Memories of Karl as told by GWP:Dad (Karl) and I were "fishing buddies" for as long as I can remember. He started me fishing at about age four. My first memories were of the Mahogany Spring at the mouth of Pine Canyon and not far from our cabin in Snake Creek––maybe a couple of miles. Dad took me in through the brush to a small stream and said, "Glen, come and look at this." I crouched over, went up to where he was, looked into the clear water and saw about a dozen Brook Trout feeding in the quiet current. That was my first experience and it "hooked" me on fishing. I was so excited. Then Dad baited his hook, dropped it into the stream, and I watched as one of the fish quickly took the bait, and Dad pulled it out and onto the grassy bank.
Now I was really excited. Those Brook Trout were so colorful. From that day on Dad and I fished several times a week. As I got older, we went to Deer Creek Reservoir, Strawberry Reservoir, some of the high lakes (Brimhall Lake, Lake Catharine, Pittsburg Lake, Blood Lake, Island Lake, Lake Mary, and others) in the mountains above Midway towards Park City and Brighton and Alta. We also fished the Provo and Weber Rivers a lot. Whenever we could, we went fishing.
My mother (Cree) both bottled and froze fish for use year around.
When Dad (Karl) was in his late eighties, he still wanted to go fishing with me, if only to watch me fish. I remember one day we went to Rainbow Bay on Deer Creek, one of his favorite places. I drove as close to the reservoir as possible and then helped him down the embankment and over to the edge of the lake, where I put him on a chair, and we fished and caught our limits. Dad loved to fish and so did I.
Karl's favorite places to fish at first were up Snake Creek--the stream that ran through our orchard and right next to the old cabin where he was born. In later years he liked to fish the reservoirs--Strawberry first, Deer Creek next, and then Schofield. He also enjoyed going with me to the Uinta Mountain lakes.
He mostly fished with bait--worms and cheese. He only fished with flies when he was with me doing evening fishing on one of the lakes. I tied many, many flies that were very effective, and Dad would use a fly and a bubble on his spinning outfit when we fished the lakes in the evenings or early mornings. Sometimes we would get up at 3:00 AM to go to Strawberry and fish with large streamers or bucktails, trolling them behind a boat with the motor running very slowly. This was very effective. We'd fish into the morning and catch fish as long as the fog and mist remained on the lake.
Dad was famous for being able to catch fish on the streams around Midway. This is how he taught me. He would walk into the most brushy places with a short fishing pole and line, sneak up to the side of the creek, drop the bait in along the undercut banks, and catch fish at will. He always told me this was the way to do it, because most people would not fight the brush to fish those places. He was right, I caught my limit of fish almost everyday doing this. We had fish regularly.
Dad used a spinning rod only, once they came on the market in the fifties. Before that he used a bamboo pole or steel telescoping rod to fish on the streams and rivers close to home--mostly Snake Creek, the Big Ditch behind our house, Mahogany Springs, and the Provo River. He never used a classic fly-fishing rod on the rivers and streams like I did.
