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2021 - A Review
#1
The first couple of trips in 2021 have somehow vanished from my collection of images. One was a family road trip out west where we saw some colorful cichlids and the other was to the southeast for some thick brookies.

No big deal. There will be plenty of thick brookies in this lineup. That was my most frequent catch all year.

The first trip I have photos from was with brookieguy1, where we floated on a windy day, catching some brookies, rainbows, and cutthroat.

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Even caught a few on the fly.
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A trip to Strawberry was next and some slotties were all I could find that day.

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By that time, my favorite beaver ponds were accessible and I made sure to pay those gorgeous fish a visit.

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It was at the beaver pond that I caught one of the prettiest big rainbows I've had the pleasure to meet.

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Just stunning. I also lost a couple of big cutthroat that day and I'd love to find one of the brookies in there. They're directly upstream, so I know it's only a matter of time.

Speaking of brookies, those are the fish I found on my following trip.

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Two weeks later, I did the same, this time with a fair amount of cutthroat mixed in, and a really strong rainbow.

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Pretty soon it was Father's Day. With my son James being the one who made me a father, I decided to go and fish a lake that shares his name as part of a big loop with other lakes, up in the Uintas. I ended up having a really good time and fished seven different lakes that day, with varying success.

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Gorgeous country.

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James Lake:

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Just little brookies in there, but mission accomplished.

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Still a great time exploring an area I usually pass.

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It was a really good day.

A couple of weeks passed before I could get out again, but the day before a real trip, I had something going on in Provo that required me to kill some time and I found myself at an old lunch break spot with a fly rod. A couple of white bass came in and it was fun to reconnect with that pond.

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The next day, brookieguy1, BigSky and myself took a long day trip and floated a couple of lakes for some sturdy brookies. All that water was new to me. I shall return.

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My Uinta spot from Father's Day was fun enough that I wanted to take my wife up to one of the closer lakes to let her have some fun. She caught a few small brookies and we enjoyed the time together in the beautiful Uintas.

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BG1 and I chose to get in on the remaining action at Forsyth Reservoir before it was completely drained and we did really well at the top end of the lake, catching good sized tigers in the shallows.

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Even ran into Trout Howler, who puts out a lot of really good YouTube videos under that name. Check him out if you haven't. Good content from a fishy fellow.

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Soon enough, the brookies were calling BG1 and myself, so we went down and spanked them pretty hard.

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The odd cutthroat showed up from time to time, but it was another great day of brookie fishing.

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The action was so good, we went back 2 weeks later and did it again. I did really well for bigger males this trip. 

This guy had a weird mouth:

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This one was just gorgeous:

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Big male brookies, all day. These were just the nicest ones. We stayed busy.

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A month passed before I fished again, but I was happy to pick up right where I left off with those brookies and cutthroat.

This lil' plumper was super round. Well fed.

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The fall colors were starting to really glow on the males.

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A couple of weeks later, I set off with a buddy I've chatted back and forth with for years to see if we could get him some quality tigers and brookies. He ended up doing really well.

I don't have a pic of his 5lb tiger, but he got a solid one and a really nice brookie too. I'd say that worked out! I did alright as well.

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Here's Wade with one of his nice brookies on the day:

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It's always nice to show someone a new part of the state. We took a detour to show him one of the best views around, and to get into cell range for a moment.

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Another chunk of time passed before I got out again and before I knew it, it was almost two weeks into November. BG1 and I went to one of my old haunts that was reportedly putting out fat rainbows and we went to check that out.

We were not disappointed. I had a slow start while Dave found a good spot for consistent catches, then I eventually found my stroke. We both caught a whole bunch of healthy rainbows. The average size was around 2lbs with some significantly better.

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One was a real tank. Pics are from the net since the only imagery I have with it in my hand was a video. It was difficult to hold with one hand, being just a hair shy of 4lbs.

