4:15, I ask myself? As in A.M.? That was my first thought as my husband explained what time we needed to get up in order to depart for our fishing trip at Flaming Gorge Reservoir in search of Kokonee Salmon. Why does fishing have to be such an early sport and get you up at such an ungodly hour? Undoubtedly, by that question you can tell I am not the fisherperson in our relationship. And typically, I don’t accompany him on his numerous fishing adventures during the course of the year. Therefore, I was surprised he asked me as I usually label these trips as his “male bonding sessions”. I highly suspected no one else was available to go with him, but nonetheless decided it might be fun. It’s been a long time since I visited Flaming Gorge Reservoir.
Construction on the dam began in 1958 creating Flaming Gorge Reservoir. The Dam is located in Utah and contains the waters of the Green River to form the reservoir. It extends 91 miles in length into Southern Wyoming, has a total capacity of 3,788,900 acre-feet of water and is 502 feet in depth at its deepest point. The elevation of 6,045 feet and a surface area of 42,020 acres keeps the temperatures around 80 degrees Fahrenheit during the Summer months.
Petroglyphs and artifacts found around this area suggest that Fremont Indians hunted game here for many centuries. Later, the Comanche, Shoshoni and Ute tribes were known to inhabit this area.
On a Spring day in 1869, Major John Wesley Powell and nine others boarded small wooden boats at Green River, Wyoming, embarking on an exploration of the Green and Colorado Rivers. They successfully completed this journey in late Summer. On May 26, 1869 Major Powell named this area Flaming Gorge after watching the setting sun reflecting off the red rocks.
This Reservoir lies within the Ashely National Forest, and on the Utah side is thick with evergreen trees, pinyon pines and junipers; large towering cliff sides, massive rock formations and deep canyons. In Wyoming, the Reservoir is surrounded with grassy hills, sandy rock formations and gentle slopes to the water’s edge that provide numerous camping spots. Surprisingly, I observed several roads offering easy access to these areas.
The reservoir provides varied recreational activities such as powerboating, waterskiing, camping, parasailing, rafting, swimming and fishing from boats or shore. The lake is famous for its trophy trout fishing (up to 40 pounds/18kg), and for the beautiful red rock mountains rising around it. Below the dam, the Green River is renowned for trout fishing as the waters coming from the bottom of the Reservoir are icy cold. Rafting is a favorite past time in this section, floating from the dam to Dutch John.
Over the course of the Summer, we actually traveled to Flaming Gorge two times, camping during both trips. That wasn’t the original plan for the first trip; however. Calling two days before our departure to secure lodging, we were reminded that it was a Utah State Holiday. I believe every person who had a boat in Utah headed to Flaming Gorge for that weekend. I guess that’s understandable after realizing that due to virtually no snowfall or rain during the early months of 2021, we were experiencing a drought that hasn’t been seen here in over 100 years. Most of the lakes or reservoirs in the surrounding area have dropped to unprecedented lows, closing the majority of them to boating.
It was only by sheer luck that the KOA Campground in Manila, Utah had a cancellation, which gave us a place to stay. This change in plans put me into a scurry of activity as we had now been put into the camping mode. Digging through boxes of items, I located our tent, sleeping bags, air mattresses, cooking gear, and more. This also meant I had to rethink meal plans as now I was planning breakfast and dinners in addition to lunches. That was a lesson learned to pay attention to the Holidays; something that can be easily overlooked when you’re retired. Although Charlie stated he would have been happy with a granola bar for breakfast, I made sure we had better fare than that. “Nothing smells better than bacon cooking on the grill outside”, I retorted to his request for a granola bar. So, in true form I planned a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, bagels, juice and coffee. Anyone who knows me, is aware of my propensity to cook as I decided that wasn’t going to be a hinderance because we were camping. I likewise planned a big dinner as I envisioned us retiring to our campsite after a full day of fishing for kokanee salmon.
Kokanee salmon also known as the kokanee trout, little redfish, silver trout, kikanning, Kennerly’s salmon, Kennerly’s trout, or Walla, is a fresh-water form of the sockeye salmon, living out their entire lives in freshwater. Throughout the majority of their life they are a silver fish, only getting the hook jaw and turning a bright red during spawning season. I had never fished for them and was excited to learn about it.
As we loaded the boat to go fishing, I was busy checking to make sure I had everything I thought I needed and more…lunch items, water shoes, drinks, my camera and lenses, my hat, etc. As we jetted to the location to begin fishing, I climbed to the bow of the boat to procure something. The fishing hat I wore didn’t have a draw-string to keep it on and it flew off my head. It soared up and over the windshield, landing perfectly upright on top of the hat on Charlie’s head, where it lodged. Charlie frantically began looking all around the boat and in the water to see where it went. I took one look at this scene and burst out laughing as it was too comical to do anything but.
We arrived at the location where we planned to fish and with patience, Charlie explained the setup on the fishing line. He added a colorful dodger, which he described was a blade attractor; something to entice the fish through color. At the end of the line, he placed a pink squid, since that was what the local guides said they were biting on. Then he expounded on how the down riggers worked, setting the depth at 40 feet. As I bombarded him with questions, he looked at me and said, “You know dear, you add a whole new level of complication”. That has now become my favorite quote whenever I am battering him with questions on a given topic.
The day was a beautiful day, although heavy with smoke as this Summer has been horrible because of numerous and gigantic fires in California. At times the air quality in the Salt Lake Valley area has been proclaimed to be the worst air quality in the world as the smoke stacks up against the Wasatch Range. It also makes it extremely difficult to get clear and sharp pictures as everything is viewed through a haze.
Nevertheless, we enjoyed our day as we gently trolled around while rocking out to tunes on the boat. In the afternoon, we fired up the motor and traversed the Reservoir making our way to the dam, thereby navigating almost the entire length of Flaming Gorge.
As we pulled into a quiet cove to have lunch, I piled his sandwich high with all the delectable items I know he likes and wondered how he was going to get his mouth around it. As I handed it to him, I stated, “Now that’s a Dagwood”, which caused him to look at me with a questioning expression. “That’s a what”? he asked me. Even though Charlie and I are the same age, growing up in different States has proven interesting at times as we discover expressions and colloquialisms that are unique to the area we lived. Apparently, a Dagwood sandwich is one such example. We are still experiencing new phrases and statements after 25 years of marriage.
The KOA was a nice campground with a grassy area for our tent, a firepit, picnic table and our spot was even large enough to park our truck and boat adjacent to us. One of the downsides of camping so close to others is when your neighbor has more people joining them and trying to set up camp with the lights of their truck shining on you at 10:00 pm. The payback to them occurred at 6:00 am the next morning as we got up, making breakfast and packing to go fishing. I tried moving around as quietly as possible, but tent walls provide no protection against external noises.
The second time we visited Flaming Gorge this Summer we went with six other close friends, navigating our boats to Hideout Camp Ground on the Utah side of the Reservoir. Hideout can only be reached via boat and is a scenic campground located on a hill above the Reservoir covered in pine trees. Each campsite is complete with picnic table under an awning, firepit and two tent sites.
At the completion of this, we ended up with four Kokoanee and two trout. The trout we released, but fileted the Kokoanee and grilled them. They were absolutely delicious. I won’t hesitate to go again, if I’m asked. Complete with all my complications.
Life is an Adventure 