Stillwater Fly Fishing
A New Year And Some…
Jan 6th
These these past few weeks have been pretty crazy, but not crazy enough to keep me from doing what I do best and that is enjoying the great outdoors. Work and the holidays have really cut into my consistent posts. I just accepted a new position and with training my replacement and being trained myself, I have had no time to even open the Internet or even think about it. But looking into the future, it is a small price to pay for a big payoff in the end and best of all more free time. So enough of that! Here is a recap of my last couple weeks.Since the snow has been flying I have been hitting the Mtns as much as I could, taking advantage of the “greatest snow on earth”. The wife and I once again got season passes to Sundance and it has become a second home for us these past few years. Snowboarding to me is an escape from the rules of life. Like fly fishing it gives me an escape from reality and during the time I’m on the mtn nothing else matters except for what is 5 feet in front of me. Its living in the moment at its finest. But the nice thing about snowboarding is that the worst the weather gets the better it is. So when most fly fishermen are complaing in about the long winter, I am smiling and waiting for the next big storm…But to explain my obsession I hit the mtn 6 times in the first week and a half of the season and since then been almost ever weekend.
With all this snowboarding, I have also made it a priority to keep myself balanced this winter. On Dec 19th the Gillespie crew decided to try our luck and hit Strawberry for some early season ice fishing. It was a good and bad idea. The lake was only 10% froze (bays) and when we drilled our first hole it was only 1 1/2 to 2 inches of ice. (stupid) Luckily we didn’t have any problems, but just as luck has it the fishing was slow and the weather was terrible. We left frozen and wondering if we really knew what we were doing. 
The day after X-mas Liz and I left for a weekend at our friends cabin in Lava Hot Springs. The back country boarding rocked! 
With Fri being my older bro’s last day in town from Cali. We decided to make it a good one. We hit the marsh for some duck hunting in the morning (and the evening before, Jer killed it bagging 3 drake mallards) without any luck. Then played some intense b-ball, and followed up with a stop by the lower Provo and some prefect weather fly fishing. It was a great evening to be on the river the temps were a remarkable at 40 degrees and our eyelets never froze once, which is crazy for Jan 2. The bit was good and in a short 1 1/2 hours Gun and Jer were able to land a handful and miss many more. In fact it was a perfect ending to a great few weeks of having my best friend home for the holidays. 
On Sat with the weather report of 12 inches of fresh “pow” I was back on the mtn cutting through the trees and floating on the soft Utah Powder.
I love Utah. Where else can you snowboard 13 world class resorts in a day, duck hunt, fly fish, ice fish, boat, see magical red rock formations and the whole time be the second driest state??? It has it all and a lot left over…
Birthday Weekend
Oct 28th
Fox Hunting with Carter and friend…With are bad shooting, we let the wilie fox go!
So this past weekend was pretty much perfect! The weather was unreal for this time of year and the fishing lets just say fast. What more can you ask for when it is your favorite weekend of the year. So it started out on Friday morning up on the Middle Provo. I was fishing with Mallary and Gunner in hopes of a pre-spawn or some little BWO’s. As the morning temps rose from 17 degrees so did the fishing. By 10:30am we had our first hook up! I was in a battle against a nice 22 inch Brown that had taken my little #22 WD-40. I fought the fish until it finally tired and decided to come to shore. But just as you know it he didn’t want to stick around for a pic and spit the tiny hook as I was trying to pick him up, Oh well! He was a nice dark colored, hooked jaw male that would have made a sick pic, but like I said before, oh well. (I’m still a little mad) The rest of the day was taken over by the emergence of BWO’s that were captivating the fish all over in our hole that we were fishing. There must have been over 100 fish working the whole pool in front of us. Mallary managed to hook and quick release a little brown before she had to jet at 11:30am. Gunner and I stayed for another hour and had a blast hooking/missing a handful of average sized browns. 
It was awesome to see so many fish and know exactly what to use. I wish we could of stayed longer, but work was calling and I had to make an appearance. 
Saturday was a little bit of a different story I still woke up at 6:30am, but it was for a late season Mt Bike trip up Payson Canyon. 
