South Park River Fishing - Sept 21, 2010

Darren and I decided late on Monday that we were going fishing today. D met me at 4:35am and we were on the road, hit Sonic in Woodland Park around 6am and were in the parking lot at 6:30 am or so. The weather wasn't that bad, although it was 34 degrees, there was some breeze, but otherwise pleasant. We jumped in the bend pool and fished some small flies. Darren hooked up right away with a small cutthroat, then lost a couple, then landed a couple more. The first two fish Darren landed had hooks/flies in their mouths and had tippet/line hanging out their asses. D clipped the lines and pulled the hooks the best he could. We would notice at least a half dozen fish today with the same problem - flies and fly line still in them. Sad to see.

This was a pretty bow that Darren caught:



The sun popped over the canyon and warmed us nicely. Darren continue to pop fish left and right but I could not even get a hit. I went the first 4 hours of the morning fishless. I was a little nervous I had forgotten how to river fish - it had been quite a while. The day continued to be picture perfect - in fact, kind of hot - probably low 70's and a few small puffy clouds in the sky.

This was a funny action scene of a fish that just wanted out! D couldn't even hold onto him.




I was amazing at how many boot lickers there were there - and big fish too - close to 16 inchers that would come right up to you and there would be a dozen or so within a 25 foot span down the river perpendicular to me. Crazy.



Around lunch time I finally hooked a boot licker and landed a pretty cutthroat. Then a BWO hatch started coming off and the fish started going nuts. Large fish were popping in the back side of the bend pool behind the logjam. I switched to a size 24 griffin's gnat kind of fly and landed two sweet cutts of about 15 and 16 inches. These fish were gorgeous, when you see them in the water they look red on top and golden on their bellies and they have beautiful bright orange red gashes on their throats.



We had still not seen a soul come into the parking lot and we had the bend pool completely to ourselves. We did however want to catch some more fish so we stopped at the car, had a beer, peeled off some layers and then headed back down below the bend.



Darren got ahead of me and we fished separately for about an hour - we met back up further down river - D had seen a ton of other people, so he was headed back my way. I managed a few fish in the shallow wide section of river - including this thick (but short) brown that was beautifully colored and had bright white tipped fins.



Darren and I fished the rock pool at the end of the long run. We saw tons of fish and caught a few also. At the big pool at the end D managed to catch some pigs - 3 or 4 of them, including a nice brown and a bright colored rainbow. I tried streamer fishing, but lost it and basically reeled in and called it quits. I acted as a guide for Darren back towards the parking lot - pointing out all the fish I had fished to on the way down. Here is D hooking up next to a log - he lost this one, but this is a cool action shot.



Then we saw a lunker - probably the biggest fish of the day. I spotted him and D got in position for a good cast. 3 casts and she was on. This is her when we landed her and this is her spilling her eggs. Weird for a bow to have eggs this time of year. Pretty fish and the best (largest) of the day.







Not the best day as for numbers of fish for me. I just couldn't get in the groove and was getting a bit frustrated. We hit the road about 2:30 and were home by 4:30. Thanks for driving D and thanks for taking me.