"The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope." John Buchan

Saturday, July 23, 2016

!Fishing, but still a worthwhile adventure...

So early July we went looking at RV trailers more with the intent of starting to formulate opinion of what we wanted so that as we look at timing, budget, and whatever options we saw that we thought were things we would want that we could start to form up a checklist of tasks we need to cover so that we could get an RV trailer...

Well, as such any good plan is just there to be messed up.  As was ours, but in the end in a good way.  We came home that day having bought our new trailer.  We found a nice deal on a model that was to be moved out quickly as the new years model was already available.  Nice enough that it kind of helped answer the question of should we buy used to save some $ or push up to a new model.  Anyway, we ended up with a StarCraft Launch 24RLS (Link goes to the 2017 model, but the units are close enough for anyone interested in looking.

Anyway we got it home and made plans to get out for our first trip which we did to Starvation over the weekend of July 9th.  Was a bit warm, and we lacked the generators sufficient to run the AC, but it was a nice weekend.  Kids were ecstatic to have a trailer and to be able to camp out more often more easily.  We too fishing gear and float tubes with us.  Shore fishing was a zero for success, but we did get out Saturday morning for a short run on the tubes.  Alex on his and I was on mine...  Max was desperate to go out too so I first tried to put him on my lap, but the tube didn't sit right in the water with the weight that far imbalanced.  So I put away my usual cooler that rides behind me and put him back behind my seat in the triangle there.  My Outcast Prowler has a fully inflated seat base that also extends into that triangle area and this worked very well for Max.  He essentially lounged with his feat over the side back there and fished off my right shoulder.  Before we headed back in as the afternoon wind started to pick up Max had pulled in a ~16" small mouth bass and a foot long walleye.  Both were first catches for him for those species.  Alex and I also managed to hook up with a small mouth each.  Alex's jumped the line at his tube and mine turned out to be a hard fighting 6" that got sent back to grow some.  Rest of that trip went nicely and set the stage for us to plan our next adventure in the new trailer.

So this weekend we headed up Wednesday afternoon toward the Daniels Summit area trying to camp near the Adamson area between point of pine and mudrock.  We got there without any issue, though pulling through the ditch showed that I probably need to adjust the hitch to ride an inch or 2 higher up.  We found the herder camps in full force in the usual areas including the unattended (at least while we were there looking for a camp spot) trailers with dogs chained up.  Since we had brought Diego and Hazel with us (they both lack social etiquette in how they interact with other dogs) we opted to not camp near these areas and headed up main canyon to look for a spot there.  We found a spot a bit over 1/2 way up the road and took it kind of worried that we would not find another higher up.  In hind sight we could have found a spot or two higher that might have been as nice if not nicer, but this was still a nice spot with a fantastic view.



The obvious issue with main canyon is the traffic on it from ATVs.  We were off the road enough that dust wasn't a huge issue and the noise wasn't bad either.  The trees near the trailer offered some fun places for the kids to adventure and fort build in.  Temps were nicer then the previous trip to Starvation so the AC not being usable still didn't turn out to be that big of a deal.  Where we camped did prove to have some nice options for going on some walks/hikes.  So we were able to wear the dogs out quite well taking them with us.  They got to have a meet and greet with the local cattle.  Apparently their manners were not up to the cattle's level and the cattle left... in a bit of a rush...;)  Hazel I think thought it might be her off putting body odder so she even tried rolling in a nice fresh cow pie to be less off putting...  That didn't help with the cattle and only resulted in another hike down to the stream to bath her...  Anyway we had some nice hikes, kids got to do the kid fort/imagination thing, spent time playing games together, roasted foods on the fire with roasting sticks, saw some nice stars at night and aspired to do it again in the end.





New RV (!Fishing I know...) and 2 adventures, 1 with a side of fishing...

So early July we went looking at RV trailers more with the intent of starting to formulate opinion of what we wanted so that as we look at timing, budget, and whatever options we saw that we thought were things we would want that we could start to form up a checklist of tasks we need to cover so that we could get an RV trailer...

Well, as such any good plan is just there to be messed up.  As was ours, but in the end in a good way.  We came home that day having bought our new trailer.  We found a nice deal on a model that was to be moved out quickly as the new years model was already available.  Nice enough that it kind of helped answer the question of should we buy used to save some $ or push up to a new model.  Anyway, we ended up with a StarCraft Launch 24RLS (Link goes to the 2017 model, but the units are close enough for anyone interested in looking.

