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.

Saturday, Sept 25 - TU Clear Creek Cleanup

TU Annual River Clean Up

I think I will be taking my daughter Avelyn and heading up to Idaho Springs on that Saturday. Might not be there right at 9am, but will be there. I think she will really enjoy helping out and I want to be sure she knows that fly fishing isn't just about the fish, but rather about river/sport conservation for everyone.

I might even take the fly rod and see if we can catch a fish or two.

I did this for 3 or 4 years in a row - the last time out I met a couple of nice guys from other TU units. I also spotted a couple of nice holes where the fish are at - so it was good to learn a little something about Clear Creek.

I hope you all can join me in helping out.

Sunday, Sept 12, 2010 - RMNP

I have been dying to get up to RMNP for some fishing for quite a while, and when my co-worker told me his fly fishing brother from LA would be in town I used it as an excuse to get a hall pass and head up to RMNP. My neighbor Tom was added at the last second, so he met me outside my house at 5:30am, we headed over to Englewood to pick up Oliver and we were on I25 by 6am. Going through Estes we saw a huge herd of elk next to the lake - they almost looked like statues - always cool to see them there. We pulled into the parking area right before 8am. My buddy Steffan was waiting for us. We dressed quickly and started the hike in. Oliver and Tom got their butts kicked due to the quick altitude increase - Steffan and I made several stops to let them catch up and catch their breaths. We did manage to make it up the hill though. This time of year the water is super low, the question was how low would it be now. I wasn't really sure what the fishing would be like in September (I've fished it in July when there was still some late stage runoff happening).

I don't have to explain to anyone how beautiful RMNP is. It was especially beautiful today. Highs of about 70 degrees, lots of sunshine, a few clouds - just beautiful. A slight breeze, but it wasn't cold. The water however was ice cold, and it stung to put my hand in for the first time. Steffan and Oliver dropped off the ledge and found nice fishing holes. Tom and I made our way to the bridge to start. This was Tom's first time ever fly fsihing so I wanted to show him all the basics, set up, tying knots, flies, etc. We took a few minutes and I showed him. A guy on a horse came running through - right through the water we were going to fish. No big deal really since this water is full of little dumb fish who go right back to doing what they were doing 5 seconds before the interuption.

I am not a good teacher at all - so I knew I would get frustrated quickly - I was hoping for the best. Surprisingly, Tom was a pretty quick learned. His casting was a mess, but let's be honest - there isn't any room up there to cast. We spotted a fish right next to the bridge and I pointed the fish out. Tom couldn't see it - I literally almost poked the fish with the rod tip before he finally saw it. We had a dry/dropper on first and tried working that. Tom casted pretty well and had the fly right over the fish pretty easily. The fly went past the fish one time and stopped - I told him to set the hook, then after what seemed like a 2 second delay he set it and we had fish on. First fish in less than 5 minutes of fishing.

Hey, you can't teach a guy to pose with his first fish caught on a fly rod!

We hole hopped after that and Tom basically went out on his own the rest of the day. Since the water was so low you had to hole hop, looking for water that was wide and slow enough to hold a fish. I would find a nice hole, catch a fish then have to move - the pool would be too spooked. We met up off an on during the day. I saw Tom and he told me he caught 2 more on his own - and he was hooked. Oliver caught a few as well and got a photo of a beauty for his "wall of species". He was very impressed with the coloration on these fish.

Steffan finally appeared, fished with us a litle, then told us he had to go. I had no idea what time he left, mainly because my watch was dead. At 3pm Oliver asked if we were ready to leave, I looked down and said it was only 1pm (that is what my watch said) - he showed me it was 3pm - so we packed up and headed out. We hiked out and were home by 6pm. We did notice the huge plume of smoke behind us when we hit I25 in Longmont - that fire in Loveland looked scary. Here are some more pics - sorry, not a bunch of scenery pics.









I took a bunch of underwater videos with the new GoPro Hero Cam. I would find a deeper hole with lots of fish, fish to them, spook the pool enough and then put the camera in it - let it settle, then come back and get the camera after getting some footage. I was surprised to see just how fast the fish would go right back to their normal routine. Here is a stillshot of a fish that came right up to the camera - not camera shy at all.



Here is a great video of me catching a little guy - just dumb luck I would get one on my second cast.

RMNP Roaring River from Brandon Harnois on Vimeo.

A very good day of fishing the Park. It was relatively quiet - only saw 4 other fishermen and only for a brief few minuts until they moved on.

Sept 4-5, 2010 - Camping & some fishing

Avi and I decided to hit Guanella Pass to do some camping with a neighbor and his young daughter. His daughter and Avi are a year apart and are best friends, so this was going to be a fun time with just the Dad's. We left HR around 9, got to Scott's around 10 to pick up the camper and then found that it had a flat, did a quick pit stop tire change and decided to hit Big O tire to get the flat fixed. Luckily it was only the valve stem and was fixed in less than 10 minutes for free. Big O is a great place.

