Well it has been about 3 years since I blogged.  I am not sure why I am so lazy on this thing but I keep coming back .  It serves as a great journal and a place to keep pictures from past adventures.  I an sure that I won't be able to recall even half of what has happened in the past three years.  I will do my best to recap the highlights.  First and foremost, I drew a Wasatch Elk tag and enjoyed the greatest hunt of my life.  Zenger and I put in together and both drew with 8 bonus points.  We hunted our tails off up by Strawberry.  After calling in several bulls and passing up one after the next I finally shot a 5 x 6 that scored 335.  It was a nice bull that came into a pond just off of Poison Ridge next to the Berry. While Zenger never officially shot a bull, he and I both passed up so many that it didn't sting quite so bad.

Phil and I took a trip down to the boulders for some ice fishing and coyote hunting.  While the fishing and coyote hunting was not great I did shoot a fox with my .223.  Phil finished it off with his AR and the rest is history.  It was a beautiful fox that I should have stuffed but hindsight is 20-20 right.

We also had another epic trip to the boulders and fished our newfound favorite lake.  All of the Brookies caught there were very healthy and fought us all the way to our tubes.  In the midst of our fishing a forest fire was started and Gabe Patterson from DWR came up to the lake to evacuate us.  We left but made sure that we got some pictures next to the fire.

Many other expeditions were taken and from this point forward I will keep this thing as up-to-date as possible.  But for now I will just let the pictures tell the stories.

Boulder Mountain and Strawberry Fishing Trips

Wow, it has been a long time since I updated this thing. I will start with our trip to the Boulder Mountains in July. Let's just say that at times it was the trip from hell, while at other times it was heavenly. It all started when we made the mistake of taking Phil's uncle's rinky dink trailer with tires the size of wagon wheels. To make it short, the wheel fell off, the axle snapped on top of the mountain, and we had to arrange for another trailer to be brought down. In the midst of all of this we were able to fish Mcgath lake, which was hard to find, but incredible once we figured it out. Zenger, Phil, and myself all caught between 8-10 beautiful brookies that had great size. We also saw a big cinnamon colored bear just as we were leaving. Zenger wanted to shoot it but I talked him out of it. We also caught fish at Oak Creek and I had good success at Deep Creek jigging just off the shore. The fishing was phenomenal and our mood was getting better until Zenger ran over my fly rod and reel. Just part of the trip.

As for Strawberry, it picked up in July and we were able to bring three 5-pounders into the boat. Jared, Zenger, and myself all caught monsters. On top of that the fishing was good for cutts. Unfortunately, the chub population continues to increase at the berry. Hopefully, this doesn't force them to poison the lake again. Overall, fishing has been good and the hunts are starting soon.

Archery and Muzzleloader Reports

Wow! Time flies these days. I haven't been very good at keeping up on this thing, so this entry will cover a lot of stuff. The hunts once again brought many new experiences and stories to tell. First, the archery hunt: Z, Farva, and myself didn't make it out until the last week of the archery hunt. This was planned because we wanted to stay away from people as much as possible. We headed down to Enterprise for our second year in the south. Once again the number of big deer we saw blew me away. We chased several nice bucks and flung a few arrows, but unfortunately-none hit their target. We learned once again how difficult the archery hunt is, especially in a desert environment. We had a great time, but I will say that the mid-day heat was nearly unbearable and forced us into heading home a day early. With that, we set our sites on the muzzleloader which was only a couple of weeks away. We arrived late on a Wednesday night and got about 3 hours of sleep before dragging ourselves out of bed. This time Dixon was with us so we split iup into twos. Z and I headed to our normal spotting location and upon reaching the top were immediately seeing deer. We spotted several bucks, but only one kept out attention. He was a decent 4 point that was probably 23 in. wide. We kept our eye on him until our attention was grabbed by a much nicer prize. To our right we spotted several bucks that we believe were the same ones we went after on the archery hunt. Included in the bunch were 3 nice bucks all pushing between 25-27 in. wide. We decided to be very patient and put these deer to bed, but once again things didn't go as planned. Four hunters that had no idea the deer were there, meandered right up the canyon and spooked the large bucks. Needless to say, we weren't happy. We headed down the mountain to get ready for the night hunt. That night we took horses back to death canyon where I killed a decent 4-point last year. The horse ride was fun but took a toll on all of our bodies. We chased a couple deer out of the canyon, but never got close to or saw one worth shooting. The good thing was that despite the bad hunting that night, we had a great ride. The next day I woke up and headed up to the saddle where I saw the bucks the previous day. Upon reaching the saddle, I spotted a nice 4 point on the skyline. I believe that he was one of the bucks that Z and I had seen the day before. I waited for the buck to go over the ridge and began my sneak. It took me about 2 hours to get to my point of destination. When I got there, I saw a couple of deer feeding, but couldn't find the buck. I waited about 30 minutes before determining that he must have slipped out. I walked up the ridge about 100 yards before turning around only to see my buck running out of the draw I had just been sitting in. I raised up and fired a 200 plus yard desperation shot with no results. That was all the action I saw on Friday. Saturday was a different story. We got up and decided to road hunt until we saw something worth going after. On the other side of the mountain we ran into some nice bucks that Zenger had spotted the night before. Phil and I put the sneak on but ended up spooking them down the canyon to Zenger. He was able to get a shot off at what he thought was the 4 X 5. Unfortunately, the deer that he hit was not the big one. It was a decent 22 in. 3 point. The crazy thing about the shot is that it went through the deer's ear and hit the base of its antler. The deer was stunned. We walked right up to it and it just stood there. After taking a couple of pics, we put the deer out of its misery, quartered it, and hauled it out. It was a fun morning hunt, although Zenger was a little disappointed that he had picked the wrong buck out of the crowd. He was also frustrated that the antler fell off while quartering the deer. Anyway, that was the only deer taken this year, but we had a blast! We also learned a lot more about the area and look forward to getting back down their next year. See the bottom of my blog for a full-size picture!

