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Show Dinosaurlcand Outdoors By Hartt Wixom Vernal Express Outdoors Writer As the year comes to a close you think back on the past 12 months' outdoor experiences. Sure there are successes personally accomplished. But, one thing which stands out is not the big one caught on my own rod. Rather it is the biggest fish a young friend had ever hooked. And it did not get away. It happened in the Wolf Creek Pass area north of Strawberry on a tiny creek. I have a partial favoritism for such little streams anyway, since I did my early fishing on such a water. I also admit to getting enthusiastic over brawling rivers like the Green below Flaming Gorge or Wyoming's Snake, Montana's Yellowstone. But, this was a creek which a young man could handle. All he needed was a pointer or two where to cast, and as usual with a 10-year old, some encouragement. en-couragement. Our hot spot was below a beaver dam where current had been diverted, leaving little water remaining. The cast had to be into the brush where oversized fish hide in low water. Bait? That might have been a problem, for the lad camped next to us brought none. We soon took care of that by overturning several flat, dark stones, the kind which usually harbor a few rock rollers, the Trichoptera caddis which wraps itself in a pebbled case. Broken open, we soon had the small golden larvae on a size 10 hook. He dropped the offering into current at head of the little pool, and we waited. I had caught mostly 10-12 inch cutthroats cut-throats in this stream. But, I had also witnessed a giant whitefish in here. I was not about to tell him trout were superior. When you are 10 years old with few notches on your fishing knife, you want (1) any fish, and (2) bigger the better. It soon happened. A fish in the 20-inch category began thrashing beneath the brush. "Pull!" I told the young fisherman. He reacted with a mightly effort. "Good thing we put some stout line on there," I told him. "Now, keep your rod tip away from the willows, and keep the line tight." As usual, angler wanted to get fish wt quickly. But, he was advised to have patience. "Stay with him and wear him out," I whispered as excitedly ex-citedly as he "When he calms down pull : ) Teach a youngster how to fish him out!" That is also one of the benefits to hooking whitefish. They are just as much a bragging fish as any other to a youngster, but don't have the stamina "to swim forever.' Before long, the whopper was flipping across the mud bank. "Just like an expert," I told him. "You did it!" He stood there for a long time admiring ad-miring his catch, picking it up, setting it down. Then he scooped it up. "Let's go show mother!" he shouted. Later that day I helped my own three young anglers catch a brook trout apiece in Mill Meadow Reservoir, a crowded but beautiful, mile-around reservoir draining eventually into the Provo River. Fishing wasn't fast. But, some of the reason, I figured, was that bait wasn't visible in bottom moss. I rigged up a bobber to suspend the worm about six feet below the surface-something surface-something I've also done in the past for brookies in the Uinta Mountains and it wasn't long before each had scored. This is a good lake for parents to learn fly fishing, for the trout are usually hatchery-stocked, with brooks and albino rainbows slurping the surface for small grey hackle patterns on warm evenings. The kids can be bait fishing nearby I prefer bait for kids so they don't get tangled in constant casting while you work the shoreline for not-too-finicky fish. A few will cooperate often enough around your fly pattern to provide hooking and fighting practice. But. while best fishing will have to wait until next summer, the memory of it is not dimmed by a white December. You can begin by giving fishing tackle Christmas presents to get youngsters ready. Then, too. you can start them out by ice fishing if spring is not far away. Another tip: lind an "easy" species like white bass-bluegills, at first, in a place like Pelican Lake, or I'tah Lake. Studies in China have suggested sug-gested that one can predict the weather with 80 percent per-cent accuracy by monitoring moni-toring the croaking of frogs. |