A RECORD SETTING YEAR!

With 2011 ending I feel I should put together my favorite photos from the year and do a write up on them. This has been a record setting year for me in many catagories...I broke my record for largerst brown, largest rainbow, most trout caught in a year for me, caught my first of many cutthroat. personal best trout on a 3 wt. I feel competent in streamer fishing now compared to before, only broke 2 rods, made some Great fishing buddies that I hope to get many more trips in with over the years and so much more. Enjoy the photos.

 My buddy Adam with a nice Beaver creek bow near Spencer Idaho

 First Golden rainbow for 2011, number 8 in my life Quittapahila Creek, PA

 This was my first trout caught in Idaho, I feel spoiled, 27 inches Henrys Fork

 Birch Creek IDAHO

 Its hard to see but this is me hooking up with the trout that would make my first 100 fish day.

 Robinson Creek,  IDAHO

 My new personal best brown 26 inches, 7 pounds

 couldnt leave out my love for bass fishing....cant beat the fight of a smallmouth

 Sadly the only Little J trout I caught all year. I only made 2 trips this year and was more or less teaching my best friend how to fly fish so i didnt get much fishing in. Man I love this Gem of a fishery, one more week and i will be pounding it daily.

 Taking a break from the hopper bite on the Teton River....THIS IS MY FAVORITE PHOTO FOR 2011

My first ever Cutty. It is a shame about the Teton river Parasite it sure uglies them to the point on no return.

 This one had the most vivd cuts, again the stupid Parasyte ruins it.

 Adam on the Teton close to the mouth

 My buddy Tyler at Beaver creek

 Spunky little bow from Beaver

 My favorite Stretch on the little J

 Ethans first cast for bass for 2011

 My first heave of the old tried and true albino zoom super fluke for 2011

 classic tyler with a stogie for his 2011 opening cast

 My buddy Matt risking a tank on the little J when it was high

 Fort Indiantown run 2011 second day of trout season; matt with the first trout of the day

 matt posing with the big brown he helped me net along with 2 others.

 the photo is hard to see the trout but you can see how big he really is....i wont name the stream but its in central pa, not stocked with browns, I think this behemoth ran up from the juniata river in the fall and got stuck with low flows...the stream is polluted with wild browns but is non existant of fisherman after the month of May....caught many browns over 16 there this summer. Close friends of mine and fishing buddies that have been sworn to secrecy know about it. Who knows some of the readers on here that have contacted me about fishing might get a personal showing here soon.It definitely isn't a wild brown but i guarantee its been in the stream a long time.

 My favorite wild trout trickle.....i have been blessed to grow up in the country and know alot of landowners...this stream runs for about 12 miles or so and 90 percent of it is private....luckily i can fish almost all of it. good mix of wild brooks and browns

 A stockie brook. This one makes the memory book because i was with my dad and brother and they told me i was fishing a stupid spot it was too shallow to hold a fish....they must not have seen the undercut,but they did see the patriot go under as it moved down the riffle.

 bad picture but it was my little brothers first pali he was been working hard to get one for years...he was under pressure because i average 4 or 5 a year.

 went on 20 or more trips to catch this stupid trout...he was in an impossible spot or me to catch him...this spot always seems to get overlooked by fisherman...

my best friend on his first fly fishing trip. we went to my home water, the Little J. he had a beauty brown probably would go 17 almost to hand but lack of fish fighting skills let the fish go. slack line gets you every time.

Goal Setting

Every year I set a goal of how many Trout I feel i can catch. To some this may seem trivial, others might feel that doing this will take away from the enjoyment one can get from fishing. To me I feel that it is neither of these. Setting a goal gives me the drive to learn new techniques to improve my success, it also to me ads a type of competitiveness that I have come to really enjoy and appreciate. Am I crushed when I do not reach my goal, NEVER......
This years goal is 1000 trout. Right now i am sitting a little short of that and probably wont make that goal. I enjoy keeping track of my numbers, it also gives me a long term record of how different streams have produced, what time of year I do best on certain streams and other vital stats that help me plan my fishing trips.

Trout number 750 for the Year.......



This has been the year I have caught the most.....I have crushed my old record of Trout caught in a given year.
If anyone has any thoughts or opinions or even does something similar or the same I would love to hear about it.

This weeks trips

Lucky for me this week I have had alot of downtime from school (thank you to my professors for the small amount of homework). Because of this I was able to make 4 trips fishing. Here are some of my favorite photos/fish from this week.

 This first male brown was my favorite. What a beautiful male. the colors were just unbelievable

 My good friend Adam hooked up with this brownie on his first cast of the day.

 This was my biggest fish I got the first trip this week. (note the scud, I have been fishing these like crazy with great results lately)

 This insanely fat bow also was duped by an olive flashback scud (size 12)

 heres another look at the big bow. I was fishing my 3 wt when this decided it wanted to test me. I felt the fish take the scud, instantly lifted the rod and BAM the battle started. As you can see I won the battle and was rewarded with a clam fish that let me get some good one handed photos.

 I was also able to take my good friend kenny fishing with me this week. Our class schedules are totally different this semester so we have a hard time meeting up. I introduced Kenny to fly fishing about 4 months ago and he was happy to set a new personal best with this fish. I must say I was proud to sit back and watch him be rewarded with fish. His casting has improved so much that I felt he deserved a good fish. It was funny, on our trip today he asked if I would wait 10 min before fishing so he could try to catch one (I have been blessed with a monster trout almost instantly every trip Kenny comes on) I managed to wait the 10 minutes out of respect but man was that HARD.

 This fish came from the community ponds here in Rexburg. It was by far the biggest trout I have ever caught at these Ponds. Although its a planter bow, It impressed me with the fight it put up. We managed about a dozen bows on this trip in the two hours we were there.(11 me 1 Kenny) but hey he is getting closer.

Here is Kennys 1 that he got on the trip. Again scuds were the ticket.

The quest for that monster brown!

Well I only had one class today and decided to Hit some areas on Henrys Fork that my buddy Chris showed me a while back. I havent had the opportunity to get into some big brown trout for a long while so I wanted to try to catch one while the fishing is good. Overall I managed 14 browns and 1 big fat bow on the 4 hour trip.

 This was my biggest brown of the day. 19 inches taken on a halloween bugger.  (sorry for some of the pictures being upside down. I tried saving new images of them to fix it and it wouldnt work.

 This was such a beauty of a brown.

 This one was camera shy.....which is a bummer because he had beautiful color.

 This rainbow was 18 inches. I couldnt get over how fat it was. Pound for pound I dont think there is a trout that fights harder than a rainbow. Plus this was a personal best for a Henrys Fork Rainbow. I know there are much bigger ones to be had.

Overall it was a great day of fishing. All the fish were caught on either a halloween Bigger or a brown Crystal bugger size 6. I hooked into a big male Brown today, got it to to the surface, and then it came unbuttoned. I feel this one would have beat my personal best brown at 27 inches. I estimate this one to be between 24-27 but about 2 times as heavy as my current best.