Anyway we got it home and made plans to get out for our first trip which we did to Starvation over the weekend of July 9th.  Was a bit warm, and we lacked the generators sufficient to run the AC, but it was a nice weekend.  Kids were ecstatic to have a trailer and to be able to camp out more often more easily.  We too fishing gear and float tubes with us.  Shore fishing was a zero for success, but we did get out Saturday morning for a short run on the tubes.  Alex on his and I was on mine...  Max was desperate to go out too so I first tried to put him on my lap, but the tube didn't sit right in the water with the weight that far imbalanced.  So I put away my usual cooler that rides behind me and put him back behind my seat in the triangle there.  My Outcast Prowler has a fully inflated seat base that also extends into that triangle area and this worked very well for Max.  He essentially lounged with his feat over the side back there and fished off my right shoulder.  Before we headed back in as the afternoon wind started to pick up Max had pulled in a ~16" small mouth bass and a foot long walleye.  Both were first catches for him for those species.  Alex and I also managed to hook up with a small mouth each.  Alex's jumped the line at his tube and mine turned out to be a hard fighting 6" that got sent back to grow some.  Rest of that trip went nicely and set the stage for us to plan our next adventure in the new trailer.

So this weekend we headed up Wednesday afternoon toward the Daniels Summit area trying to camp near the Adamson area between point of pine and mudrock.  We got there without any issue, though pulling through the ditch showed that I probably need to adjust the hitch to ride an inch or 2 higher up.  We found the herder camps in full force in the usual areas including the unattended (at least while we were there looking for a camp spot) trailers with dogs chained up.  Since we had brought Diego and Hazel with us (they both lack social etiquette in how they interact with other dogs) we opted to not camp near these areas and headed up main canyon to look for a spot there.  We found a spot a bit over 1/2 way up the road and took it kind of worried that we would not find another higher up.  In hind sight we could have found a spot or two higher that might have been as nice if not nicer, but this was still a nice spot with a fantastic view.



The obvious issue with main canyon is the traffic on it from ATVs.  We were off the road enough that dust wasn't a huge issue and the noise wasn't bad either.  The trees near the trailer offered some fun places for the kids to adventure and fort build in.  Temps were nicer then the previous trip to Starvation so the AC not being usable still didn't turn out to be that big of a deal.  Where we camped did prove to have some nice options for going on some walks/hikes.  So we were able to wear the dogs out quite well taking them with us.  They got to have a meet and greet with the local cattle.  Apparently their manners were not up to the cattle's level and the cattle left... in a bit of a rush...;)  Hazel I think thought it might be her off putting body odder so she even tried rolling in a nice fresh cow pie to be less off putting...  That didn't help with the cattle and only resulted in another hike down to the stream to bath her...  Anyway we had some nice hikes, kids got to do the kid fort/imagination thing, spent time playing games together, roasted foods on the fire with roasting sticks, saw some nice stars at night and aspired to do it again in the end.





Sunday, June 12, 2016

June 7th @ Strawberry

On this year's week at Park City, Alex and I headed up to Strawberry on our only day on the tubes.  Forecasts lead us to expect some slight wind, but for most of the time we were on the water it was quite glassy.  We launched over on the "free" area of the east portal.  Fish were breaking the surface all around us with some regularity.  Water temps were in the mid 50's.  So we both started pulling one line under a bobber with some type of jig under that.  Then casting and retrieving the other line, trying to stay near the surface.  After trying just about everything for the first hour and neither of us having had a bite I changed up a bit and put one line just off the bottom with a white jig and a bit of worm on it.  The other line I was letting run deeper as I retrieved.  We started to get some bites now.

So to give an overly short summary it was never "game on" really.  We had to work for each fish we caught.  Bottom jigging proved to be the best for us and often as my finder would chirp on a fish I could work the line I had down there and get a strike.  Most fish we picked up off the bottom were in the 25'-35' fow range.  Totals for the day were 8 fish.  2 for Alex and 6 for me.  All were Cuts in the 17"-20" range except a single Rainbow (forgot to take a pic of him as I rushed it to the basket) that I brought home for dinner.  One Cut was quite the "snake" and sure could use a few extra meals.  Here are some pics from the day:













Was a good day out even if it was a bit slow.  Still not sure I'm fishing Strawberry right from the tube, but were trying.  Wind came up a bit more near noon so we called it a day and headed in.  Was nice to be out with Alex. :)