealous. As I was talking to them, Mrs. Dodger and Sister Dodger drove by in our car. I wished Drew and Scott luck and they headed out. Brother Dodger finished cleaning fish and we parked the boat in the parking lot. We walked back to the camper where the girls were waiting for us. They had gotten buy one get one for a penny big macs in Evingston so they weren't hungry. Brother Dodger and I cooked up some burgers for us. We talked for a little while before going to bed. Brother Dodger and Sister Dodger slept in their tent and Mrs. Dodger and I stayed in the camper.

The girls weren't interested in getting up early. Sister Dodger had 3 bowls of cereal :shock: which I couldn't believe because she is so tiny. It took a while for everyone to be ready (which was expected and tolerated because I was in a good mood). We finally set off for Wildhorse in Wyoming at about 1000, arriving at 1030.

Sister Dodger had been out with us one time before but had most of everything done for her. All she had to do on that trip was reel in. This time, Brother Dodger was very patient and careful about teaching her how to fish rather than getting her to just catch some fish. Mrs. Dodger was set at 80 feet with the pink curlys lure almost as soon as the boat stopped. Yes, I got a good one. She must have dropped her lure right on the lake trout's face.










We trolled for a while and it took about half an hour to find the right combination. Hank Jr. on the radio, pink at 80 feet, green at 60 feet. It was on.














































The fishing wasn't super fast but it was pretty consistent. The camera took a dump AGAIN and lost most of the pictures from that morning so some of the bigger kokes we got aren't shown here. But, by the time we were done that morning, we had a bunch of fish on our limits.

As we were trolling along, at about 1.8 to 1.9mph, I saw the downrigger I was on go slack. Usually that means that we've hit the bottom and we are dragging, which always excites a tremendous fire drill on the boat. But, I knew from where we were that the bottom was at least 140 feet beneath us and there was no way we were dragging. Something was wrong. As I thought about what it could be, I felt a tremendous thud that shook the whole port quarter of the boat. All of the sudden my rod flew out of the release and was pointing straight towards the sky.

A fish had hit so hard that he picked the 8 pound downrigger weight up by about 2-3 feet at which point the line squeezed out of the release. The thud was the downrigger weight falling 2-3 feet until the slack that the fish took up in the downrigger cable was taken back up by the boom on the downrigger. The fish had snapped me out of the release and he was taking off, and fast!

Luckily, I had my drag well set before the fish hit, for precisely this reason. I jumped up and took two quick steps before I had the rod in my hands, now doubled over. The fish was tuggy, very tuggy. That ruled out a lake trout. This was the kokanee of my dreams or a pretty nice rainbow. The more it tugged, the more I thought kokanee.

He didn't make any big runs on me until he saw the boat. I saw him come into view but only his belly, which was pure white. I still couldn't tell what it was. But, I could tell from the weight, this was a heck of a fish. As soon as the fish saw the boat, he went screaming straight down pulling drag as he went. I tried to be patient and let the rod do the work on him. I kept tight to the fish as he pulled drag. He wore out after a couple of minutes, though he never stopped tugging. I got him up to the boat ready for the net.

As a sidenote, there is no more important job on my boat than that of net-man. The net-man is responsible for getting the fish in the boat. When you agree to take the net, you undertake certain obligations. Either you get the fish in the boat without any incident or you suffer mock and scorn for life for your failure. There is no middle ground. Either the fish is well netted or you'll never forget it.

Brother Dodger will never forget this fish and I'll make sure of it. As soon as it got in range, he took a swipe at the fish which saw it coming and dove for the trolling motor. All I could see was splashing and fumbling with the net. I fell over into the back seat of the boat paralyzed that my net-man had committed that unpardonable sin.

My wife thought it was funny and snapped this picture. I wasn't laughing.










The splashing and fumbling continued for what seemed forever. Finally, the only bright spot of the story for Brother Dodger was that he got the fish in the boat. It was a pig.




























He taped out at 21 inches and was a full 4 lbs on my rapala scale. This was, by far, my best Utah rainbow (though it was technically caught in Wyoming, it was brought to land in Utah).

Sister Dodger said later that she had no idea people could get so excited about fishing when she saw my celebration for having caught this fish. I screamed and hollered. I was shaking because I was so excited. What a great feeling!

Rain clouds and bladders forced us to make a run across the lake to Anvil Draw. I was totally serious when I told them it was a "3 minute pee break." They thought it was funny. I didn't get it. But, now they want to name my boat the "3 minute pee break." I was just excited to go fishing again.

They convinced me to wait out the storm, which was slow in developing. Eventually we decided to make a run back to Lucerne to nap out the storm. It was a little rough headed back in though manageable. As we drove back 26 foot boats would run by 75 feet away at full speed. And, true to form, the "Lucerne Valley Marina" boats were headed out into the bay as we came around Lucerne Point. We pulled out around 1400 and set to cleaning a few kokes we caught, the first in a week and a half. It was nice to refresh the supply of fresh kokanee.

We napped away the afternoon after a delicious lunch of breakfast burritos. They were pretty amazing. Brother Dodger does pretty well whenever there is a tortilla around. We drifted off to sleep to the sound of thunder. It was a pretty intense storm.

We got out late after our nap, around 1900 and we decided to head back for the pipe because the girls wanted to see how we were catching lake trout. So we set up with the rig Flaming Gorge Paul told us about, hoping to repeat the previous night's success. It wasn't to be though. The storm had scattered the fish. But, we enjoyed being there just the same.



















We came back in fishless about 2100 and had some of our kokanee for dinner with some mashed potatoes. Sister Dodger wasn't feeling particularly well and said that she wasn't interested in going out early for some macs before LOAH showed up. But, Mrs. Dodger was. And, it was a good thing she did too.


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## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

Thanks for keeping us posted. o-||


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Hahahaha, "3 Minute Pee Break". 

You may need a larger boat to fit that on the back.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Clarq said:


> Thanks for keeping us posted. o-||


Glad you are enjoying it.



LOAH said:


> Hahahaha, "3 Minute Pee Break".
> 
> You may need a larger boat to fit that on the back.


