(Written by Jason)
This year’s Boulder trip was a bit of a fiasco. We didn't have access to four wheelers, so we decided to take Trevor's Pathfinder. Trevor and I decided to go up Thursday after work, and Chris was going to meet us the next afternoon.
We packed everything up, and made our way to the trailhead. We were a little skeptical the whole time of whether or not we would be able to make it up the trail in the Pathfinder, but figured with four wheel drive we would be ok. We had gone only about a mile when we actually needed to put it in four wheel drive and it WOULDN'T work! We were both a little incredulous at first. We figured it was just the "4 wheel" drive indicator light that was not lighting up. But, we quickly realized it was still in 2 wheel drive. After lots of trouble shooting and even calling the Nissan dealership, it wasn't going to work. So, plan B? We brainstormed for a while, and finally decided to have Chris pick up my work truck from my place and drive it down.
Trevor and I decided to drive around and look for other Boulder Mountain lakes that were more accessible. After lots of driving, and even coming upon some other lakes, none seemed to be worthy of our time. We finally decided to settle for the night at Lower Bowns. We set up Treveor's tent, which we quickly realized was filled with garbage - it had last been used by the YW in his ward. It was crazy how much crap they left in there, including a sock!?!?
The next morning we decided to fish Lower Bowns, until we met up with Chris. The fishing was actually really good, and quite fast. We were pleasantly surprised.
We met up with Chris around noon, packed up the truck with everything and got going. The truck did pretty well most of the way, until we came to "the hill" which we knew would be the main challenge. Well, after three attempts...it was not going to happen. The stupid truck didn't have enough power! We were beyond disappointed. Nobody had packed to actually hike in, so that was not an option.
Luckily, Trevor made a quick call to his dad, and found out that their cabin at Fish Lake was vacant for the weekend. I had never been there, so even though not fishing the Boulders was very frustrating, at least I got to fish a new place.
Fish Lake was only around 35 minutes away. We got to Trevor's cabin, which was quite a bit nicer and roomier than I expected. We opened it up (for the first time of the season), and then headed down to the lake to get our fishing on. We quickly got into fish, but not a lot of size, which was ok. Fish Lake is very pretty, and apparently very deep. The lake holds some massive fish!
The next morning we went to a nearby reservoir called Koosharem, with hopes of catching some tigers. Unfortunately, we didn't have much luck there, or at another nearby reservoir, either. So, back to Fish Lake we went.
We were in our float tubes and decided to kick our way to the opposite side of the lake, which was pretty far, but definitely doable. We caught some decent-sized fish, but had to head back before too long because it was getting dark. Trevor got back to the shore the quickest, and quickly made friends with a guy named CJ, who had just started fishing from shore. By the time we got back to shore, CJ had rigged up a rod for Trevor and had taught him the ways of "Splaking". Apparently, locals will show up to this particular location at night with lanterns and also build fires to attract minnows to the shore. The minnows attract the predatory splake, and supposedly really big ones. We were all game to see what would happen. So we stuck around for a quite a while. The way he rigged up our rods was unique, and like something I hadn't seen before. We all had several bites, and I had one almost to shore, but it broke the line as we tried to land it. It was a really fun experience, and one I'd like to do again.
The trip ended up being a success, but we didn't catch quite as many fish as we had expected. But, we had good food, good company, and an awesome cabin to sleep in...so, no complaints!
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