Outdoor adventures, particularly trout angling
This late winter, early spring has been frustrating as the fishing goes. There have been periods with temperatures around 70 degrees in Las Vegas, and that translates into early morning to mid-day temperatures at the 6,000-foot elevation of 40 to 60 degrees… very tolerable. But life gets busy.
Continue reading “Chief Financial Officers fishing Cold Creek”
Chan’s winter fishing of Utah’s Santa Clara River inspired me, and I was seriously contemplating tubing Baker Reservoir this Friday. Chan was kind enough to verify the Utah Department of Wildlife reports that Baker had not yet frozen over, and I was watching the weather patterns thinking Friday would be a fine time to hit it mid-winter.
Continue reading “The Pond at Cold Creek”
Many folks take up fly fishing but quit after a while. I suppose we get attracted to hobbies for one reason or another, and once we learn more about them our interest wanes for who knows why. Perhaps it’s not as fun as we imagined, or the hobby is too costly, or maybe it’s harder than it looks. For fly fishing, the most common beginner complaints are the cost and the difficulty as compared to other fishing techniques. I attempted to address those two fly fishing complaints in my beginners blog, but I know that fly fishing still requires a certain adventuresome spirit to fully embrace it.
Continue reading “Santa Clara River, Pine Valley, UT – Chan’s Way”
A large high-pressure weather system has settled into the Great Basin and beyond, keeping temperatures around Nevada near record highs for this time of year. For about two weeks the Las Vegas valley temperatures have been between the high fifties and the high sixties. I began to wonder if the Cold Creek ice had melted off.
Continue reading “Cold Creek Ice Gone”
We had a little cold snap in Las Vegas this week, a precursor of the colder winter to come. It made me reflect upon the Cold Creek pond, wondering if the freezing overnight temperatures had sealed its fate for the season. But yesterday was a nice day for late fall standards, and the weekend forecast was good. Being an impulsive fisherman I decided to see about the ice status for myself this morning.
Continue reading “Ice Man at Cold Creek”
My friend Mitch emailed me that Cold Creek pond was stocked on Monday. Then yesterday I had a post from a reader who said he had a great time fishing in the morning before work, which made me feel relieved to learn that I’m not the only fanatic that fits fishing around odd schedules. So by Thursday you can only imagine that I was unable to resist leaving work early to have some fun before the Christmas season and the inevitable ice-over occur.
Continue reading “Fall Stocking Accomplished at Cold Creek”
I suppose I should have called the hatchery number to check on the timing of the fall stocking program. But, had I called and been told that it hadn’t been stocked yet I might not have gone to Cold Creek. And although it turned out that it wasn’t stocked, and I’m glad I went “blind” to discover that on my own.
Continue reading “Cold Creek Pond, Clark County”
I made a quick getaway to Cold Springs Reservoir in the Wayne Kirch Wildlife Management Area. The KWMA is nestled in the high desert of the White River watershed, such as it is. As barren as it appears from Highway 318 (thirty miles south of Lund, NV), the KWMA does have quite a variety of wildlife (see this KWMA brochure). On a previous KWMA excursion I wrote about almost running into a golden eagle that was pursuing a desert cottontail rabbit; that was an awesome experience. On this trip I again flushed another large golden eagle from the left side of the dirt service road. This time I got a very close look at the large raptor, and it amazed me that such a large bird can actually fly, let alone attack game from the air. By the time I stopped the truck, lowered the passenger window, and got the camera into zoom mode the eagle had gotten about 100 yards away and was circling back to the south. Having a close encounter with such a majestic bird is the highlight of any trip.
Continue reading “Cold Springs Reservoir, Wayne Kirch WMA”
After experiencing the hottest August on record (average high temp was just under 106º), and with September not providing much more relief, the sudden thirty degree plunge last week triggered the autumn fishing twitch within me. Waking to Las Vegas temperatures in the fifties and highs barely reaching sixty, not to mention the clouds with their needed precipitation… well it was all more than I could withstand last week. So I planned a quick one-hour visit to Cold Creek in between dropping Evan off at high school and feeding Emily breakfast (thank goodness Emily is a late morning riser).
Continue reading “Cold Creek Pond”
They say these are the dog days of summer, the hot, sultry time of year between early July and early September. Here in Las Vegas this is our monsoon season. As funny as that sounds, there are two periods where Las Vegas receives most of its precipitation: December through March and July through September. Make no mistake; it’s the July through September period when moist air travels up from the Gulf of Mexico that’s the killer when combined with high temperatures well above 100 degrees. At those temperatures the rain often evaporates before hitting the ground which contributes to humidity… and thus the “dog days of summer.”
Continue reading “Southwest Utah’s Color Country”