Beautiful hot day, probably 85 degrees, no idea of the flows although they seemed low.
We camped at Grand Lake for the weekend to escape the heat of the city. Grand Lake is beautiful - definitely one of our favorites. Cabo and I got a chance to fish while Avelyn took a nap from 1:30 to about 5. Tried a new spot I had heard about - it's located between Shadow Mtn Lake and Granby on a fee area of the Natioanl Forest land. The river was beautiful, although it was pretty low - so there were limited numbers of areas that the water was deep enough. The bottom was heavily carpeted with green weeds, so adding weight just made dragging the bottom very common. I spent a lot of time cleaning weeds off my flies.
The fish were hitting everything and anything and I must have hook about 100 fish in the short period of time - on everything from tiny midges to larger nymphs to a dry fly caddis. The fish however shook so much that many of them actually shook of the hook. I think I lost about 90% of them. The ones I did catch were tiny - 8 inch stocker rainbows with no fins on their cheeks - all worn down from the stocking oens and other fish living on top of each other and pecking them off. That didn't deter the fish though - they all fought well and hit like hammers. I did manage to hook one nice 16 inch rainbow in a side channel that held about 100 fish - I hooked him 3 times, but never did get him to hand.
The river was tough to walk on, boulders just the size of basketballs and covered in mucky green weeds and yuck. Cabo and I made it down river a bit - but never did get down to the big fish! I did see another angler and asked him if he had luck - he said he did - but it was down quite a ways. I was already pushing my luck and so I knew I couldn't move down anymore and get back on time. I did hook one nice brown, I played him for a minute, but again, he wiggled off. I hiked out and made it back just in time for my 5pm deadline.
Here are some pics of our camping trip:
Cabo, she's a bit obsessed with the ball.
Some elk hanging out near our campsite.
Cabo jumping off the dock after the ball.
Daddy and avi standing over the Colorodao River headwaters.
A cool photo of Mom and Avi playing on the dock.
Avi playing ball with Cabo and the ChuckIt.
A friendly moose just outside of the campground in RMNP.
2 comments:
Looks fun! I noticed a lot of brown trees in the background. Beetle?
yes, it was a shame to see the beetle kill down there. Grand Lake and the neighboring towns are taking down many of the trees - leaving large amounts of the wood along the roads for people to take as firewood.
there is a lot more homes with views of the lake because of all the beetle kill. it is still one of my favorite places in Colorado.
Post a Comment