Sylvan Lake Camping, Fri July 22 - Sun July 24, 2011

So, we did a little camping this weekend up in the mountains at Sylvan Lake (15 miles south of Eagle). The place is great for kids - 15 miles away from any town - keeps the riff raff out. Just a bunch of families enjoying the lake, mountains and sun. Got up there Friday around 6pm, set up the camper, made some hot dogs, started a fire and had smores. The kids were pretty wired from being in the mountains and enjoyed running around the campground and "walking" Cabo. Hit the hay pretty early - probably 10pm or so.

I got up at 5:30 on Saturday morning and took the dog and kayak out on the lake. The wind was steady in your face from the far side of the lake - nothing too bad though, just had to dig in the paddles a little more. I like the inlet to the lake because the water seems to be moving a little and I have seen fish in that section. I set up shop about 60 yards from the inlet and dropped anchor.







I was surprised how cold the breeze was and the sun wasn't even visible on the far off peaks yet. I started getting hits right away - had a orange scud/grey chiro/peach pegged egg rig on. The first fish I had on was the best, I never landed it, but I could tell it was good sized as it started running horizontal at a very fast pace - no head shakes, not real tugs, just a 20 foot run to the side in about 2 seconds and he was off. I was excited to get a hit so quickly. The indicator kept bouncing, but I wasn't hooking into anything. Finally, I got a pretty little rainbow. He was maybe 11 inches, not much of a pull on the rod - but it was fun to be into fish.



Soon after that I had anohter hit, a fun little fight and landed this brookie (again, about 11 inches) on the chiro. My first brookie in a long long time.





I managed another rainbow, and tried drifting back with the wind to the boat ramp. But the wind stopped, the sun came out strong and the fishing turned off. I saw the family waving at me back at the ramp, so I paddled out.

We had a fun day of playing in the water, eating lunch, and hiking - the kids got grumpy and the wife wanted a nap - so they crashed in the camper around 3pm and I hit the water again. I trolled around a few spots - again, a bunch of plops on the indicator, but nothing I could hook up with. I caught one nice 11 inch rainbow, then hooked a tiny rainbow as I had just cast my rig - must have been falling through the water column. I paddled back down to the inlet and hooked this brookie - again, same size - this one on a green scud.





I was done by about 5:30 and paddles back to the boat ramp. Avi and Mom were awake, but Z and Emma were still sleeping. We woke them up and headed into Eagle for Diner food and bowling. We got back to camp around 9:30 and had a small fire and more smores (of course). Hit bed around 10 again. I was going to get up the next morning and fish, but Avi slept next to me and there was no way to sneak out without waking her - so I slept in.

Sunday we played some more in the water - found lots of mayflies, damsel flies, thousands of grey/green scuds and just had fun checking it out. Here are some more fun pics of the weekend:







Great weather all weekend, no rain, in the mid-80's. We tried some off roading on the roads up behind Sylvan - went about 10 miles deep trying to find the old resort beaver ponds, but couldn't find them. Took all the roads back there, but couldn't find them. We did find Lede Reservoir - which was infested with horseflies. Some rough road back there. I would guess we were almost all the way over to Ruedi, but we didn't see any signs for it. Very pretty country.

We hit some traffic coming home, so we stopped in Frisco at the brewery for some food and sitting on the deck - very relaxing. Got home around 4pm. A very nice trip with the family.

South Park lake fishing - July 12, 2011

D and I hit up a lake in SP - first boat on the water at 6am - by over a half an hour. Morning was dead calm, and dead slow. The first thing I noticed in the morning was the noser - hundreds of fishing nosing up in the water really early in the morning. It was a sea of noses.



D picked up 4, missed at least a dozen others. I landed 2 - had another half dozen or so takes.





D's last fish of the morning was a sweet 20+inch fat bow caught on a red brassie chiro.



We could see a huge storm and thunder/lightning hitting just south of the dam - a couple of miles away. Since it was way off we weren't nervous. It was still partly sunny over our heads - we had missed the storm. Then a clap of thunder and lightning hit right over our heads, and we were reeled in and headed for shore in less than 30 secs. It started raining, so we docked the boat and sat in the truck and ate lunch around 1pm. 20 mins later it had stopped and the sun was out - we fished right off the parking lot and started hammering them. Of course the storm decided to come back over the mtns and just pounded us for the nmext hour - on and off. But we kept slamming the fish - catching about 15 or so in the next 1:45 mins.

During the rain storm! I wish I could explain how hard and wet it rained.



Flies: we caught a couple on chiros, but most everything on eggs.

Bugs: one huge damsel in army man green - a size 8 I'd say. Some size 12 yellow caddis - cool looking, but they crawl up your neck (weird). And tons of callibaetis - the dries were a size 10 or so and they were light tan/light grey/albino colored - they were everywhere. No sign of chiros - which was weird.

This is a pic of soaked D and his cool boat. We were headed out - the weather kicked our butt, but it was fun!



Home by 5:30 or so. Thanks for floating us D!