We rode hard and had a great time tackling the steep trails of Blackhawk, Bennies Creek, Shram, Pipeline and what ever other trails we connected to to reach the bottom. 
In all we rode close to 25 miles worth of trails before Noon. (Two shuttles) When I got home Liz told new I shouldn’t waste such a perfect Saturday watching the BYU game, so with that incentive I was packing my fishing gear and heading up Provo Canyon in search for some more technical BWO fishing. 
I reached the Lower Provo about 2 pm and from up above I spotted a few little rises. (I fished from the big lot to the beef jerky eddy) That afternoon the fish never committed to the bugs like they did on the Middle. However the few that I saw rising I could zero in on and get a take 90% of the time. 
I ended up having a 20 fish afternoon that day on either fish I would spot rising or by simply fishing the riffles with my dry and dropper set up. I caught 95% of my fish on a #22 tung WD-40. 
I nymphed for about 20 mins before I left and hooked up twice with nice healthy Browns that were pretty much twins at 17 inches. 
It was a great afternoon to be on the Lower Provo. I only saw a few fishermen and it seemed more like a weekday. The only thing I could of done away with was the hard wind that blew all afternoon. But with 65* weather on the 25th of October, I can’t complain.
In past years it has always been eat at the Hub Cafe then hit Strawberry. This year I decide to try my luck at the X. I knew that this would be a gamble, but I wanted the challenge and a chance at a huge fish. And you know what that is just what I got! We didn’t get to the X until around 10 am, but It was fine because with the bright, windless day I couldn’t get anything to commit. Unlit the wind picked up around 12pm. I finally started getting a few good hits with my streamers and Chronomids. Then I hooked up good with a monster that ran and never looked back. I finally decided to switch to a deep AP Emerger and Gray Scud set up and on the second cast as I was dragging the bottom at 14 ft, I felt some resistance on my retrieve. I thought moss, but then it moved to the right and I instantly set the hook and had a big fish on! I was only using 6x tippet, so I gently fought the fish until it made my forearm burn and to my amazement after 4 very hard runs I finally coached the 24 1/2 inch Tiger trout to my net. I estimated its weight between 5-6 pounds. (Freaking fatty) 
After that fish nothing else matter. I had accomplished the what I set out to do and I was as happy as a birthday boy could be. Its funny to think that I was satisfied with only one netted fish, but at the X one fish landed on this technical lake makes up for 100 fish landed any where else in the state. Plus they are hogs and the hardest fighters!
Just Like Old Times…The Berry With Grandpa
Sep 29th
Well this last weekend has been one to remember. It started off with a trip to the ole Berry Patch Friday morning with Grandpa Clegg. I woke up at 4:45 am to be able to pick Grandpa up in Midway by 6am. We got the boat all loaded, stopped by the corner Gas station to get worms, minnows, breakfast and a sandwich for lunch. We fished Chicken Creek East and had a fun time reeling in healthy Rainbows and Cutts. 
The highlights of the trip were:
1. Grandpas big Bow caught right off the bat. 
2. Perfect weather.(Glass all day) 
3. Grandpa hooking a bow in the fin and having it fight like a 10 pounder. 
4. Travis’s double hook up. Two fish on one pole. Bow and 20 inch Cutt. (how do you net two fish at once?) 
The action wasn’t red hott like I hoped, but just being out with my Grandpa in my boat made up for all the time in between the few bites we got. It’s the stories (old and new), experiences and conversation that makes a trip like this so priceless. I really enjoyed every second of fishing with my grandpa. The fish were just the icing on the cake…
Provo Canyon on the way home 
Goose and Duck Season just a day away! 
Painted Mountains 
Lava Hot Springs Was On Fire
Aug 25th
So we left to Lava around an hour and a half late, due to some slow moving folks (The Browns). It was alright because not only were we going to Lava, but we were also going to relax and just hangout for the weekend with 8 of our best friends. We got to the cabin a little early so the Browns and Liz and I decided to hit the local private pond for some evening fishing. When we got there I was pretty taken back the pond was really low and 75% covered in moss. This didn’t stop us though we strung up our poles and with-in a few casts we had fish hitting our offerings. That night I keyed on to the PMD – Midge hatch and brought countless fish to the shore. It was awesome to set the hook 40 ft away and have the Rainbow trout just explode out of the water. Scott and Jocie also caught a couple on spinners. 
