Heber Valley Fly Fishing

I was able to escape the clutches of the office this afternoon with enough time to get up and over the mountains. The weather cleared out and it was sunny and warmer today.

I brought the Temple Fork 5wt rod and a few flies (several boxes of assorted nymphs, dry flies, and streamers).

As I was happily driving from the turn at Midway my joy turned to disappointment as I neared the parking spot by the big pool. As many fishermen have doubtless experienced, the feeling of seeing a car parked in "your spot" is one that you don't welcome but is reality in this age of increased intrest in the "Quiet Sport".

I continued down to the Heber RR and parked. I was pretty sure there wouldn't be anyone brave enough to slog through the deep snow to get to the lower end so that's where I was headed.



I took several pictures on the way in but something seems to be messed up with my camera. The video seemed to be working but the still picture CCD must be shot.

I tied on a white crystal bead head wooly bugger to start off and cast both upstream and down with no success. The sun was still bright and since all the vegetation had been killed off by the cold weather, the fish were tucked in and laying low.

I moved around a little but tried to keep a sharp eye out for any surface activity. Just as the sun dropped below the mountains behind me I noticed some risers way down near the end of the run. They were farther than I could cast and the snow between me and the spot on the bank where I needed to be hid several holes and pitfalls as I found out the hard way.

I decided to tie on a dry fly and float it down by getting the fly into the proper channel and feeding out line until the fly got into the strike zone. My first cast with the elk hair stimulator was close enough and I watched as a fat brown took the fly at least 60 feet downstream. I got a good solid hookset and slowly worked the fish back upstream to my position where I was able to swing him up to the bank.



The picture is pretty poor but the fish was a thrill to catch.

I continued to fish the stimulator and had a couple more takes but I was unable to keep my line in shape to get a decent hookset. I switched to a double nymph rig under a strike indicator and floated it through the zone several times without as much as a tickle.

I finally decided to go back to the streamer and this time I tried a brown beadhead wooly bugger. This was the ticket as the light was beginning to fade. I connected with four nice fish and brought three to hand. The fourth one put up the best fight and I had him worked from 75 feet out to within 6 feet of the bank so it was worth all the trouble.



It is hard to imagine a better spot to fish for a traveling cubicle and conference room bug whipper.