Good-Bye 4-Wheeler, Hello Magic Moment

Well, Kellie and I finally pulled the trigger and purchased a boat. It is a 1990 19 ft. Wellcraft. We are going to use it for both fishing trips and family outings. We are excited and have actually used it several times, including a trip to Strawberry around the middle of August. It was sad to sale the wheeler, but it was the only way that Kellie would let me go through with it.

Provo River Flyfishing

Today Justin and I spent a couple hours flyfishing the Provo River. We arrived at Vivian Park at about 7:30 a.m. and spent 30 minutes trying to find a place to fish. The river is running super high and super fast. We found one hole that was fishable and within 5 minutes I had one on. After a short fight, Justin netted the beautiful brown trout. I was shocked-I never catch anything on the Provo. Justin then took the hole over and caught a smaller brown. We were stoked to be having some success. After hiking around looking for other spots with no success, we ended at the same hole. I caught one more fish and then snapped my line. Overall, we only spent about 30 minutes actually fishing, but it was well worth it. I think that I may have the hang of it. For the record, I was fishing two flies a size 18 small grey fly with a red head and a size 16 hare's ear. Ialso used a zebra midge and another small grey fly (no red). The setup was as follows: size 3x leader-7.5 ft with 4x tippet. It went leader, 2 1/2 ft. tippet to first fly, then 10-12 in. more tippet to the second fly. Indicator was put where the tippet is tied on and sinker placed about 5-6 inches above first fly. That's the scoop. I look forward to getting back there soon. I have to mention that while we were fishing I heard a loud bang that sounded like a gunshot. Shortly after the noise, ambulances began making their way up and down the canyon. We left about 10 minutes after the ambulances went passed. About a mile down the canyon was an accident. It turned out to be fatal with one man dying. It really shook me. Life can end at anytime-kind of a scary thought!

Scouts at Strawberry

Right on the heels of our trip down to the Boulder Mtns. was a trip with the scouts to Strawberry. We left on Friday at 2:00 and set up camp as soon as we got there. We camped on the dirt road just west of the Marina and fished where the old island used to be-off the famous point. I have to be honest, having 6 scouts that had virtually never been REAL fishing, didn't give me much hope for success. After setting up 4 or 5 poles, a few of the boys let her fly. Within 5 minutes Daniel James had a nice fish on and lost it right at shore. I was amazed at how crystal clear the lake was. There were times that I saw fish swim right past us. The fishing was blazing hot to start, with 5 or 6 fish being brought in within 45 minutes (all on powerbait). Colton ended the initial streak with a 21-inch cutt. He was thrilled and didn't stop talking about it the rest of the night. Things slowed down and the boys were enthralled with catching Krodads for the next 2 hours. From about 7:30-8:15 it got hot again and 6-7 more fish were reeled in. We even caught 2 or 3 bows. It turned out to be a fun trip that the boys will never forget. Those present were Daniel, Colton, Austin, Cason, Elijah, D.J., Bro. Keller, and Myself.

Another Trip to the Boulders

It's that time of year again. The time of year when the Utah's Boulder Mountains start calling. It has become almost a tradition-making a June trip with boys down to the sacred Boulder Mountain Lakes. This year we left in the afternoon on Father's Day. We chose a Sunday through Wednesday hoping that the lakes would be free of other people and scouts. We met Tory just outside Loa and decided to head over to the Parker Mountain for some bunny shootin'. Well the bunnies were few and far between. The ones we did see were shot by Phil and Zenger with their newfound babies- Assault Rifles! It is definitely a down year for rabbits. After killing bunnies, we headed into Torrey. My Dad was there; he had stayed the weekend with Chantelle and Tom and their kids. The next morning we woke up and headed to Oak Creek dreaming of large Brookies. We took the wheelers into the lake and it was no more than a ten minute ride. When I pulled up, I realized that the key to my wheeler was missing. This led to some tense moments, but thanks to Zenger's faith, he found the key about half way back down the trail. We fished the lake and cought several fish on Jake's Lures and black wooly buggers. They were all brookies, but suprisingly, they weren't very big. We did see some nice fish taken by a few of the 45 people that just happened to be having a family reunion that day (on a Monday!!!!). It was a good day of fishing!
After debating where to go, we decided that we had better try to find the other way into Blind Lake. We had heard about it, but never had the four-wheelers to try it. While unloading the wheelers- Zenger about died! The Polaris tipped over backwards and was standing straight up with Zenger lying below. Luckily, it didn't tip the rest of the way or he may have been in trouble. Well, we found the other way to the lake. It was much shorter and easier hiking, but the road to the trail was horrible and the trail takes you into the lake across from our favorite point. Anyways, we fished it and caught a few on spinners. Phil caught a few on flies, but nothing spectacular. Overall, the fishing was poor. We headed back down and were exhausted. We watched Boston beat L.A. for the NBA Title, drove around and looked at deer (saw what will be a nice buck and several other deer), shot another bunny or two, watched a flick and went to bed. It wasn't the best fishing trip ever, but we had a good time!