That night we stopped by the local bar to play BINGO with a bunch of rough old farmers and country folk. It was great fun and wouldn’t you know it Scott even won 21 Bucks! The next morning I arose before the rest of the group snuck out of the cabin and headed back up to the new found honey hole. When I got there conditions were very similar to the night before, fish were rising periodically and there seemed to be a nice Midge hatch. 
I tied on the Single Midge #20 and the #18 PMD Hackle Stacker and a tung red blood midge. Right off the bat the Bows were keyed on to the dropper. I caught and released many bows on it then I decided to start playing around with patterns. I then caught a bow on a beetle, green hopper and a tung PT. It was fun to prove to myself that its not so much the pattern as it is the presentation. 
The last bit of the morning I spent looking at the bugs on the water and trying to figure out what they were. I was really blown away by the beauty of the gray mayflies that were hatching late morning. They would sit on the pond banks with spent wings making an easy target for hungry trout. 
The morning fishing ended when the girls came up to the pond on their morning workout saying “we were supposed to tell you it time for breakfast”. It was a great morning on the pond and one that I will soon not forget. The rest of the day was spent swimming in the local pool, riding down the river and hanging out in the hot sun. After dinner I talked Scott into hitting the pond for the golden hour before dark. I strung up the rod with the same patterns as the morning. (midge/hackle stacker) I gave Scotty the rod and within a few shallow casts Scott had his sweet cast back and was hooked up with a big bow. The next 45 mins produced several hard fighting bows to Scotts dries. It was great to see the excitement and fulfillment in Scotts face as he “knocked em dead”. This last outing with Scott has been very long awaited. We grew up chasing fish together from catfish and White bass at Utah Lake to sitting on the shores of the old Berry patch waiting and hoping that a fish would bite our worms. Scott and I have been fly fishing many times as we were new into the sport, but haven’t been in the past 2-6 years. I wanted to show him that now I knew what I was doing and that we could in fact catch some fish. What it came down to is that I missed fishing with my best friend Scott and this was an outing that we will both never forget.
Humbled, Beat, Tired and the X
Jul 21st
So I have been on a lot of fishing trips in my day, but I would have to say that this one ranks up on my list as one of the toughest trips ever. The fishing was hard to say the least. We arrived on the lake Friday afternoon with the hopes of catching a few very large trout. Everything seemed perfect, there was a slight breeze, ok cloud cover and we were marking fish all over with the finder. The only problem is that what ever we threw at them must have not been the right color, size, texture or who knows what??? I first tried Chroniods nymphed deep. Then we threw streamers with all different retrieves. Then tried Dansel dries, nymphs. Then to top off the night we tried to match the midge hatch and catch some of the smaller fish that were rising, but they to didn’t want what we had. As the full moon arose over the mtn side. I decided I couldn’t be skunked and went and stocked the shorelines with my mouse and streamers, but sure enough the fish were king on this day and Wayne’s and myself were left with tired arms and broken spirits. I couldn’t believed that it actually happened. Through out the night I just kept thinking what I was doing wrong and couldn’t think of really anything else I could have done better. I finally came up with the conclusion that I knew the fish were rising for the occasional midge, so they must be keying on them and the emergence, but they were so random that the best way to target them was with chroniods fished at about 14 ft to imitate the emergence of the larva. So the next morning I did just that and after 2 light bites. I watched as my indicator bobbed twice, I set the hook and the 100s of pounds of sand on my back was lifted off. It wasn’t the fish that I was after on this trip, but it was a fish and more than that it showed that when fishing is tuff and the fish are hanging deep because they feed all night I could still figure out a technique to out smart one. After that fish I missed a few more and the morning was over. It’s funny, its times like these that I really find out why I love the sport of fly fishing and where I’m at in the sport. Its hard, demanding, technical, detailed, takes knowledge, and skill. Right when you think that you have done your homework and learned all about stillwater fishing, damsel flies and chorniods. The fish don’t act like they should and you are right back to square one. It’s not just about learning bugs and water types, its about understanding trout and the way they act to certain situations in their lives at the current condition. (ex: I didn’t think to factor in the water temp until after we were done. The water was 70 degrees and that is another reason why we needed to fish deeper to get to them in the cooler deeper water) I can look at this trip in two ways, one I can say it sucked and I hate fishing lakes or I can look back on the experiences and learn from what I did right and wrong and put that in my knowledge, so I will be a wiser and smarter fisherman the next time I go out.
