Shangri La

Seth and I braved the rainy weather this weekend and headed up to fish on one of my favorite spots on the Weber River (don't look so shocked!). All I can say is, it's near Taggart and it holds the best fishing hole ever... so good in fact that we call it "Shangri La."

The day started out drizzly but pleasant and only got better. It was a great day to be out and as we'd hoped, the fishing was awesome! We fished our way up to the Shangri La hole using streamers. Seth bought a few articulated streamers a while back and wanted to try them out. He was using an orange one called the "Sex Dungeon" (gotta love the fly fisher sense of humor) and ended up catching one medium sized brown and got several strikes. I used a regular cone head olive/black streamer with white rubber legs and didn't get anything. Then Seth let me try his olive colored Sex Dungeon. It looked really good swimming but I didn't get any action with that one either.

Seth's Sex Dungeon (HA!)

A big Rainbow Seth caught on the orange Sex Dungeon on a different fishing trip less than a month ago.

 

I gave up on the streamers after we got to the Shangri La hole and switched to my tried and true "Horny San Juan" nymphing rig which consists of an orange or two tone red/tan San Juan Worm as the attractor and a Green Hornet as the dropper. I immediately caught a couple nice browns. Shangri La was living up to its name.

So, in order get to the Shangri La hole we had to pass a guy who was fishing a nice riffle (behind me in the picture above). We were fairly close to him, but not so close as to disturb him. He fished that same riffle for at least a half hour... as long as we were fishing our hole, and neither of us saw him catch anything. I assume he was a fairly good fisherman as he was all decked out in Simms gear. Well after he left and went further downstream, I was a little curious to see if I could pick up a fish or two from that same hole. Sure enough I landed a nice brown and a whitey. You know, I hate to be all cocky and such but that sort of stuff really makes my day. Maybe it's because I'm a girl and feel like I have something to prove out there but nothing beats catching a fish out of a hole a guy just left.

Seth and I both caught about 10 fish during this trip which was the best day we've had for a little while. Seth even accidentally foul hooked a big old honking Sucker in the tail. That thing was HUGE! And UGLY! I can't get over how ugly those things are! It looks like they could suck you right up like a vacuum! Yuck!

It's days like these that just make me love fishing. I can't help it. What a great way to spend time getting to know your local water and surroundings. And not only is the fishing great, but the atmosphere is amazing. Maybe some people don't like this sort of thing, but most of the Weber River follows closely along the train tracks. These tracks are heavily used and see at least one train an hour or so. I love trains. They're so beautiful and I love to watch them every time they pass. They're so big and powerful and I love to hear them blow their whistles and listen to the screeching sound of the cars running along the tracks. I always have to stop and stare and listen.

I've vowed not to let bad weather keep me off the rivers. Fishing is one of the few ways I know of that helps me stay centered and happy.  Can't imagine how I got along without it. If you fish, you know what I mean. If you don't, you should.