Grizzly Lake!

The two days we have spent in JH have been incredible. I don't start work until saturday and so this whole week is just fishing with my mom. Not bad huh? Like I said, tomorrow I'm fishing in a Smallmouth Bass tourney with Andy-man. I'm super excited about that, but today my mom and I are going to hike into a pretty remote lake called Grizzly Lake. This. Lake is actually very close to where my family's ranch is and it has some huge fish in there. I once asked the owner of my shop about it and his jaw dropped with the expression on his face like "How do you know about that place??? You're not even from here!!" Which really I have to give credit to one of my family's longtime fishing guide and good friend, Paul Rice. He took my family up there probably six years ago and I just remember seeing absolute monster fish feeding on top. This is really tough water to fish as Cutthroat trout that live in lakes are typically a lot bigger and smarter than those in the rivers. The reason for this is that first of all they can just be lazy and not have to worry about current, which obviously isn't making them burn any fat. Also, there are a lot of aquatic insects that come off of lakes. There are a lot in rivers too, but lakes are more consistent with a ton of hatches with midges, baetis', and damsel flies. Not to mention the leeches that swim around in there and even a little snake can become a snack for a big Cutty. Another awesome thing about this lake is that there is a healthy population of huge Brook Trout. The owner of my shop (Will Dornan), thinks there are state record Brook Trout in there. I believe him too! There are some really big fish in this lake. Not many people travel to it though because it is remote and about an hour and a half hike in. Also, (hence the name of the lake) this is prime Grizzly Bear country so my mom and I will have to be on our game today... But other than that minor obstacle, we should hopefully be just fine! My mom is armed with Bear Spray and a camera so hopefully either tonight or tomorrow I'll have a good blog with some awesome pictures up soon. Stay tuned Crew!

Finally Here!!

My life in Jackson, WY has officially started again. My mom and I drove about 16 hours yesterday all the way to North Platte, Nebraska then woke up early this morning and polished off the last 9 hours. We pulled into JH around 3:45 and went to the apartment to make sure our key worked and also to brush our teeth haha... After stretching a little bit from the two day drive, my mom and I drove to "Snake River Angler" (my shop in town) and I was greeted with big hugs and a few very "welcoming" and "colorful" jokes. It was great to see the guys and I met one of our newest employees named A.J... He was a cool dude and a fellow southerner so that is always a plus.

Tomorrow I'll go back into here shop to get some stuff taken care of so I can start working. Beyond excited! I'll probably fish a little tomorrow too at Jenny Lake and already my good friend and boss Andy invited me to fish in a smallmouth tournament with him on wednesday in Ririe Resorvoir. Super stoked! This should be an awesome trip.

Big Fish on the South Harpeth

Went straight to the river right after my last exam... Didn't have any shorts with me. Sorry for that gruesome sight. I'll try to lay out more often!

Exams... Then JH!

Hey everybody sorry for the no blogs lately I have exams all this week and I have been super busy studying and trying to get through this last stretch. Only about 3 days until my Mom and I hit the road for JH. I'm so excited to spend another special three months with her and hopefully an awesome summer awaits me in the Mountains. Hope everybody is havin' a great start to the summer. Stay tuned!

Smallies On zee Fly!!

For the past week, my friend Hutt and I have been making the trip out to his families new property on the South Harpeth where it is absolutely loaded with Smallmouth, Redeye, Largemouth, and Bluegill. I use about a #8 Olive Woolybugger and it just wrecks shop on this river. Every time I throw it into a deeper hole or riffle, if I'm not getting strikes by Bluegill or litte Shad, then it's by a Smallie or a Redeye usually. Hutt and I fished this past week three times and for each of those three times, we probably caught a total of 30 fish or more in less than two hours. I caught this fat Redeye on one the Olive Woolybuggers and Hutt caught this Largemouth on a little swim-bait of some sort.

On our last day of the week fishing here (Thursday); me, Hutt, and my oldest brother Nat got on the water at about 4:15 pm and we quickly waded up to a deep hole where Hutt said he had had some big strikes in here. So we all got up to this hole and Nat was up top, Hutt in the middle, and me down low. As I began to fish, I found a big Smallmouth chasing Bluegill off and even eating some little Bluegill. It was an awesome sight to see. This fish was ferocious, literally eating anything in it's path. So I started throwing my Olive Woolybugger about 5-7ft in front of where it was eating and let my fly sink down to the fish's depth. Then I just mildly stripped in the Woolybugger seing if I could get this Smallie to eat it. Sure enough he chased it and acted like he was going to eat it.... but he never really committed.

So I threw the same exact cast, and sped up my strips a lot and made the intervals between strips shorter. This definitely got his attention but again he wouldn't really commit to the fly. After doing this probably eight times, I knew I had to change flies. But I also knew I could catch this fish if I pissed him off enough. So I put on a J.J. Special and started stripping hard and fast. Finally, on probably the third cast with the J.J. he smacked it. This fish just destroyed my fly and he was a fighter right off the bat, jumping probably 3 feet out of the water twice! It was awesome and he even began to take out some drag. Which was also probably due to the fact that I was using 7x fluorocarbon tippet but still. This was a healthy fish! After maybe one minute of hard fighting, this Smallie gave in and I finally got him in my hands. Awesome fish and even better fight!!

