I have a friend who is a "retired" biologist but now works full time
for a company that does research for the US Forest Service. He was
doing some water studies on six streams that originate in the north-
east slope at the edge of the High Uintas Wilderness area in Utah,
and invited me to come along for company. The plan was to park the
truck at a lake called "Hoop Lake" and then he'd take a 4-wheeler to
the rivers while I baby sat the truck and fished the lake. That
sounded like a good plan to me! We left at 7:30 AM and arrived about
three hours later. I pumped up a kick boat and geared up and he took
off to do his job.
The first couple of hours was slow fishing, not what I had hoped from
hungry high elevation trout getting ready for winter. I had three or
four misses, and hooked two, losing one. So I took a break for lunch,
sat out a short rain storm (it was cloudy and threatening all day, but
no lighting, and not much precip either) Things picked up in the
afternoon when I "got them figured out". (I quit counting after 10
fish). I was fishing with a black bugger and a Damsel fly, and the
best luck came when the wind stopped, the surface calmed, and fish
started rising. If I could get a cast off within six feet of the rise,
I usually had a hook up. I also tried switching to dry flies with
little success, so fished with the wet flies for most of the day.
Most fish were fat rainbows in the 12 to 14 inch range, with beautiful
colors and feisty dispositions. The largest was 17 inches. (I also
caught a smattering of smaller, silvery Bonneville Cutthroat that
looked like they might be wild).
My friend came back at 6:30 and announced that he still had two rivers
to do, and that he wanted to drive the truck to them since both of
them called for measurements taken where a forest road crossed the
river. I hauled my gear in (the truth was I was getting tired and had
caught plenty of fish); we got everything stowed, got in the cab, and
the engine wouldn't start. The battery had died.
I had seen exactly two trucks drive near the lake during my entire day
of fishing, and there were none in sight to give us a jump. So we
decided to try and get a charge off of the 4 wheeler, which had a tiny
12 volt battery. It took about 30 minutes, but revved up the 4-
wheeler, eventually enough juice was pumped into the battery by its
small alternator to do the job. So now we had the engine running (we
never turned it off the rest of the trip), but we were running out of
daylight.
We ended up doing the last creek by iPhone light, the only
"flashlight" we had, and finally made it home around midnight.
The best part is that I did all of this just four months out of my
knee replacement surgery, and the knee worked great, really no
problems at all. All in all, a great trip, a "this is what retirement
is all about" adventure.
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