That's true. I'm not sure but I think they are trying to make fun of me somehow. :lol:


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

***Forgot to mention from Friday

As we drove north toward Wildhorse Friday morning, I saw a bunch of people camping north of the Pipe and just south of the Wildhorse area. We weren't particularly early but earlier than those folks had gotten out of their tents. I thought it a little strange that they didn't have a boat since there was no other way to access that part of the lake, but they did have a couple of jet skis. I figured the boat must have been out fishing. I also noticed that a tube (for a boat) was floating about 50 feet offshore. I didn't give it another thought as we drove by.

At camp Friday night, we were surprised to see that a large group of people moved in to camp right next to us. There were probably 4 or 5 different groups camping on B loop that night. And, out of 20 potential campsites, 5 of which were taken, they decided to camp right next to us with a beautiful 25 foot Champion boat. Since we had just gotten back to camp, we were still milling about at 2230 and the generator was still running, a half an hour past when I should have turned it off. I didn't realize quiet time started at 2200.

At about 0300, I was woken up by the sounds of screaming outside. I was up immediately, and prepared. I hit the camper door to see a man stumbling around outside screaming like a little girl and throwing up. I was relieved it was nothing more serious but the man would rear back and let out this high pitched WAAAAAAAAAAAA blech. WAAAAAAAAAAA blech. WAAAAAAAAAAA blech, the "blech" being the hurling portion of the show. This went on for about 5 minutes. I asked him if he was ok and if he needed any help. He looked at me and walked off. I went back to bed wondering why they camped so close to us.

Saturday morning, August 20, We got up and on the lake. Though we were a little later than we had been we were still on the water by 0600. Sister Dodger was still not feeling well and decided that she wouldn't be coming until later. So Brother Dodger and Mrs. Dodger joined me for a few hours of fishing for macs before LOAH's anticipated arrival.

We decided to stick close and headed to Linwood Bay to maximize our fishing time. We got the riggers set pretty quickly and started fishing. We went for about two hours without a hit. The fish were down there on the finder but they were pretty schooled and hard to keep track of. We would find schools and make a run and turn to make another run and they were gone. So, we set the riggers at the right depths and hoped we could try to pick them off on the first pass.

Around 0830, Mrs. Dodger got a hit. She fought it like a champ. She's really gotten a lot better with the downriggers this year; not only using them but also getting fish to the boat when she gets a hit. She did a great job letting the fish run when it wanted to run and gaining ground on it when it was resting. A new personal best for her:










About 0845 I got a call from LOAH saying that he was at the Maverick in Mountain View, which meant we had about an hour before he'd be there. We trolled for another half an hour or so without success and headed back to the dock.

We tied up at the dock, got some ice for the fish, and started cleaning the boat a little bit, expecting LOAH's arrival. Brother Dodger ran back to camp to pick up a few snacks and Sister Dodger. As I was cleaning up, another boat approached and asked about the trolling motor. I guess they also had a 4 stroke and they didn't have any oil in it. So, we got to talking a little bit and I told them that mine took regular 10w30 oil and, if any of you saw my disastrous Memorial Day trip, I was absolutely positive of it because we had to go from Sheep Creek back to Manila to pick up an extra quart. We talked about the fishing a little bit and I told them to give my silver hammered kroc a try as well as a needlefish here and there if they had one.

As I was talking to them, LOAH walked down the dock in his hat. I immediately knew it was him, the hat gave him away. We shook hands and he jumped in the boat. He had run into Brother and Sister Dodger parking at the campsite and they were able to direct him to the right place. Brother and Sister Dodger were right behind him and we were off toward Wildhorse.

I was a little concerned about the day's fishing, especially since that storm the previous night had scattered fish in Linwood Bay and screwed up the fishing for us the previous night. But, we had done so well the day before, I was hoping that average would still be pretty good.

Brother Dodger drove the boat on the way up to Wildhorse and I was the tour guide pointing out the different areas of the lake. LOAH was pointing out some of the great areas to camp along the shoreline and we passed the same spot that I had seen the tube floating 50 feet offshore yesterday. No one was there. I thought that was pretty strange. People don't usually leave on a Friday night. I found out why later. http://www.ksl.com/?sid=16922099&nid=148 A man had died right there going after that tube I saw floating. How awful for his family. It is very sad and to think it was so close to where I was, was pretty unnerving.

We arrived at Wildhorse and set the riggers. I showed LOAH how to get set in the downrigger and we did a test run so he could get the feel for snapping out. He picked it up like a fish picks up swimming. I've never seen anyone that took to the downrigger so naturally. He didn't fumble with the releases or have problems with the clutch mechanism at all. He looked right at home running the rigger.

Of course, while we were working on getting set, Brother Dodger and his wife had already gotten set and they were pulling in their first fish. For the second day in a row, someone, Brother Dodger in this case, dropped the rigger ball right on a lake trout's face. He was just a little guy, but a good start to the day.










It took a little while to find the kokanees, but we started off with a few smaller ones.



















LOAH got his first koke, though it was a smaller one. The fishing was a lot slower than the previous day but I knew we would eventually get him a better one.










He ended up catching a bunch of small ones and made me a littler nervous about getting him a better one.










Sister Dodger was no stranger to the fish either and caught a few herself. Just to be clear, she is not a Ute fan. The jacket belongs to Brother Dodger who received it as a gag gift and liked the way that it fit. For the record, he's a die hard cougar, though his priorities are a little skewed. :mrgreen:










We had a bunch of fish come and go. LOAH got tired of taking pictures (and my camera, surprise surprise, was down again). Sister Dodger took a few pictures but I didn't get a hold of those. We caught a couple of 3rd years that went into the box.

I really enjoyed talking with LOAH. My family told me later that they were a little bewildered watching us talk. It was like two comic-con nerds talking about Superman but about fishing. They weren't sure that people like me existed. LOAH proved to them I'm not the only weird one in the universe. 