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It was massive and fought like crazy. I also caught a really nice brown and a cutthroat on the day to complete the hat trick.


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What a day! I actually felt that day in my should for quite awhile after that. Can't ask for better fishing.

A week later, I enjoyed a frigid float on Strawberry, where I did really well for 20" cutthroat and a couple of small rainbows. Most were caught jigging, but a few came in on the fly as well.

Most of the float yielded sporadic catches in small spurts, but as evening went on, the bite picked up. It was hard to leave with fish on almost every cast as I made the long kick back to where I was parked.

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It was worth staying. That was the conclusion of my soft water fishing for 2021. Not a bad way to send it off.

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Six days later (Black Friday), Wade and I embarked on a journey to find some early ice. Being such a warm November, we sensed it could be sketchy.

It was.

After a hike, we found an open band of water separating us from what appeared to be "good enough" ice. A subsequent hike around the lake led us to one spot where we could actually set foot on it and some test holes were pounded out with my hatchet.

3", but not the healthiest ice. It seemed to support me and I outweigh Wade by over 100lbs, so we made the noisy shuffle over to an area I hoped would produce well.

My first hole was right at the edge of a thick mass of weeds where I hoped I'd find a brookie. That happened almost immediately and I was only teased by the large round brookie body I saw through the slightly hazy ice. It broke me off! Perhaps the sharp ice edge of my freshly cut hole contributed, but that fish took my jig and wasn't letting me have it back.

It wasn't long and Wade had a nice fat cutthroat on the line. I got a video of that (posted to my IG @Utahwaterlog).

I caught a few other fish, with two of them being rather round.

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It wasn't too long into the day that the ambient temps were feeling a little too comfortable to be on the ice and my main hole was starting to really sag. Just as thoughts of relocating were starting to nag me, I noticed that I was standing in about 3" of water on top of the ice. 

I turned to walk away from the hole, but the slippery wet ice wouldn't allow it as I was now sliding backwards, downhill! Uh oh!

The ice buckled and I was quick to react, almost expecting it when I started sliding. Flattening out my body quickly, I was able to avoid going in and I rolled away from my new pool. It happened fast, but it also seemed like slow motion while it was happening. I was glad to have been wearing waders and didn't even get wet, although the bottom of my coat got splashed a little bit.

With that being the clearest of signs that it was time to go, we quickly made our way back to shore and eventually back to the car where we saw that the temps were in the mid 50's! Yikes. That'll do it! I'm just glad we got some good fish and found some ice that held us long enough to catch them.

We stopped at a rainbow fishery on our way out of the area and caught a few from shore in the open water there, then called it a day. Good times.

My last trip was on December 4th. Joe's Valley hosted me for most of the day. Some shore fishing in the dam arm provided some tiny rainbows for awhile and then I made my way around to some safe ice (much safer than my previous trip) where I caught one small splake right away and then it was slow going for small rainbows here and there after that. 

The fishing was not great, so I figured I'd head out to find at least one more spot to fish before calling it a day. That proved to be a time consuming exercise to find a snow drift just a little too long and deep for me to try and blaze through with my passenger car, so I stopped at a different lake to see what I could find.

A couple of small tigers and a few more small rainbows was all I could manage.

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Regardless, it's a treat to spend time in such beautiful country.

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Happy Fishing, Humans.
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UTAH WATER LOG
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#2
Missed your posts.....always quality.

LT
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#3
Great year again... man you find chunky fish, they are so amazing, thanks for sharing the fun with us... Jeff
When things get stressful think I'll go fish'en and worry about it tomorrow!
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#4
"lumploaf gets into some loafs" should be the title of this thread.
That brown looks like it is three feet long! And the hump on that one brookie.... love all the colored up males.
That one super purdy rainbow is killer, too.
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#5
Thanks for some great pictures and a great report.
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#6
Love all of the pictures. Makes me excited for summer fishing in the Unitas. Thanks for sharing.
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