We all love to watch trout slam big dry flies on top of the water. You watch the slowly rise to them with anticipation of them taking it or refusing it at the last second. Well there is a river in northern Utah that has one of the only Salmon Fly hatches in the state and you rarely get a fish refusing your fly. Most of the time you get a really hard take and even watch fish going on a full leap out of the water and slam your fly like it hasn’t eaten in months. This River is called the Balcksmiths Fork.
The Black Smiths Forks River is a great little stream that has brown trout an deven cutthroat trout in it. If you start you adventure in Salt Lake City youll drive north on I-15. Until you hit the town of Brigham City. Then youll go east on Highway 91 until you get to Wellsville. Head east on Main street of state road 101. As you get into Hyrum youll have to do a zig zag to stay on 101 but that will take you right up Blacksmith Fork Canyon toward Hardware Ranch. The road runs right next to the river and find yourself a pull off and just start fishing.
Alan and Marcus shot out of town as quick as the word came down the grapevine that the Salmon Fly’s were out on the River. You have to be able to be flexible or lucky to catch this hatch becuase it works its way up the canyon and only lasts for about a week. But when you do its quite rewarding. Alan started out with a dry dropper set up and Marcus was using a salmon fly pattern made by Rio called the juicy stone (salmon fly color). You can pick one up at your local fly shop we got ours from Anglers Den in Roy Utah. They have a great selection of flies and most of the employees are pretty freindly and knowledgable. River was very decieving in some places but they could see fish from where they had pulled off the road so they knew it would be a great spot to start. There were several pools that came up dry right off the bat. Working upstream into the next pool the trip was a sucess within 10 minutes. Alan hooked up on a great brown trout on his dropper. It was quite amzing the way these fish appeared. Several places you go throughout the fishing world fish get caught several times a day and have torn up mouths and faces and it seemed most of the fish on this trip were not that way.
As they worked their way upstream through bends and pools it seemed the day was getting better and better with dry takes on the salmon fly, fish T-boning foam flies and completley coming out of the water with the fly still in their mouth. Setting hooks mid air is something that was quite amusing and different. Within an hours having double digit fish to the net in sucha small stream was a great afternoon of fishing. The river bank got extremely steep and it was getting later so they decided to work their way back to the truck.
They decided to try for the fish that they had seen first thign from the truck. They knew they would be tricky becuase they were in shallow clear water and seemed to be very spooky fish but were still slamming real bugs floating down the river. They seemed educated because if the drift of your bug wasnt just right they would swim away and then dart right back into the feeding lane waiting for that real bug to show up. Eventually they decided to approach from above and let a lot of line out and see if they could dead drift a fly in the feeding lane without spooking the fish and on the second drift put it in the right spot and ended up landing one of them.
Now if you look at the fish in the pictures you wont see any monsters. We all love landing a big fish, its a great feeling. We here at Roam and Reel love it too but its not what we are about. We are about the adventure you’re on, we are about the love of the outdoors and the people that you’re with, and the memories that you make. Enjoy the time you have with the people who make the trip you’re on better. The memories that were made that day and wont be forgot are the things the fish did, the wonderful after dinner meal, the sight of giant flying bugs everywhere. Not that we didnt slay trophy fish (althought sometimes we do). So please join us in spreading the word of fishing just isnt about catching fish. We are more about having people come together in the outdoors.
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