In the distance, we saw some clouds building up and took a brief pit stop at the Anvil Draw. The fishing was a little tough and the rain was impending. I figured that the Canyon is always a better place to be in the wind and I hadn't been to my spot near Red Cliffs in a while. I was hoping that it improved a little bit.

We got down there and the rain was on us. The girls stayed dry and Brother Dodger did ok too. LOAH stayed mostly dry. I was wet. But, I've always said "you can be X at home, but you can't fish there." X can be whatever, tired, wet, cold, hungry, sick, etc. Today, I could have been wet at home but I can't fish there. I was enjoying myself even so.

LOAH was a lot of fun to fish with even in challenging conditions. He was a good sport and went a long way to keeping morale up on the boat. As the rain would come in, the few fish would stop biting. We'd catch a little sun and a little koke or a little rainbow or some other little fish. Finally, there was a hit on Sister Dodger's rod but she was too cold to reel in. LOAH fired up his second pole permit and ran to get it. He did a great job fighting the fish in. It's like he does it on a regular basis. :mrgreen:

It was a nice 4th year koke. I was really happy, even though this was smaller for a fourth year, it was still a better fish.










His limit filled, LOAH went deep to try to notch the belt for macs. Unfortunately, none came calling. At about 1800 we decided to run north and look for a few macs in Rawlins Bay. The girls were wet and cold and wanted to get off at Lucerne. So we ran to the dock first.

Linwood Bay was rough though manageable and we got the girls dropped off without any issue. I knew I could get LOAH a mac if we just went out for one hour. But, the seas were a little rough and the weather that was coming didn't look good. I decided that the best thing to do would not be to go back out but, I made LOAH promise to come back sometime to get that mac under his belt. He agreed.

You can see his excellent report here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=36405

We cleaned up the fish and parted with a handshake. I told him to watch out for cows on the way home. I really enjoyed fishing with LOAH and he's welcome on my boat any time.

We covered the boat and went back to camp. Mrs. Dodger had to go home Saturday night but she decided to stick around for victory steaks, my traditional end of the trip meal. We cooked up some steaks and mashed potatoes. Sister Dodger was still pretty cold and not hungry and she's not much of a meat eater. But, as soon as she tasted a Dodger steak, she got a little hungrier. 8) I fried up one at a time and they turned out to be a great celebration dinner.

Mrs. Dodger got her stuff together, loaded it in the car, and left for home. As we were wishing her well, the camp host Gary, who I developed a good relationship with, came up and told us that we had made too much noise with the generator the night before. It was on until 2230 when it should have only been on until 2200. I apologized for the error and Gary let it go. The folks next door had gone anyway.

I was a little annoyed that they had the cajones to complain about a half an hour of the generator after WAAAAAAAAAAAA blech at 0300. They belonged on a boat ramp.

We hit the sack for the night and I had the camper to myself. We agreed to get up at 0800 and head back up to Wildhorse. Sister Dodger had made a few comments about not catching too many fish and basically not getting enough fishing attention. So, I told her that I was going to wear her out on fish the next day.

We woke up on time on Sunday the 21st of August and had a few more Cinnamon Toasters. Brother and Sister Dodger got into the boat and I got in the truck to drive from the parking lot to the launch ramp. As I was about to pull out of our parking spot, the Dagget County Sheriff was driving by. He stopped next to me and told me that Brother and Sister Dodger couldn't ride in the boat until it was actually on the ramp. He said that since we weren't moving he'd just give me an oral warning this time. I bit my tongue and just said "ok." He drove back to the boat and made them get out and ride in the cab with me for literally 100 feet when they got back into the boat. :roll: I wish I'd had a business card...

We got the boat wet about 0900 and headed to Wildhorse. But, today we had a new boat driver. Sister Dodger was getting her first lesson on driving a boat. She did pretty well driving us all the way up there and she kind of enjoyed it. There were a lot of boats in the pipe and she struggled a little bit negotiating a path through while causing as little disruption as possible to the people fishing there. She was surprised at how many things she had to pay attention to driving a boat.

We arrived and got set. It was on.

Sure enough, Brother Dodger came through and dropped his lure right on a lake trout's face for the 3rd day in a row.










He got a few more good sized fish.



















I finished off my limit with this guy










Now it was Sister Dodger's turn. We got her several nice fish that morning and after a while she absolutely refused to reel in the flat line any more. She wanted them off the downrigger. She got her wish.










She was a little excited about this fish, to the point where she didn't really want us to see how excited she was. But, she agreed to hold it, with the towel because she was pretty proud of that fish. She had come a long way since Friday and she learned a lot more about fishing. The best we got out of her was "This was pretty fun" but only because she had a little bit of pride to protect.  I took that as a job well done. She did well and might have even forgot she wasn't feeling well for a little while.

We had caught 15 or 16 fish by 1130 when the rest of our limits were filled and we headed back for Lucerne. It was nice to throw our fish on the cleaning table.



















Even Sister Dodger was smiling but you'll have to take my word for it.










Brother Dodger cleaned up the fish while I talked to the guys that I had run into at the dock while I was waiting for LOAH. Their motor had been working great and they had caught a bunch of lake trout that morning on the needlefish. They thanked me for the info. They also had a bunch of kokes for their grill. They thought that the limit was 3 per day and I let them know that it was only 3 in possession. But, since they only had 3 in possession that I knew of, I couldn't call on them. At least I corrected some misinformation and hopefully they will keep to the limits.

We hustled back to clean up camp, got the tent taken down, and the camper back on the truck. Brother and Sister Dodger went to clean up the boat while I took the unpleasant duty of dumping the black and gray water out of the camper. We won't go into details there but I managed to keep most of it off of me. I went back to get the boat on the truck, which was much easier with Brother Dodger and the hi-lift jack. We got all hitched up, the boat covered and we were ready to leave. We drove by the restrooms before we left which gave me a chance to say good-bye to the mike on duty. I told him that I'd be back soon and that I'd see him before his job ended in October.

We loaded up and headed out. We drove without incident to the Traveler's America outside of Evingston but they were out of gas, or their pumps were all closed so we had to push on to Front St. in Evingston. The Maverick was too full as usual so we hit the Chevron. Brother Dodger got us some Big Macs at the Mcdonalds. Sister Dodger was sick again and taking a nap. She got an ice cream.

