A Reel Adventure and Moose Encounter

November 2007

A couple years ago, we went on an amazing hiking/fishing adventure! Our good friend Rick showed us one of his favorite fishing spots. We decided to invite some others to join us such as a couple nieces and nephew (Jessica, Heather, James, and dog Fender).

John with his buddy from work, Rick the fishing expert!




The fishing gang: James, dog Fender, Heather, Jessica, me, and John. Rick was the photographer.



We got up really early Saturday morning and dropped the kids off to the babysitter's house (their Aunt Marilee's house). We drove up to American Fork Canyon near Silver Lake. We didn't fish at Silver Lake, instead we hiked up the canyon to Silver Lake Flats a pond full of fish! The hike up was not an easy one especially for those people who were out of shape, cough cough John and me, lol! It was very steep and full of switch backs!



On our way up to Silver Lake Flats, we saw several moose near the trail. Not far from me, I saw a baby moose who was extremely curious of me, which followed me. To my surprise all sudden the mother and baby started charging in my direction! The other hikers were not far behind me! I started running and yelling, "Watch out! There are moose chasing me!" We had to move quickly off that trial to get away from the moose by climbing straight up the mountain! Imagine us lugging our backpacks, holding our fishing pools, and tackle boxes in our hands while climbing up the steep mountain! Wow, what an adrenalin rush and difficult climb, but at the same time we were so excited to have our very first moose encounter! Yeah, I know we were crazy, but how many people can truly say they have been chased by moose and lived to tell the story!



After hiking for about an hour, we finally made it to the fishing pond. The view up there was absolutely breathtaking. We were surprised to find some snow up there too, while down below there wasn't any snow!



We could literally see hundreds of fish swimming in the pond near the shallow part of the water. In fact, Rick informed us that Silver Lake Flats gets restocked with fish every year. So it was not hard to catch a nice size fish! One by one we all caught our fish! This was an extraordinary fishing trip for my niece Jessica because it was her first time fishing! We were so glad it was such a successful fishing experience that she will never forget!

Sitting on a large rock was my favorite spot to fish!



Here is my first catch of the day a beautiful brook trout!



The colors on the brook trout are so beautiful!



John is giving Jessica a lesson how to tie the hook on, baiting the hook with worms or flies, and casting the pole in the water. John told me he saw a gray-ling fish, but nobody caught one. We all caught brook trout.



Here is Jessica being a great sport enduring through the grossness of fishing!



Here is James with his HUGE fish! It was the largest catch for the day!



Heather was not a huge fan of baiting the fish hook and touching the slimly fish!



Fender was worn out after the hike and climb up the hill. He took a nap while we were fishing. Jessica even fell asleep on a rock while fishing too. We were all exhausted from that hike except for Rick! He was used to backpacking and hiking switch back mountains!



It was quicker to hike down the mountain and we were disappointed that we didn't see any moose on the trails. John and I could hardly move after the next day! In fact, it took a couple days until the awful soreness went away from our legs! A couple weeks later, we invited Jessica over to our place and made some delicious fish fry batter to cook our fish we all caught that day!