072812 - Colorado River - Radium/Pumphouse/Parshall

Fished with Werm for the first time in a long time. Met up at 4am and headed for Radium. Got to Radium about 6:30am and it was chocolate milk - the stream just above it was pumping out about 50 cfs of mud and it was mucking up the river. We still fished it at the bridge. It was a great morning with the clouds still covering the valley and the fog taking it's time to burn off. We fished big stuff - Pat's and SJW's - Werm hooked up quickly (as he always does) and had about 4 in this spot - nothing of any size. I had one on briefly, a brown that might not have been 11 inches. Flows were in the 1020 cfs range.

The river wasn't getting much better, so we moved up river to Pumphouse. The place was packed! There had to be 100 cars down there, 80 rafts/boats/guides and 300 people. We fished the middle boat ramp and I got skunked. Werm hooked up on a few, including a really nice 18-19 inch brown. Water was in the 1000 cfs range I would guess and it was tinted green but still very fishable.

Our luck wasn't very good here either, so at about 11 we headed over to Parshall. Every hole along the way was full with at least 3 cars, so our luck didn't look good to squeeze into Parshall. But, to our surprise, the parking lot had no cars. I literally jumped out of Werm's truck and ran to the hole (well, ok, not literally). Actually, we had about a 5 second head start on the mosquitos and were quickly hosing ourselves down with bug spray.

The water was high at Parshall but crystal clear and cold (maybe 350 cfs??), and we jumped in. We saw two baby eagles flying around the bluffs making a ton of noise. Not another fisherman in site. Werm of course hooked up quickly catching a few small browns right off on a Pat's. I basically was off today. I did manage to hook a dink - and it was maybe 4 inches long. Werm tried to softed my hurt ego by saying "it can't get any worse", then I proceeded to catch a 3 inch brown, followed by 2 more 4 inchers. Yes, someohow it could get worse! But, it was nice to see the younger class of fish in there.

I moved up to the far side of the bend and hooked and landed a nice 15 inch, thick rainbow that was spinning in that hole. But, that was it for the day - nothing else after that. We ended up calling it quits around 2pm and I was home around 4:15.

Thanks for driving Werm! I don't think I am giving away any secrets here. It was a tough day fishing. With hot sunshine and warm waters and rain in the mtns the night before, it made things tough. The trip was a lot of fun though and I am glad I got out and spent some time on the river.