We got back on the freeway and drove back to Layton via I-84 to pick up Mrs. Dodger because Mama Dodger had gotten dinner ready for all of us and we missed the construction in Park City going down Weber Canyon. We drove back to SLC and arrived at Mama and Papa Dodger's house. We ate some dinner while Brother and Sister Dodger went to the local Instacare. Sister Dodger had a virus that was making her throat sore but nothing serious.

We got unloaded and put the camper and boat back in their places. We had gotten a previous request for some salmon from a friend of ours and sent him a couple of nice fillets. Other than that Brother Dodger, who was living at Mama and Papa Dodger's house, assigned his fish to me to take them back and smoke them for him, which I did in the coming days.

Mrs. Dodger and I left Mama and Papa Dodger's house after everything was cleaned up at about 2300 and arrived back at our house at about 2345. I was tired and both glad to be home and sad to have left the Gorge. I was up for most of the night thinking back over my trip and what I had learned, which took me to August 22. My trip of a lifetime was over.

I'll have a few more thoughts after the report, and what I learned tomorrow.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Here's what I learned from your report(s):

You can't ride in the boat until it's in the water :roll:

You can't please boat ramp folk...

The Gorge is definitely a place I'm going back to

Eating Coco-Roos in chocolate milk will not rip a hole in the space/time continuum, despite my hypothesis. :lol: 

Glad you made it home safely and WOW, what nice fish from the day after I came! _(O)_ 

Thanks for sharing.


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## xxxxxxBirdDogger (Mar 7, 2008)

Cougars fans aren't supposed to say those words, Dodger. Fishing brings them out, right? Me too, brother. Me too.  

This is like the greatest fishing report ever. I just skipped out on doing homework for an hour and I really needed to get it done tonight. I'll be burning the midnight oil now. Thanks a lot!


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## bwhntr (Sep 12, 2007)

Great report as always Dodger. Loved opening this up every morning to see the latest. Hopefully the Gorge will be as good to us this weekend as it was to you. If you make it back up send me a text.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

LOAH said:


> Here's what I learned from your report(s):
> 
> You can't ride in the boat until it's in the water :roll:
> 
> ...


And thanks for coming up and joining us LOAH! I wish we could have gotten you that mac. You came right in between a couple of pretty good fishing days. Friday's storm threw off Saturday's fishing but Saturday's storm didn't bother Sunday's fishing at all. Kind of strange.

As far as the Cocoa-Roos, I wondered what that light I saw that morning in the camper was . . . :lol:


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

BirdDogger said:


> Cougars fans aren't supposed to say those words, Dodger. Fishing brings them out, right? Me too, brother. Me too.
> 
> This is like the greatest fishing report ever. I just skipped out on doing homework for an hour and I really needed to get it done tonight. I'll be burning the midnight oil now. Thanks a lot!


Just to be clear, he didn't like the way the lettering on the jacket fit, just the jacket itself. It could have said "Nuke the Whales," which probably would have been better than what is on it, and he'd still like the jacket. :lol:

I'm sorry I messed up your homework schedule but I'm glad you enjoyed the report. It was the greatest fishing trip I've ever had.

Rise and shout.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

bwhntr said:


> Great report as always Dodger. Loved opening this up every morning to see the latest. Hopefully the Gorge will be as good to us this weekend as it was to you. If you make it back up send me a text.


Thank you very much. I really enjoyed writing it and sharing the trip. It was a way to share what was, for the most part, a one-man trip with a lot of people. Somehow, that makes it a lot more fun for me.

I'm sure the Gorge will treat you right this weekend. I won't be making it up there this weekend, though I wanted to. My wife wanted to try the Uintas this weekend and it's probably her turn to pick where we go.

We should fish sometime.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Sorry for the delay on getting some final thoughts up. These are some of the things I wrote about while I was on the water, for what they are worth.

General thoughts, unrelated and in no particular order-

There is a difference in my mind between working to live and living to work. For the last 5 years I've been living to work. In large part, returning to Utah for me was a rejection of that type of life style. Though some of my co-workers in DC didn't understand that idea, from the day I left I vowed that I would never again live to work. There's nothing more important than spending time with your family and, for me, there's nothing more important than fishing with my family.

Utah is beautiful. There are so many different landscapes here for us to enjoy. I could be fishing under red-rock cliffs that rose 1000 feet from the water and see 13,000 foot purple snow-capped alpine mountains in the distance. Standing at home, I could look up at the 10,000 foot peaks that watched me grow up. I used to be surprised when family would come from the east coast and be in such awe of the mountains. There is nothing like it in the world and we are fortunate to live here.

Make goals that you are committed to and follow through. Whether your goals are fishing related, work related, life related, family related, or whatever, the only difference between success and failure is effort. Don't let any roadblock stand between you and your goals. I could have gone back to work right after my test but I had a goal that I wanted to achieve. I would have missed out on something that I will remember my entire life, that I could have easily missed out on. I didn't meet my goal on this trip, but my goal of a mac over 28" remains. I'll get it.

Be responsible, self-reliant, and kind. Be responsible - when you take care of your business first and foremost, you have more opportunity to do the things you want to do. Be self-reliant - if you can depend on you, you can go anywhere. That means learn how to fish for the fish you want, learn how to run your boat, learn how to back up a truck, learn how to make emergency repairs, learn how to take care of your gear. Self-reliance is freedom. Be kind - I never would have met Flaming Gorge Pauls if I hadn't said hello. They had a major impact on the success of my trip because they were kind enough to share some information with me.

Fishing thoughts, unrelated and in no particular order -

Fishfinders are much more useful when you learn how to use them. They are absolutely essential tools for downrigging.

The weather in August has an interesting effect on fishing. It seems like, at least at the Gorge, rain in the afternoon slows the fishing for the next day. Steady rain for most of the day picks the fishing up the next day. Two days of hot sun improves the fishing on the third day but if the third day is hot, the fishing is slow on the 4th day.

