Went out to Glen Helen today for some great trout fishing. I met Bryan at 9, and John came 15 minutes later. The hatchery truck had just stopped by, for the state, and the county dropped off fish earlier. Bryan and John started to toss some of Bryan's trout worms, which are called "Lip Rippers", while I wanted to catch a fish on a mini-jig first.

On my second cast I got a hit, and on the third I got a small trout. I then tied on one of Bryan's "Lip Rippers", and fished with it for the rest of the day. After catching a few trout, we tried the big lake, but it was very slow there. We all got hits, but nothing like the small lake. As we went back, there was a loud BOOM in the air, and as I turned around, the park staff was scaring off the cormorants. It was nice to see a lake that cared about the anglers, and not the birds!

After fishing the small lake for a few more fish, one of the older park attendants came around. He wasn't a game warden, but just a park ranger, and he was a complete jerk. He would go around and pick out people to ask for licensees. When he came to me, he not only asked for my Fishing Licensee, but my Driver's License as well!!! I didn't feel like making a scene, so I left him see both to see they matched, but I wasn't too happy, considering he didn't ask two guys for their licensees, who both weren't exposed.

As the day went on we all caught more fish, and the ranger came back again. He told me two things which were funny. First off when he asked if I caught anything, I told him that I caught a few small 5 inch fish. He said that there are no fish that small there, even though the state stocked that day, and we all know how small the state stocks. The second thing was about the Idaho trout. For all of you guys who don't know about them, the tails are very rounded from the long ride down in the stocking trucks. HE tried to tell me the fish were raised that way in Idaho, with rounded fins.

One thing I did notice through out the day was we were getting bit short and often. There was quite a few people who were fishing and bait, but they were not getting bit consistently. Bryan's worms were was making the difference in my opinion.

After John left to go to class, Bryan and I stayed and fished for another hour and a half. It did start to drizzle some, which made the fish more active. All in all the fishing was excellent, except for that ranger. I caught and released 28 trout, all but one on Bryan's lures. I believe Bryan had that many as well, and John had somewhere around 10 trout.

Tight Lines,
Jason Huckeba

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