After that, the three of us sort of just cruised down river catching some Bluegill and smaller Redeye. But at another deep hole, my brother found a BIG Smallie that no doubt was at least a pound bigger than the one I was holding in my hand in that picture. I began to cast at him and I got him to look once but we had to leave right after I started fishing for this monster. I'll definitely have to come back and try again at this beast!

Stay tuned because tomorrow I'm going down to Hutt's farm "Cabin Creek" in Giles County, TN to fish for some huge Largemouth like this one caught by my oldest brother two years ago. And I'm going after these Hogs on a fly so this should be intense (Hopefully)!!

Insane Harpeth River Fishing

Sorry for no blogs this week! I'll have a new one up tomorrow with pictures.

Incredible Fishing!

Yesterday, my good friend Hutt gave me the invite to come out and fish his families new property out on the Harpeth River. They have 265 acres of prime hunting and fishing land. But we went out there with Hayes, Wyatt, Chandler, and Jack (different Jack than on the Caney). All good friends of mine in my grade and they also love to fish. We began fishing at about 2:15 pm with Wyatt and Hayes at the top of property, Jack and Chandler in the middle, and Hutt and I took the bottom section.

Hutt had warned me about the snakes and I knew they were there from past experiences with them on the Harpeth. But Hutt and I walked/climbed down the bank into the water and immediately there were Redeye Bass, Bluegill, and Gar swimming around frantically. Everybody else was spin fishing but my love for fly fishing has grown so much that I basically take a fly rod everywhere I go. So I tied on an olive Wooly Bugger and began casting at these fish. On my third cast I caught a little bluegill, and then another one, and another one, and another one. These bluegill were all over my Wooly Bugger which was actually pretty fun because I had a 7x tippet on and so it was a little bit of a fight. But really what I wanted to catch were the Redeye and Smallmouth. In the mean time, Hutt had already caught one bluegill and one small Redeye too. Of course in the first 15 minutes we saw three Copperhead Snakes too.

But we continued to walk through the water upstream catching all the bluegill in the world. And I then told Hutt that in order to help this stream prosper in Redeye and Smallmouth fishing, whenever anybody catches a "bigger" Bluegill, throw it up on the bank and let it die because the bigger bluegill can actually eat and will eat smaller fish like baby Redeye, minnows, and baby bluegill too. But then release the small bluegill we catch because that is also Smallmouth and Redeye and Largemouth food. But the reason for this is that bluegill really aren't a game fish, they might be fun to catch sometimes but they're so easy to catch that it gets old fast. But anyway, they aren't a game fish and the bigger bluegill are competing for food with the Smallmouth, Redeye, and Largemouth bass. So the less "big" bluegill are in the stream, the more food there will be for the Smallmouth, Redeye, and Largemouth bass and they will increase in size and in abundance.

Anyway, Hutt and I continued to wade upstream while Hutt was catching some Redeye and I was catching the bluegill. We probably had about 18 total fish in 45 minutes and finally we got up to where Jack and Chandler were. Jack and Chandler had caught a few bluegill but nothing else. But finally, I was fishing this one hole and I could see this Smallmouth chasing my fly, but he just wouldn't take it. He would chase it aggressively and then back off. I knew I just needed to keep the pressure on him and strip faster to get him. Finally, after about 15 casts at him, he absolutely demolished my fly and with 7x tippet it was a pretty awesome fight. This fish went nuts, jumping out of the water and splashing it was an awesome fight. Finally Hutt came and helped me land this fish and he/she was probably right at 1 lb. Which is a pretty good Smallmouth for a little stream like this. But it was an awesome day and to top it off I went to the Brantley Gilbert and Erich Church concert which was incredible.

Early Runoff!

http://www.snakeriverangler.com/REPORTS---ENTERTAINMENT.html

Last year when my mom and I rolled into Jackson, WY. There was still 6 feet of snow stacked up on the passes and maybe 10 to 12 inches on the ground down in the valley. I remember my first day of fishing on June 2nd, it was about 30 degrees and snowing. The record snow-pack last year with over 700 inches, and the cold weather throughout June, caused the runoff to start around July 1st. Which is almost two and a half weeks late compared to "normal" years. Anyway this was difficult for me because I only had three months of fishing and working there and two of those months had been taken away due to snow and heavy runoff. But this wasn't bad because it prompted me to go explore more water and more incredible scenery around Northwest Wyoming.

As you can see in the link I attached of my shop's fishing report, this year is a much different story. The rivers are already in full runoff with such a small snow-pack throughout the winter and unbelievably warm temperatures during the "cold" months. So hopefully the Snake will be clear and ready to fish by early to mid June. This is good for me because the fishing will be awesome right when I get out there and throughout the summer but years like these usually means the fall won't hardly have any water and the fishing might not be too good. By the way this is the locals favorite time to fish because all of the tourists and "90 day wonders" (College students that come work and live in JH for the summer) will have left to go back to college.

Can't wait to get back out there. Only 24 days.... But in the mean time I'm headed back to the Caney this weekend with Hayes to go after some more brownies and rainbows. Stay tuned!