The only place to get a silver hammered kroc is online. Sportsman's (in Layton and SLC), Fish Tech, and Cabelas don't have them in stock and the holographic one they do carry is not the same. None of these places stock the ever-faithful mac killer - the silver hammered wob-l-rite. Macs in Utah like silver hammered lures.

Macs are harder to catch at the Gorge than Fish Lake. There aren't really many big humps or a lot of structure at Fish Lake so you can troll the bottom at 98 feet in a straight line for a mile. But, that said, Ridge Bombing can be a very effective way to catch macs. Suspended hungry macs like lures that go over their heads. They will not hit anything below them and they will only occasionally hit lures that are at their same depth. If they are not hungry, the best tactic is to make them angry by dropping a lure on their face with the downrigger ball or by using a very flashy/obnoxious lure that is less than a foot over their heads and have the lure run by them a couple times. Macs are temperamental and you can get anger strikes, just like kokanee.

It is intensely exciting to catch a big fish, or at least a fish bigger than your average. We boated 12 fish over 20 inches on this trip. That's a lot of fun. I'll probably pass out when I do get my mac. 8)

I feel like I can turn kokes on slow days, which is good. I think I can still do better by figuring out how to target and catch the bigger kokes at any particular time. Before this trip I did not feel that way about macs. Now, I feel like I can turn macs, though not a lot of them and with substantial work. But, this trip made me a better fisherman, mostly because I went into it hoping to learn.

Finally, one of my goals was to catch a big one "by myself." But, there is no such thing as catching a fish by yourself because there is always someone else who gave you a tip, taught you how to tie a knot, or bought you your first fishing pole. I would have been far less successful had Wyogoob not shared some tips with me. And, Flaming Gorge Pauls had a significant effect on my overall success for the trip. Both Wyogoob and Flaming Gorge Pauls deserve, and have, my profound thanks and I credit them with my success for this trip. Now, I'm glad I have never had to catch a fish "by myself."

This was an incredible trip that I will always remember. Thank you all for letting me share it with you and for your very very long attention spans.

I'm so very blessed to be home sweet home.


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## tkidder (May 31, 2011)

Holy crap, now that's a good report. Well done!


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## Fiction32 (Feb 21, 2011)

Thanks for the amazing report. It helped ease the jones for a place I intensly love.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

The quest continues.

As I was driving home recently, I got a call on my phone while I was driving my jeep. I hate talking on the phone in my jeep because it isn't an easy thing to do. Usually I don't answer while I'm driving it but when I saw who it was, I wasn't sending it to voice mail.

Flaming Gorge Paul's voice crackled above the roar of the jeep's motor saying that it was time to go fishing. He said that the other Paul, Pablo here, got some word from his family in Manila that it was the time to go fishing. The lake trout were ready.

We made plans to leave, a few days away. The next few days were infinitely slow and my mind wandered to the Gorge frequently.

The day arrived and we were to meet up at Pablo's between 3:30 and 4:00. I was there right on time because I didn't want to be late. But, Flaming Gorge Paul had forgotten his video camera and had to turn around to get it. He arrived around 4:00 and we started to get the boat ready. A few minutes later, Pablo showed up and we got the last of our things together.

Pablo asked if I wanted to see some pictures, a chance I couldn't pass up. He had an album full of pictures that was 3" thick. As he showed me the pictures, I admired the several nice bucks, a giant elk that he called little, a very nice pronghorn, and, of course, the couple fish he had on the wall. Pablo is the consummate sportsman, respecting the animals he takes while taking excellent specimens. Not only was it a pleasure to fish with him for the next two days, it was awe inspiring to learn from someone who is so good at what he does.

We headed out, after a brief run to pick up Pablo's truck from the shop, around 1800 and drove straight to Evingston where we stopped for dinner at Arby's. We also made a brief stop at a sporting goods store to see if they had a better net, which they didn't.

We had a great conversation in the car. It was fun to get to know both of them better and it felt like the shortest trip to the Gorge I ever had. We stopped in Mountain View at the Maverick to pick up our day passes for the Gorge because I had inadvertently left mine in Salt Lake. Oh well.

We arrived in Manila at Pablo's in-laws around 9:30. They offered their place to us since they were out of town. We spooled up Pablo's reels with new line and chatted about fishing until almost 2300.

I did not sleep well that night despite the comfortable conditions. How could I, knowing that I was going to break my personal best lake trout record the next day.

We were up early at 0530, got bundled, and headed out. Flaming Gorge Paul's truck said it was 20 degrees between Pablo's in-laws house and the marina though it dropped to 13 as we got closer.

As usual, dawn was worth the price of admission.








.

We got to our spot and anchored up. There was a pile of boats all in the same area. We all waited for 0701, official sunrise, when we could start fishing. I had my thumb on the spool ready to drop my jig. The minute between 0700 and 0701 seemed like ten. But, I had my lure in the water at 0701 and 1 second.

As soon as I hit the bottom, I got a hit, almost instantly. It was the best lake trout I had ever caught, beating the previous one based on Pablo's estimate, by 2 pounds. Pablo estimated 8 pounds before we sent it back.










It was a pretty good start to the morning. But, I was going to break my personal best lake trout record two more times that morning.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Haha, I was wondering about your November trip. Glad you made it up there again. I can't wait to see your bigguns.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Yup we made it up again. I had a score to settle. We'll still have to get you up to get some macs next summer.

As for the bigguns, it's not often you break your personal best lake trout record 5 times in two days. :mrgreen:


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

After the first fish, my blood started pumping a little bit more. It might have been, at least in part, due to the anchor issues we were having. This method of fishing required us to set up our anchor and swing with the wind as the wind would blow. Unfortunately, our anchor was just not up to the job. We had to keep pulling it up and putting it back down. When that didn't work, we tried to stay in place with the electric trolling motor. Try as we might, we just couldn't stay in place.

That doesn't mean we didn't have some pretty good fishing.

