Late Fall on the Strawberry River

We had an opportunity to hit the Strawberry River this afternoon, for what was one of the most colorful fall days we have seen so far. The weather was a bit chilly and the threat of rained lingered for most of the afternoon. For a fly-angler, this "overcast" type of weather usually means excellent dry fly conditions, and today proved to be no different. Yesterday was actually the first day to legally fish this stretch of water, as the Kokanee Salmon spawn is coming to an end. We decided to start the afternoon off by checking the water conditions at the Strawberry visitors center. Upon our arrival, we stumbled across several bright red Kokanee splashing around in the shallows performing their spawning rituals. We immediately looked at each other and thought wow, we might be fishing for Salmon today! We were excited about the prospect of possibly hooking up on some of these beautiful fish, as these are definitely not a normal species to fish here in Utah. We drove about 500 yards up the road, put our boots on as quick as possible, rigged up with some big bright stimmies and hit the water. Within the first couple of casts, Chris had his fly smashed by a little cutty and we knew that the day was going to be productive and exciting. We continued up the river hoping to stumble across some spawning Kokanee, but were unable to spot any this far up the river. In all honesty, it really wasn't a big deal, as the three of us were catching nice little Bonneville Cuthroats cast after cast. Within thirty minutes we had lost count of the fish totals and became accustomed to getting hits on almost every cast. This section of the Strawberry really doesn't hold very big fish and anything over 8 inches was a surprise. None the less we had an excellent time and all laughed all day at the ridiculous little guys smashing our big fly's on the surface. We fished for about 4 hours, laughed all day and enjoyed the productivity of this beautiful stream. Home in time for a great dinner and some Sunday night football! What a day