Jan 2
Of course when a spot is artificial only (trophy quality) you expect good sized fish, but this spot is growing some GIANTS. We each landed a dozen or more fish just this morning. The Rainbows and Cutthroat are prolific and we are blessed with a great brown here and there too! Besides pathfinder this may be our go-to this ice season 
Dec 27
Monday morning we left Ogden, Utah after Christmas with our family in Idaho. By 6pm we were in the middle of Nebraska ready to fish. One of our favorite spots which had monster gills and crappie was the goal. When we arrived at dark-thirty Tuesday morning we found our area with a gps and began jigging. The sound of geese and ducks was the clue that there was still open water on the lake and the lack of fish coming out of the hole confirmed our disappointment. The fish just aren’t under the ice if there is good oxygen elsewhere. So, we packed up and headed back to Casper so we could drive another 100 miles to the north to try our luck there. This trout spot is as hot as ever. Erik iced nearly 20 fish and the population is as healthy as ever. We fished until 3pm before heading back to Casper.
Sep 11
Actually, Max is 5 years old, but the title sounded good We have known for quite some time that Max is a different kind of kid. He has been doing and saying things that amaze us since he started moving around on his own. So, it was an easy descision to decide to take him on a backpacking trip into the wilderness. We left Casper late on Friday night after the first week of school (for teachers). We took a Ranger ride from the truck to the wilderness trail head and started off on our adventure. It was late in the evening when we began the hike, so we made camp quite a bit lower than normal. The next morning we hiked for a couple hours and made a base camp and then headed for Angeline which is a lake that sits just above timberline. Max did an amazing job carrying his pack and keeping up (for the most part). He was able to catch a fish for our breakfast, drink straight from a mountain stream and start our campfire. GOOD JOB, MAX!!
Jul 23
Snow, snow and more snow. Much more snow than we have ever seen before. The mosquitos were pretty numerous too, but good ol’ deet does the trick. If anyone ever tries to sell you some other product to keep mosquitos away, DON’T FALL FOR IT. We decided to try three different alternatives to deet this trip; 1. citronella bracelette, 2. skin patch, 3. buzz off bandanas. None of them even came close to keeping the bugs away. We even had all three going at the same time and still the only thing that worked was the deet.
We stayed the first night at Tomohawk lake and caught severl brook trout for breakfast before heading for Thumb Lake a several hundred feet above.
As far as the fishing, it was more like being in the mountains in June, the fishing was somewhat slow. On the upside, Michelle hooked her first ever golden trout; although it got off just before landing it 
It is still always good to get the backpacks on and live in the wilderness for a few days! On the way back to the trail head, we ran into some friends of ours from Casper, Ken and Amber Christianson.
Feb 13
Now it’s the girl’s turn… We got to the lake a little earlier today and within the first 20 minutes Michelle hooked a nice cutbow that hit less than a foot under the ice when she was reeling up to check her jig. Then after putting some time into jigging and wishing, Taya finally caught a big fish at Muddy Guard! We decided in the afternoon to go check out Meadowlark, as none of us had ever ice-fished it. There was a lot of ice and snow, and a person could pull a few rainbows out, but the fish were short and skinny.
Jan 22
Short story even shorter: Today we invited our friends Tyler and Taya to fish with us. Tyler is an avid flyfisherman and an incredible artist. Taya and Michelle did not fair so well. The boys were each able to pull in the giants we were after today, but the girls were skunked. Erik and Tyler caught several fish over 3 pounds. It was a beautiful, sunny day in God’s country! 
Nov 27
Ice fishing season begins!! There are a few reservoirs that should be frozen after the cold spell we have had, so we organized our gear and headed for Dome Rock to see how the fish have grown over the last year. As we pulled into the parking lot, we couldn’t believe our eyes- is that open water we see? Sure enough there was open water all along the west shore of the reservoir. After further inspection we decided that there must be a warm spring because we were able to get on further down the shore and it turned out the ice was 7″ thick!
It took us about an hour to locate the fish. They have grown about 3 inched or so since last year and are fat. We only fished until about 9:30 and each of us caught several nice cutthroats. Watch the video!
Aug 1
This backpacking trip was a 9 mile trek from the truck to our base camp. We entered the wilderness Friday at 1pm. Besides Scout, Gordon (79 1/2) and Chad joined us. We were fortunate to have cool cloudy weather on the way in to this area. We hiked for 2 1/2 hours from the Ranger and made camp at 10,000 feet. On the way to camp we saw elk tracks all along the trail and woke both mornings to cow calls and young bulls. Saturday morning we were able to watch the large herd from a hill near camp. We watched elk and ate coffee and doughnuts before climbing another 525 feet to the lake we planned on fishing for the day. After arriving at the the lake we boulder hopped for another 1/4 of a mile to our favorite fishing spot. The fishing was good as usual on the lake with all the cutthroats between 17″ and 20″ with most being seen before casting to. We fished till mid afternoon and then headed back down to camp and dinner. The next morning we had bacon and fresh trout for breakfast while listening to elk mewing and even bugling in the background. The hike out was uneventful except for some picking of unbelievably flavored strawberries and a 20 degree temperature difference by the time we got off the mountains. Watch the video!
What a great trip of backpacking and fishing. We hiked 12 miles in four days and fished 4 different lakes. Two of the lakes we fished had small but feisty brookies, one lake had big cutthroats cruising and feeding all hours of the day and the last lake had nonexistent golden trout that had already moved deep. Scout made this trip with us for his first time carrying his own backpack. He did a great job of staying with us over big boulders and up steep slopes never slowing down. This year the mosquitos followed us up the mountain further then usual not stopping until we reached nearly 11,000 feet. We used a therma-cell mosquito repeller around camp but it had a hard time working at our main camp at 10,500 feet with such little oxygen in the air. The last afternoon and evening that we were camping we were swallowed up by the clouds and had three different thunderstorms move through with lots of rain/hail, wind and thunder. It was a neat experience making one remember how tiny we are on this planet. We found out when we got home this was part of the same storm that killed a climber and stranded 9 other climbers in the Tetons. Thank you, God for keeping us safe!!!
Jul 16
We headed up to Dubois to go fly-fishing for big cutthroats. We took Gordon and Scout with us this trip. We got to the lake on wednesday evening, in time to fish for a couple hours before dark. Erik got into several good fish when he first got into the float tube but the bite only lasted about a half hour before the fish shut off. The next day was good fishing around a sunken island in the middle of the lake after it warmed up form a 38 degree overnight low temperature. We kept 4 cutthroats for dinner and breakfast. Their stomachs were completely filled with leeches. After a good breakfast of bacon, fish and cantaloupe and some more fishing we headed back home around noon on friday.