Figuring Out Lake X
May 17th
So as I was laying on the couch watching the Jazz get their butts kicked by the Laker’s, I couldn’t help but start to plan out in my mind what was in store for the morning.(Sat) Strawberry was off my list, since I had fished it earlier that day and it wasn’t so hot I had to return. So I was left thinking about two places that I have wanted to go for a long time but haven’t had the chance to go. The Green River or Lake X. Since gas prices are out of this world and the Green being so far to go solo. I decide to hit the X with the goal in mind to catch a huge fish. So my cell phone was my alarm and it did its job to the max. I woke up at 5:30am on the dot. Today, I was serious so I got on my fishing clothes and was out the door. The night before got me thinking about my evolution as a fisherman and why I am addicted to it. I was looking back through my old fishing book remember the great trips I have experienced. The one thing that stuck out in my mind is that almost all of the trips I went on, I went with a group of people. In most cases it was Doug, Jordan, Scott, Grandpa or someone in the family. Now I look at my fishing trips and I haven’t gone a family trip in at least 6 years. I think the last big trip was right before I left on my mission when we all went to Strawberry the day before I left. So what I am trying to say is that I miss our family fishing outings. It was so much fun to have everyone get together and to experience the quality time spent together. But those trips were more than just quality time. They were where friendships were made, where boys became men, and where I life lessons were taught. I really need to set up a family fishing trip this summer to Montana, The Boulders, or The Green because I and our family need it more than anything else. I think I’m starting to realize the power of fishing. It is a cure, fix, support, and simplifier.
Man, I really got off topic that time. So When I got to the X at 8:30am, I was surprised to see that there were already 4 other groups of people on the little lake. I thought to myself stupid DWR. They really screwed up this time!!! The fishing started off slow. I could get any fish to hit my wolley buggers. I tried fast retrieves, slow and all others. After floating around the whole I lake, I finally did one thing right. I put a All Purpose Emerger #12 trailing my bugger. My first drift I had a hit but the dang fish some how got off after almost taking my rod into the water. “No problem” I thought, “now I know what to use”. So I found nice cove on the southwest shoreline, and within 5 minutes I had another good bite and a fish on that I hooked right in front of the boat. It went crazy and the fly popped out. Dang it was a nice Col Cut too! I moved up the shoreline with the wind and 10 or so casts latter I was hooked up again. This time I wasn’t going to let the fish get off. It fought hard and all a sudden, I felt the fly slip. “Dang it” I said with disappointment, but wait a minute somehow the fish was still on. I fought the magnificent Colorado Cutthroat until my forearm was about to fall off. After probably a 15 min fight the 20-22 inch fish was in the net. 
So what happened is that some how when the hook came out of the fishes mouth it caught again on the fishes top dorsal fin. I guess it was good fish fighting practice??? 
After that the fishing really slowed, so I tried to catch them on the bugs that they were actually feeding on. I know what your thinking. “Why wouldn’t you fish that way from the beginning?” The reason is that I’m not to familiar with fishing with Chominoids (Midges). In fact I really never have tried it, but last time when Jordan and I went to the X. I got my but kicked by the fish because the only thing these fish would eat was Chominoids, PERIOD! So I did my homework and read as much as I could about the life cycle of these little black flies and it paid off. On my first cast focusing on Chominiods, I watched my strike indicator closely as it floated back to me. It twitched, I set the hook, fish jumped out of the water, hooked up with Chominoids.