The first mini trip

I had mentioned to my fishing buddy Lisa that I wanted to take a few short trips before I left for the big trek cross country.  So when I received a message from her asking if I wanted to hit up joes valley this weekend for some fishing and maybe some climbing, I said yes without hesitation.  Up to this point I still had not slept in the truck top penthouse suite yet and was eager to see how well it worked in the field.  Not to mention exploring a new river!

Our destination was an area called Joes valley.  It is about 2.5 hours from Salt Lake City and pretty close to the center of the state.  This place is world renown for it's plethora of bouldering problems.  Bouldering is a type of rock climbing with no ropes or harness on shorter accents.  I talked to my buddy Tim, who is a huge climber, about where to camp and what to expect and he have me all the info I needed along with a tip to find some amazing homemade donuts along the way.   The weather was looking great with mild temps and blue skies!  Left Friday morning and arrived around 10:30 and proceeded to jump right on the river to catch some fish.  

As soon as we got there I realized why it was a climbers paradise.  Every where in the fairly narrow canyon were huge boulders that had fallen and rolled down the canyon side.  Most were very cube shaped and the right height for bouldering. 

The river itself was very low and I had heard from multiple sources the fishing would be terrible... With in the first 5 minutes Lisa hooked into a little brown on a dry fly and myself soon after.  It was going to be a good trip!  

This river was absolutely beautiful!  Clear blueish green water, with huge boulders along the shore creating nice deep pools that you could see to the bottom.  It was more of a site fishing adventure. The fish were fairly skiddish and the large boulders created great cover to sneak right up on the them. 

We really didn't see many large fish, most were 8-14", but there were plenty and they had no qualms about hitting medium size dries on the surface!  After nymphing all winter, this was a welcome change of fishing technique!  

I met a kid on the river checking out some bouldering problems who had been travelling to different climbing spots from Texas.  He said we could camp near him if we wanted and so we did.  

After leveling the truck a bit in our spot I threw the tent up with out any hiccups and made camp.  

It was a bit windy so we used the tree in the left side of the pic, to make a bit of a shelter with a tarp and the tent cover to cook and have a fire.  Our new friend Zach came over after dinner and we bummed it around the camp fire with some booze hearing each other's stories.  He had been travelling alone the past 2 months and his travels gave me a positive mental boost about my upcoming trip.   I aspire to be in the same situation as him; meeting new people, while sharing a fire, stories, and spirits. 

I think it was just around freezing that night but the wind was howling.  I quickly realized that the eyelets on the corners of the tents fly were there for a reason, with the wind the fly was flapping around quite a bit and made a horrible racket.   I got my head lamp on and in the middle night cut four pieces of para cord to tie down the eyelets to different parts of the truck. The tent works great, vents on the ceiling prevent moisture build up and there was enough room theoretically to fit 3 full size adults in there.  A bit over kill for just my self but I roll around a lot so I think I will be very content. 

The next morning we packed up the tent and the site and hit the river.  We decided to start farther up river to fish as much as we could of it in the 2 days we were there. 

There were farless bouldering up river and therefore way less people.  This was very evident in the behavior of the fish.  They were drastically more skiddish than down stream.   Now we really needed to sneak around and most holes only produced 2 fish before the rest got wise and hid away.  Nonetheless we caught a lot of fish!  Some on pretty large foam flies, like a summer day! 

Lots of stellar fish with fantastic scenery! 

Bottom line; great first trip with the new camping setup, amazing fishing, and the truck performed flawlessly.   I am really getting stoked for my departure! 

Feel free to check out Lisa's blog as well www.flyfishingruinedher.com !