North Slope of the Uintas

[cpierce]

Smoke kept coming into the valley from the State Fire near Malad and probably all of the ones in Utah too. Here is what the valley looked like from the mountains above. So thick, you can't see the valley at all.




So I retreated to the North Slope of the Uinta Mountains for a week.


Quite a few other people decided to visit that area too, and a few moose also. By the time I got my camera out these moose were almost gone. The one on the right was really a big boy!



Too bad that the hills are a grey carpet of beetle killed trees. It probably won’t be too long before this area burns too. I wish that they would log some of this stuff off.
I played around a bit at some of the more popular areas, with everyone else and their three dogs, and then I moved on to investigate a few of the smaller streams I had spotted on Google Earth

As is typical of the Uintas' roads --some are a lot better than others, and the further you get from the more popular access areas, the worse they get. The last little bit of road before I got to the clearing I was looking for, the road got rough and rutted down the hill. I made it in one piece though.

I walked upstream from there and fished the small pocket water through that canyon area. It really was SMALL pocket water. The stream had really suffered from the drought. The water barely covered a third of the stream bed. Google Earth shows it in a much better water year!

This is one of the larger pools.




The fish were a nice surprise. Fat healthy Colorado Cutthroats in small pools.



Obviously this is a bad drought year for these streams too. I sure hope that they get a lot more water before winter.
Amazing how nice the fish were in those tiny pocket pools.







Lightening and rain were starting to come in so I went back to the camper and decided to go back up the hill to the last meadow area above there. I wasn’t sure what that rocky and rutted part of the road would be like after a good rain so I felt better about moving and camping up higher.

I camped well out in the meadow away from all the dead trees. After the first storm passed through, I went out fishing east of where I was camped. The pools were deeper and there seemed to be more water. I wonder if it was from the recent rain or because of the lower gradient of the meadow area?



The fish were also a better average size. Most were about 10 to 13 inches and fat. I did catch a lot of smaller fish as well. There seemed to be a good population of 4 inches to 6 inch fish. Anything smaller may have already been lunch for the fatter guys!

I really like the different spot patterns and colors on the various cutts. Some of these Colorado Cutts looked a lot like the Bonnevilles to me, but most had more spots.

Here a couple of fine spotted ones.





I don’t know what they regularly eat as I found very few bugs in the water. No caddis or stonefly cases, I did see a couple of mayflies and stoneflies under the rocks and some midge worms. Not much of anything, but the fish were of good size and fat for such a small stream. I was using a fly that was a bit of cross between a hornet and a small fat stimulator. I don’t know if the fish were taking it as a hornet, beetle, a grasshopper, or a stonefly. At least it worked!

That afternoon an even bigger thunderstorm came through and rained in sheets that was running off everywhere. After it past over the stream was completely blown out with brown water.



But the next morning the water wasn’t looking too bad at all. It was a little off color, but mostly clear. I think it was higher too from the runoff. The slower meadow areas had much better pools than the steeper runs and the fishing was great.






Toward noon I caught the big daddy of this little stream… a honking fat bugger that really took my little 3wt rod for a ride. The rain started to come back in just as I was landing it.



And then the rain came. I was beginning to feel like Forrest Gump in Vietnam!



Beautiful little stream … in a good water year I bet it is even more phenomenal.

Ending that stream on a good note, I moved to another that I wanted to check out. It had at least twice as much water and more fish per pool, but most of the fish were smaller and definitely skinnier. There were still a good number of 10-12inchers.









All I caught were cutts, but some looked like they might have a little rainbow mixed in.




I missed a couple that would have gone bigger. (True of every fish tale!!) I didn’t fish as much on this creek since once again the rain came in. I sat out the first bout under a large willow, and I had a nice lunch break. I tried for a nap too, but the thunder was too blasted loud.



All in all, a nice way to spend a week of exile!
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[flygoddess]

Spectacular report C as usual. Love the colors in those trout, and I could see 100 Moose and they would still impress me.
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[mojorizing]

Really nice.
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[riverdog]

Great Post. Fortunately now Utah fires are all pretty much out. Hopefully you get some rain and Idaho's fire die down.
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[lucabrasi]

Very nice. Glad you posted this.
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[cpierce]

Thanks, all of you, and thanks to Utah for sharing some fine fishing with an Idahoan.

It really was a good week, I just could have done with a little less rain! But I know we all need the rain too.

It was fun.
I love exploring the little streams. I only saw one other bunch of campers and they were all bow hunters off on their ATVs.
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