After I caught the first one, I went straight back down. Within a couple of minutes, Flaming Gorge Paul had a hit and it was a good one. He wrangled with the fish or a few minutes. His rod tip shot straight up in the air and almost hit him in the head. The fish was gone. Flaming Gorge Paul saved one of his "fishing words" to properly express his feelings at losing the fish.

Just then, Pablo got a hit. But he only had it for about 30 seconds before it broke off.

We kept trading hits but we would lose them pretty quickly. After we lost 6 out of our 8 lures, we realized that the lures we were using were cutting the line when we got a hit. The inside of the hole on the lure was just like a knife cutting through our braided line when we would get a hit.

Once we identified the problem, we put on swivels and got back to work. Flaming Gorge Paul and I dropped at the same time and had hookups almost simultaneously. Flaming Gorge Paul's rod tip pulled straight to the water, almost under the boat. Whatever he had was BIG. I had a good fish on but not like the one Flaming Gorge Paul had.

My rod tip shot straight up in the air and the weight was gone. I reeled in not believing that the swivel was now slicing the line too. As I got it in, I realized that my line hadn't been cut after all. It was much much worse than that. The things nightmares are made of.










My crappy swivel pulled straight. Knowing that Flaming Gorge Paul had the same swivel on, and was fighting a really nice fish, I said "Hey Paul, watch . . . "

*SNAP*

Flaming Gorge Paul's line ripped through the water as his rod tip streaked for the sky. He reeled up to complete our new set of swivel cuff links. Flaming Gorge Paul had another encounter with his "fishing words." He had lost 2 nice fish in the course of 2 or 3 minutes.

We replaced our swivels with some better ones we found in Pablo's bag and put our last two lures in the water. Pablo kept right on jigging, though much of his time was spent fighting with the anchor and the electric trolling motor. He still caught a couple fish, but he gave up a lot of his time so Flaming Gorge Paul and I could catch them. Friends like that are hard to come by.

We kept jigging and I got a hit. After 5 or 6 minutes, I brought a new personal best to the boat.










Pablo estimated this one at 10 pounds. I was pretty excited when I caught this guy. But, propriety of being in the large group of boats meant that hollering should be limited to state records that is, of course, unless you were on one of the charter boats. Plus, you have to play it cool. If you freak out about a 10 pounder, it would look like you'd never caught one before. 8) :lol:

The first half hour ended and the fishing really dropped off as the sun came up. I looked around and it was beautiful. The water was steaming as the sun came up. It was striking to see how different the rocks looked when they had a light coating of snow. Of course, I didn't have time to take a picture because there was fishing to be done.

There was a lot of work to be done to get a hit after things slowed down. They were much fewer and farther between, even for the charter boats. Pablo got another hit and hollered to have me come get it. On this trip, I wasn't above charity.

A few minutes later, I reeled up a new personal best, according to Pablo's estimate of 12 pounds. The morning had been epic.










We kept fishing for a while longer but the fishing really slowed as the sun came up. Around 1100, Flaming Gorge Paul got a hit.










This was the first one that I had seen at Flaming Gorge (though this is a stock photo). They don't usually come in on downriggers, which is how I spent most of my time fishing up there. So, I had never seen one. They are much more likely to be picked up by jigging.

Pablo switched jigs and put some bait on his jig. Pretty soon, he had a hit and another charity fish for me to bring in.

It was a pretty decent burbot but I didn't get a picture or a measurement of it. Here's another stock photo for purposes of story telling.










Pablo said that the burbot coming in meant that the lake trout were moving off our spot. He was right. When I filleted out the burbot, they were full of crawdads and lake trout eggs.

After the second burbot, it was time for lunch so we went in planning on picking up some replacement jigs and fixing our anchor issues. Even though I had broken my personal best lake trout record 3 times in one day, we still had a whole afternoon ahead of us.


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## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

I'm excited to hear more. Thanks for reporting.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Looks like fun! Plenty of action and heartbreak, apparently. I worry about my swivels sometimes. Catching a monster would really put the hurt on that thin wire.

I'll be waiting for the rest of your story...


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Clarq said:


> I'm excited to hear more. Thanks for reporting.


Thanks Clarq. I'm glad you are enjoying it.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

LOAH said:


> Looks like fun! Plenty of action and heartbreak, apparently. I worry about my swivels sometimes. Catching a monster would really put the hurt on that thin wire.
> 
> I'll be waiting for the rest of your story...


Yeah a 79 cent swivel is not worth a 30 pound fish. I'm never going to skimp on swivels again and I'm going to put a couple extra nice ones in my wallet just to make sure I'm never without a decent one again.

It was a blast.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

We pulled out and headed back to town to pick up some more lures, better swivels, and to look for a better anchor. Unfortunately, a satisfactory anchor was no where to be found.

We headed back to Pablo's in-laws and tried to rig something up to fix our anchor situation and put our burbot in the fridge. While Pablo played with that, I made some roast beef sandwiches that really hit the spot. We chomped them down and shot the breeze for a little while before we headed out again. We wanted to get back on the water as soon as possible to try and anchor up in the right spot.

As we headed down to the ramp again, I checked my email to see if I had anything going on at work. Apparently, I did. As Pablo got us set up as close as the spot we could get, I tried to get my work done with my phone. It was a disaster and took three times longer than it should have. As I worked, Pablo and Flaming Gorge Paul were jigging away on our spot. But, they weren't catching anything.

I finally got things done and started fishing again. I felt terrible that Pablo and Flaming Gorge Paul had one so much work to get us out there and i spent an hour on my phone trying to put out a work fire. But, it turned out not to be a big deal because the fishing wasn't really happening then anyway.

We fished next to another boat from Lander Wyoming. Flaming Gorge Paul, being a very personable guy, chatted it up with them. We jigged and jigged and jigged without a hit. The wind had picked up and it was really blowing us around because our secondary anchor fix wasn't working. We jigged all afternoon without so much as a hit. No one around us was catching anything either. It was just too windy to stay in place. And, even if we could have stayed in place, it wasn't at all clear from the fish finder that there were any fish down there right then anyway.

