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.

072212 - The Sharks at Keystone

Spent my bday in Keystone with the family, spent some time at the village and then had lunch at Keystone Lake. Didn't realize these pigs were in there - saw some 5-8 lbers in there - pretty amazing. Also, you can pay great money to learn to fly fish in this lake (the only fishing allowed). The "guide" takes you out in a belly boat attached to a rope and as you cast to the fish (I assume he had a dry fly on) he throws dog food at your fly and amazingly you hook into a fish. It was the best pure fly fishing experience you can get....for $200. The dick guide then let the guy fight the fish for about 10 minutes - the poor 16 inch fish never had a chance. The dude in the other belly boat (not the guide) said "nice fish". It was the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

Grand Lake and Boulder Creek

I got a chance to hang with the family and friends this weekend - and got to fish with both.

I headed up to Grand Lake with the family on Saturday - we had breakfast, looked at a cabin, got lunch, headed to the boat docks, got ice cream, did some fishing, headed to the beach, had dinner and then were back home by 9:30pm.
It was a great day in one of the most beautiful parts of Colorado.





We used worms and caught a bunch of little stockers between 6 and 10 inches and two that were about 12 inches. The kids had a blast and were somewhat into it - until the ADD kicked in.

On Sunday I went up to Boulder to hang with Steffan and get my brakes done - he has all the tools and the knowledge to fix anything - so it was easier to go to his house. After a couple trips to the auto parts store it only took about 20 minutes to replace my front brake pads and rotate my tires. We hit up brunch and hung with his wife for a while - then made our way to Boulder Creek. It was a hot day and the water felt awesome. We managed a bunch of 4-10 inch browns - Steffan on dries and I used a couple midges.





It was a great way to beat the heat and hang with Steffan. Normally we hang out a couple times a week at lunch during work, but the last few weeks (basically all summer) have been too hectic for both of us. We need to find more time to hang out. Thanks again man for helping with the brakes!

Dillon Reservior Camping/Fishing

Technically it was considered a day fishing out on the lake, with worms and a Transformer rod. Camped overnight and rented a boat and hit Dillon, it was a lot of fun for the kids - one hit on the worm, but nothing took.

South Park - Sunday, May 20, 2012

Scott and I met at the K&G at 4:30AM, gassed up my truck and the boat and were at the Gate at 6AM(ish). We hit the boat ramp by the dam and had the boat in the water at 6:30. Scott parked the truck and I held the boat while he fired Big Red up. Problem is, she wouldn't fire up. We tried for a good 40 minutes, drained one battery and the other was close to broke before we decided we would be ditching the boat and hiking in. We pulled the boat our of the water and in the parking lot we started tying her up - Scott straightened the engine and decided to give it one more crank - and Big Red started right up.

We got her back in the water and were over to one of our favorite spots at around 7:30. There were already 4 or 5 boats over in that direction, but no one directly in our spot. We anchored up and threw our lines in and it was slow. Scott ass hooked and landed two fish within a few minutes and it was just slow.

We fished multiple spots throughout the day. All areas produced hits, but they were very sporadic. Lots of smaller stockers found, lots of jumpers and fiesty fish, but nothing of any size or special - all were rainbows, all caught on chiro's of grey/black/yellow/tan.

The cool part about the day was the bugs - LOTS of huge chiros hatching, mostly grey and black with a chartruese ribbing (cool looking). The chiros were to be expected, but what wasn't expected was the callibaetis hatch - on the east side of the lake the callis were EVERYWHERE and huge - they were easily size 8 or 10's, and they were all over the water. I tried a calli pattern to no avail. I did not see the fish hitting the surface taking callis. We did see lots of fish slapping the surface on the west side - but no notable slurps - mostly just jumping. Lots of 6-8 inch fish doing aerials out of the water about 50 feet from the boat. Maybe the fish were full from the week or two prior of a full menu of chiro's??

Honestly the trip was disappointing - our hopes were an epic chiro hatch with the fish taking our flies easily. I think we missed that first hatch that makes the fish nuts, and we may be in summer mode in South Park already. Water temps were 55 degrees all day. The weather was very nice, a low cloud cover took until 9am to burn off, then it was mostly sunny all day long - the air temp rose all day and the winds stayed down all day as well. Very nice day to be on the boat.

Catch of the day was finding a bell anchor attached to our anchor.

I think we caught 20 fish all day - most in the 14-15 inch range, a few much much smaller and maybe 3 fish in the 16-18 inch range. Like I said, nothing special.

South Park Fishing Weekend - April 26-28, 2012

I got a chance to spend a few days with some friends in South Park - wasn't the planned trip to the Bighorn, but was still a lot of fun. The weather was CRAZY, we drank way too much beer, and the fishing wasn't great, but it was still a great time. Enjoy the fish porn!

South Park Stillwater - April 7, 2012

I fished a famous South Park stillwater on Saturday with a bunch of buddies. It was epic. I'm not going to say the name because I'm sure you all know which one - but luckily you don't know this spot.

We all caught tons of fish, all fish were healthy and it is going to be a great year for this lake. We have a bit of a tradition amongst my buddies - it is the Old Chub Chug - my buddy Scott had the honors after landing a fish on his first cast.





I managed double digit fish for the day all about one or two at 18+ inches. Including this 23.5 inch rainbow that looked like a steelhead - it was my first fish of the day.





That was a nice surprise.

I saw a couple videos on the internet where a guy had put his Go Pro camera on his net and took videos of landing and releasing fish - it was an awesome idea and I hooked mine up to do the same. Lots of videos and a bunch of still shots - great tool to have during a fishing outing. Check out these pics I took from the videos:















We fished all day, wind was up a little bit, but calmed down at the end of the day. Home by 7pm - it was an awesome day - thanks guys for hitting it with me!