Got back late Sunday evening from the first ever Utah Hang. We had a great time and got to meet a lot of new folks.

I took my oldest with me, W who really had a lot of fun. Thanks to the guys at the hang for being so cool at having the kids around.

Our trip started at about 1am Thursday when we left home, gassed up and hit the freeway for the first 5 hours of driving to the SLC area.


Packed and ready to roll.

By the time we gassed up and meet up with MuseJr and his son for breakfast I was feeling zonked. The next few hundred miles were a little slow with stops to stretch, chug a monster energy and then roll a few more hours, rinse and repeat. But we still made it to the campground by about 1pm, what I had expected for the bit over 600 mile drive.

We poked around camp a bit and found some trees for each of the 4 of us.


After a little relaxing I wanted to stretch the legs and see how the fishing would treat us. We hiked out a ways and W and I hit a couple lakes before the evening got to far along.



We spotted a handfull of fish but could not seem to get any attention from them. So back to camp for some dinner and as the sun went down we all retired to our hammocks for the evening. The wind spent a few hours torturing us in our hammocks. The small aspen trees would bend and sway with each wind gust...I would guess we had close to 20mph gust that night. But after a few hours the wind settled and we were all out till the sun was up.



We decided to hit the trail and check out a few of the lakes a bit further from camp before the other folks would arrive. After a little over a mile we arrived at the first lake. Casting Practice. We watched fish, large fish, swim past our flies time and time again. I would not really even call if fishing, this was casting practice.



We hiked up and over the small hill to hit the lower lake. Lunch and more casting practice. At this lake there were some great looking Cutts stacked up in the inlet all colored up in spawning colors.




W and I hiked back down the trail a bit after lunch.






When we made it back to camp the first of the other folks had made it to the CG. jerhangin11 and hit crew and had already set to getting their hammocks hung up.


Not much later Widdors arrived with his buddy and then a little later Bikerdad and his buddy rolled in. It did not take long before the potluck was underway and we were all enjoying some great food....don't have any pictures though, I was to busy eating. A great evening around the fire with lots of laughing and then it was time to hop in the hammocks and be rocked and bounced around in the hammock as the wind got stronger though the night.

In the morning we all hung out for a while and eat a casual breakfast.


Bikerdad and his buddy hit the road pretty early. While some of the rest of us set out on the trail for a good day hike to check out a couple other lakes with hopes of finding some fish that would play.



It took a bit to figure out what worked but FINALLY!


Before long almost everyone was hooking into fish with several landed. Around this point I told W to take the camera and get some shot of everyone fishing. He loved it.



After a bit we packed up and headed a little further down the trail to the next lake. It did not seem to have a ton of fish but they were a little more willing to play.

First cast.












We spent a couple hours at the lake and caught a good number of fish. On our way out we took a few minutes to look at one of the smaller and very shallow lakes in the area. I hooked a few fish and then W wanted one on his own. We walked over to the very small inlet stream and he pulled out a nice brookie.




A bit over a mile hike back to the Campground

and then a nice long break in the shade.

As evening came on we had a huge fire, lots of hours of dodging sparks and smoke as the wind really kicked up.






Far to soon morning came and we packed up and everyone hit the road within about 20 minutes of each other. W and I rolled down to Escalante and picked up some supplies for the the full day of driving ahead. We made good time making the trip in about 11 hours. For us it was 1254 miles in total...not counting hiking.

We had a great time and hope to be able to hang with all of the Utah crew again soon. See you down the trail.