We stayed until a few minutes before official sunset, watching no one catch anything. We were the first to motor out of there to go in for the night. We pulled out and headed to the Villa Restaurant for dinner. Flaming Gorge Paul treated us to some chicken fried steaks, which really hit the spot after a long day of fishing. Flaming Gorge Paul referred to the afternoon as a 4 hour "@$$ kicking." He wasn't far off.

My work fire flared up again a little bit during dinner but I was able to put it out for good without too much more effort. We had a good time laughing about what the lake did to us that afternoon. It was long dark before we were done eating and we left full. Food always tastes better when you're fishing.

We decided to run over to Bruce's house and see if he'd lend us an anchor that would solve our anchor woes. Bruce is the owner of Conquest Expeditions, a local charter boat service, and has been friends with Pablo for a long time. When we got there, Flaming Gorge Paul and I were talking about some personal things and we stayed in the car for a few minutes to finish up. We didn't realize how long we were there talking when Pablo came back out and got us. I had no intent to be rude and apologized when we walked in.

Bruce had a lovely home and was very gracious. He introduced us to his wife Margie who was also very kind and it turned out very talented. She had a beautiful harp that she wasn't able to play due to a finger injury. They had some very nice deer on their wall as well as a nice sheep and a sailfish. We had a great time talking about the unofficial state record lake trout that was caught on their boat but not taken to the DWR for weighing.

Bruce said that a major storm was due in the next day and projected that there was an 80% chance we wouldn't be able to fish in the morning. That was a little disappointing. It was cold out but I didn't think the storm would make it in time to keep us off the water.

Not wanting to interrupt their evening any longer, we asked if they had an anchor we could borrow for the next morning. Bruce set us up. We thanked him and got on our way. We were pretty beat by the time we got back to Pablo's in-laws. We set up our new anchor system and crashed at 9 o'clock.

We were up at 5:30 and on our way by 6:00. We walked out the door and found the ground dry, with slight wind from the south west. Fishing was going to happen after all. We decided that we were going to get out there and in our spot as early as we could. We were the first ones there and we got anchored up. We had our new setup with the anchor Bruce lent to us and we threw out a back anchor just to make sure we stayed where we were. Once we were set, we had about 15 minutes before 0702, official sunrise.

My reel was in free spool and my lure hit the water right at 0702 and we got jigging immediately. The first half an hour on the previous day was the best time of the whole day. Our spirits were high, expecting the same. Only one other boat was there as fishing started. They had two fish on as soon as they dropped their lures. But, on our boat, there was nothing. We jigged for a few minutes until Flaming Gorge Paul got a hit.

He hustled me over to get another charity fish, which I was not above. I fought the fish for 8 or 10 minutes until I got up my new personal best lake trout, which Pablo estimated at 15 pounds.










I was on cloud 9 though, at the time, I didn't know what else was lurking underneath us.


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## orvis1 (Sep 7, 2007)

Bruce and Margie are good people. Margie makes a mean breakfast out on there boat, I heard they don't do much guiding anymore but that Kyle does most of the bookings now. Do they still have that MASSIVE boat?


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Pretty good chunk 'o mack there. Nice work.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

orvis1 said:


> Bruce and Margie are good people. Margie makes a mean breakfast out on there boat, I heard they don't do much guiding anymore but that Kyle does most of the bookings now. Do they still have that MASSIVE boat?


They were really nice. I met Bruce in August but it was very brief. They invited us right in, even after a long day of fishing.

I think that Bruce is going out when Kyle is full and they have more people that want to go out but I'm not sure. So Bruce may not be fishing as much as he has in the past but he's still going out fairly regularly.

As I understand it, Bruce and Kyle have the same boat. I think Pablo said Bruce started guiding up there in 1977 (could have been 1973) and his big ol' boat was either a 1977 or a 1973. They are really cool boats though.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

LOAH said:


> Pretty good chunk 'o mack there. Nice work.


Thanks. They are in there, just not cooperating on the day that you came with me.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

After breaking my personal best lake trout record 4 times in two days, I was pretty happy. If that had been the end of the day, I would have been happy. But, I was about to get a whole lot happier.

Once we got the fish pictured above back in the water, I went back to work and things were still slow. We weren't getting hits like we had been the previous day at all.

Jigging and jigging. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Up and BAM! ZZZZZZZZ!

I started to reel on the fish. I could instantly tell that this was a better fish and I started to get excited. I tried to stay calm because excitement causes mistakes. As I was trying to get myself to focus on what I was doing, I realized that I was reeling but not getting anywhere. In fact, line was going the wrong way.

I kept pressure on the fish for 3 or 4 minutes, without making an inch of line. My left arm started to burn a little bit. I realized that I was flexing the muscle in my arm even though I didn't need that set of muscles to keep pressure on the fish. I tried to relax and kept reeling.

After 3 or 4 minutes of running, the fish had me down to the mono backing on my reel. I had 100 yards of 12lb braid tied to 20 yards of 12 pound mono. All the sudden, the fish turned and started coming back toward me. I was finally making some headway. The fish kept coming and I got back about 50 yards worth of line. At that point, the fish decided that he wasn't willing to cooperate any more.

He ran and he ran hard. He slowed down as soon as he hit the mono backing and we were back to where we started. He turned and started coming back for the second time.

This time he came up a little farther before he freaked out but freak out he did and took about 75 yards of braided line until he took me back to the mono for the third time. My back was getting tired. My legs were shaking. My arms were burning.

I fought back and got him to turn and he started coming up again. I got about 75 yards of line again but this time he started burping bubbles, which meant that he was close. He was still too deep to see though. A couple more turns of the reel and he shot right back to the bottom. I looked down at the mono on my reel and started cranking for the fourth time.

As I reeled I started to see the telltale gold profile of a lake trout coming through the green Flaming Gorge water. The fish and I had been fighting for nearly twenty minutes. I was shaking. My arms were on fire, my back was screaming for me to sit down. I kept reeling. As the fish got closer, I could see a little better. He was a nice fish, a new personal best for sure. I got him within about 6 feet and Pablo took a swipe with a net. The fish was not impressed.

