Where the addiction began. I was getting burnt out from school (financially and mentally) and feeling defeated, to be honest. I took my frustration and loss of direction to the rivers: Logan and Blacksmith. Those two rivers helped me find direction and a passion for fly-fishing. I might be bias, but those two rivers are world class, in my opinion.
They might not hold fish of a lifetime but they offer something better and that is knowledge. Reading a river is just like reading a language. What level of fluency are you? The Logan and Blacksmith are the Rosetta Stone of river fluency. I’m not proclaiming to be an expert but the amount of jam-packed lessons you can learn are endless.
I see lots of videos of people fishing calm and lazy pools and that’s fine. If that is what is available to you then fish it! There are important lessons to be learned from those too, but pocket water is hard to beat. Cache Valley rivers are small but they fish like big rivers. Those two rivers taught me so much of the behaviors of trout that I use on every river I step into.
Fish don’t need a lot of room to get cozy in. One phrase I often said to myself, while fishing in Cache Valley, was fish the shoe boxes! what I meant by that was fish the smallest of pockets. It was eye opening to see fish come out of the more obscure holes and pockets. I’ll never forget fishing the Madison River in Montana when I fished a shoe box.
We were fishing above West Fork and that section is very tough. It reads different then the upper sections like Reynolds and Campfire. I noticed this tiny cut out on a bank (island in the middle of the river). Water was rushing by this tiny cut out, so I threw a Zoo Cougar right on it. I was fishing a Cougar with a weighted head so it would dive right in. I got an immediate bite! I couldn’t believe it and to this day, I fish every dang calm pocket. No matter the size, I’m fishing it! Learned this from Cache Valley water.
Another attractive quality about the rivers in Cache Valley are the insects! Terrestrials and nymphs are plentiful on both rivers. A unique trait the Blacksmith has are the presence of Salmon Flies. Depending on the year, the hatch can be prolific. It happens in mid-May and it’s always a fun time to throw large terrestrials on that river. Some years are better than others but most of the time, it’s productive fishing. Nymphing large Stonely patterns in early May, is always an excellent option!
The Logan might lack Salmon flies but the other hatches have produced some of the best terrestrial fishing I have ever witnessed.
Click the link below to continue reading about the terrestrial fishing in Cache Valley!
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