Colorado River - November 17, 2011

Werm and I decided to do some fishing during the week to escape the crowds and before it got too cold. On a tip from a friend, we decided to hit the Colorado River (specific spot is intentially omitted for fear that it will be hotspotted). Werm was at my house at 4:30am and we hit the road. The ride was pretty uneventful, but it was beautiful to see the sun rise against the snow on the mtns backdrop. We were in the parking lot at 6:30 and suited up. The morning was about 15 degrees, but no wind and the flows were good at 573 cfs.

We jumped into the bridge pool, Werm was pre-rigged and ready to go, I set up the camera behind him and recorded his first few minutes. In the 10 minutes of filming him he caught 6 fish, and it didnt stop all day long. He caught those 6 fish before I even wet my line. I was struggling to get going. The hot fly all day was the chartruese egg. Werm kept slamming them throughout morning - getting about 20 before I even managed my first. We fished below and above the bridge and Werm torn it up.

The absolute funniest part of the morning was when Werm got a tangle and was undoing it, I jumped into his hole just in time to see a huge brown head surface between me and my indicator. My first reaction was that a huge carp was surfacing, but them I saw two eyes and a face and I screamed, pooped myself a little bit and started running and falling to get out of the water - I put my arm down to brace my fall and got soaked, but I avoided the huge beaver that just surfaced less than 3 feet from me. Problem is, I still had my rod in my hand and now the indicator was zooming to the middle of the run - I had a small dog sized beaver on my rod. Luckily within seconds he broke off, taking my entire rig and my indicator floated freely down river.







At about 11am I finally started catching fish. The first was a nice 18 inch fat rainbow - that looked like a stillwater pig. I then got a few more, including some large whities. Werm didnt stop all day, continually catching fish after fish. It was fun watching him catch fish - he must have had at least 40 - all on the chartruese egg. I caught 2 on a gray sparkle RS2 - both whities. The afternoon saw my start catching a few more, but after 12:30 or so we only caught dinks - all were under 13 inches.

What a great day to be out - great fishing, some good beer, the fish cooperated, even some big ones. We left about 1:30 and were back at my house at 4. I forgot to mention I did catch a fish in the morning. I snagged a stick that had a brown trout wrapped in monofilament dead on it - so technically I caught a fish. Dead fish are way harder to catch than alive fish - just sayin'.

Werm poked around under some rocks and found some huge stoneflies - they were easily 2 or 3 inches long.




Thanks for driving Werm - can't wait to do it again!!