He went screaming back to the bottom. The mono backing on my reel was looking up at me and laughing, taunting me to reel the fish up for the 6th time.

I got my whole shoulder involved, trying anything to get a new angle that would let me use some different muscles. No such luck. I just had to man up and reel.

For the 6th time, I fought back, slowly gaining line. After almost a half an hour of fighting, the events of the past half an hour repeated themselves. As he came up, I saw the bubbles telling me the fish was getting closer. I started to see the golden blurry profile slowly add the details of the lake trout. It got to the surface and flopped around just long enough for Pablo to take the final swipe of the net. The fish was in. As I set down my rod to get the hook out, the lure dropped into the net, the treble hook had just broken, just a second too late for the fish.

I handed my camera to Flaming Gorge Paul who recorded the fish for posterity.



















Pablo estimated him at 22 pounds. He was shy by 1 pound, a pretty good estimate.

I wanted to hoot and holler but propriety kept my mouth shut. Like I said before, you gotta look like you do it all the time.

Pablo said "well, that's a good fish. Let's throw it back, there is a bigger one down there." I looked at him a little dumb founded. I heard Flaming Gorge Paul say "To hell with that, a fish in the boat is worth two in the lake." We put him in the box.

I collapsed into a chair, beat. Pablo looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "Not done are you?" "Never," I replied. I went back to my post and to my jigging.

The wind started to build as the morning wore on. It was barely 0800 and it was pretty clear that the fishing was going to get a little harder. Our anchor broke loose and we started to drift. The waves started to build and the small boat that was out there with us turned and headed for the relative safety of the canyon. The only other boat moved well away because their electric motor just couldn't hold them in place.

We jigged for another hour until 0900, without another hit. There were tons of fish underneath us but we couldn't get any of them to cooperate. As we jigged, gusts of wind blew by. Since our anchor wasn't holding us, we pivoted just wrong for the gust of wind to grab the center window of the boat and slam it closed. Tempered glass shot everywhere as the glass shattered. It happened so fast that no one could have done anything to prevent it. True to form, Flaming Gorge Paul wasn't worried about it. "Stuff happens when you're fishing," he said.

We headed back to the marina when it was clear that there was nothing more to do before the storm arrived. We got the boat on the trailer and pulled out. After cleaning up a little bit, we drove back to Pablo's in-laws to clean up the boat and to take some more pictures.


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## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

Nice fish! How long was he?


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Monster! Congratulations. I know you've been waiting for that one for a long time.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

When we got back to Pablo's in-laws, the first order of business was to take a few more pictures.

Flaming Gorge Paul insisted that I hold the fish out. I was celebrating, so I agreed.














































We got the measuring tape out to see the other major stat. As we stretched the tape, Pablo said "I was sure you were going to lose that fish in the anchor rope." :shock: It was a good thing he didn't tell me that at the time! But, it was a nice compliment from a sportsman I respect.

When we got the tape all lined up, it said 37.5 inches. Just over 3 feet of fish. Propriety went out the window as I hooted and hollered with sheer elation for having caught such a fish.

As I looked at him a little closer, I saw that his nose was worn down from fighting with the other males. It was really cool to see. I already knew that the fish was a fighter, but having the visual evidence was cool.

I snapped a quick phone cam picture to send to Mrs. Dodger, Brother Dodger, and Papa Dodger. I knew they would be eager to hear from me.










Once we got the fish taken care of, I wrapped it properly so I could take it to the taxidermist when I got home. Ever since I was a kid at the fishing store in Dutch John, I wanted a fish to keep on my wall. 22 years later, I had one. I've already got a spot picked out in my office.

As Pablo and Flaming Gorge Paul grabbed our stuff from Pablo's in-laws and got it all packed up, I vacuumed the glass out of the boat. It was everywhere. After about an hour, I had it cleaned up and we had taken the window out for the drive home.

As we pulled out to head home, the text messages started to come from Papa Dodger and Brother Dodger. Both were excited for me.

On the way up the hill out of Manila, we stopped at Bruce's to return his anchor and thank him for letting us use it. He was busy working on his boat and we didn't want to interrupt so we left it in his barn, said thanks, shook his hand, waved good bye to Margie, and got back in the truck to start the drive home.

It was a quiet drive home for the first little while. We were all pretty tired. But, our thoughts started turning to our responsibilities at home and other things we had going on. We finally got to talking about hunting and I thought of more questions to ask Pablo about fishing for lake trout at Flaming Gorge. I'm sure he got tired of all my questions, but he answered them all.

We got to Evingston, put some gas in the truck, and stopped at Wendy's for some burgers, Flaming Gorge Paul's treat. After lunch, we loaded back into the truck and drove right into a snowstorm. As we came down I-84 back into Layton, the snow was starting to stick.

We got back to Pablo's and got unloaded. My fish had partially frozen in the fish box in the boat. It must have gotten pretty cold back there.

Once we were all cleaned up, I thanked both Pablo and Flaming Gorge Paul for including me on the trip. They were not only a lot of fun to fish with, they went on the trip for the sole purpose of helping me catch a fish. Those are the kinds of friends you hang on to.

I had a great time fishing with those guys. And, I was able to do something I've wanted to do since I was a little kid. And, even though the fish was 23 pounds and 37.5 inches, I left plenty of room to break my personal best lake trout record in the future. :mrgreen:

My thanks to all those who have been along for the ride here for the past few months. I've enjoyed writing up my story and sharing it here. When last I looked, this thread has been opened almost 2000 times. I hope you have enjoyed the story as much as I have enjoyed sharing it.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Clarq said:


> Nice fish! How long was he?


Thanks! He taped out at 37.5". Not bad for living 800 miles from the ocean, huh?


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

LOAH said:


> Monster! Congratulations. I know you've been waiting for that one for a long time.


Thanks LOAH. Keep me on your schedule for next year. We should do some more fishing.


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## 10yearquest (Oct 15, 2009)

BRAVO! Dodger BRAVO!!!


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## orvis1 (Sep 7, 2007)

Glad you got your Mac!


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Thanks guys!


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