We hit Grant and took a right and headed up Guanella Pass. There were a lot of people at all the low altitude camp sites, but it started thinning out pretty quickly. I was a little nervous because everyone had told me that it would be very crowded and all the good spots would be taken on a holiday weekend (especially leaving Saturday morning) - this was (thankfully) not true. We drove by a few spots that had people in them but went deep into the woods and had no one in the deepest parts, the third place we drove into was right at the base of the winding paved road that heads up to Guanella Pass. We drove into a big meadow and found a very nice spot, large enough for about a group of 10 tents/campers - but I didn't want to take up this huge area, so we found a spot right next to the road, but right on the creek. It was perfect.

We set up camp and then took a ride up to the pass and walked down to the lake.



You can see Mt Bierstadt (14,060 ft) here in the picture (top right peak).



It was a beautiful day, a little windy, but about 60 degrees - even up there.

We hiked around our campsite a bit, checking out the creek that went through it. I tried to take an underwater video of an undercut bank that held a couple of tiny fish, but the water was took dark and nothing came out (too bad). We did play in the water and did see quite a few small fish.



That night we played an hour long game of Uno that wouldn't end. Then Avi decided to do something extremely stupid and put her finger on the lantern glass and burned her fingers. She screamed for over 40 minutes, saying she wanted to go home and wanted her mommie. It was a bit embarrassing and out of control - I think neighboring campers over 100 yards away thought something terribly wrong happened. I iced the finger and tried my hardest to calm her down, but she was over tired, hadn't napped and was just hysterical. Fun time. She passed out around 9:30 and I slept with her on one side of the camper - along with a passed out mutt at my feet. To say the least I did not get much sleep.

Avi and I got up at 7, made a fire and started some pancakes. Miraculously the finger felt fine - just the normal bubble on the fingertip from a burn. My neighbor woke up, ate breakfast, then we went to try to get some of thise fish on a fly rod. I cast a caddis to a few fish, had one really good look, but no bite. We did see some beautiful fish including one 12 inch brookie that was green on top with a bright orange belly. Beautiful fish. The water was very very low - which I assuem is normal this time of year. We packed up cam and were home by 1:15pm today. I cleaned the camper and restocked it the rest of the afternoon.

This is the girls showing me their muscles.

August 29, 2010 - Sunday - Stillwater Fishing

I'll be honest, I didn't sleep at all - sure I closed my eyes, but I woke up at least a dozen times to glance at the clock, each time it inched closer to when the alarm was set for. But I never made it, I never do - my eyes popped open at 4:15am and I decided that was close enough - turned off the alarm clock and got dressed in the dark. Pretty standard rituals for us guys who want to hit the waters not so close to home. Some of us do this every day just to get to work - I don't know how you do it Darren!

I pulled out of the driveway at 4:35am, the truck already fully packed the night before. Now it was time for the 2 hour journey to South Park. I hate making these trips alone - I usually need a second mate to blame the trip on (you know - "I went because Werms wanted to go"). I tried for about the first hour (almost all the way to Kenosha Pass) to talk myself into turning around, calling Scott and telling him I wasn't going to make it, then crawl back into bed with the wife. I tried, but no success. After Kenosha Pass I had decided that I was past the half way point, and it was going to be dawn soon - so the trip would get easier. It really didn't. Sure, I was awake, awake with anticipation of a good day - but in the back of my mind I was always thinking - what happens if I get skunked? It could happen.

I pulled into the North Boat Ramp at Spin at 6:35 - no sign of Scott and Scotty. Maybe they ain't coming. I'll kill'em. I call Scott's phone, and he answers - finally - bastard didn't pick up all Saturday when I wanted to know how the fishing was with Werm (yeah - where the hell is the report and pics??). He's right behind me - and we are pushing off from South Ramp - so I peel out and head to South. We pull into the lot together. Exchange handshakes and a couple quick barbs at Jr and before I know it we are on the water. It isn't cold, but it isn't warm. Wind is already up a little, not a good sign for the rest of the day.

We head straight to the other side of the lake - into a nice little cove area in the NW corner. Scotty starts dragging a big Club Sandwich trying to imitate a big ugly caddis skittering along the water. He manages one huge hit - but land nothing. We decide to hole up right next to a weed bed. It was quiet for a long time - Scott had two on, but lost them, Scotty had two on but lost them - I managed the only fish of the morning a nice 20 inch rainbow.





We decided to move south along the shoreline, not much to tell for the next couple of hours - lots of misses, no fish in the net. It appeared the fish were not in the shallows and we could see them on the fish finder when we moved from spot to spot in the deeper water. So we decided to hit a huge weed bed out on the middle. We anchored down and Scott hooked up right away - a nice fight, but soon the fish broke him off. It was not a good sign for the day - in fact I could see Scotty and I's day about to head for the shitter if Scott didn't land one of these big hits soon.

The phone rings....Werms! Dude - we got nothing - 1 fish and Scott is pissy, I gotta go. A few minutes later Scott's phone rings - it's the wife, she'd meeting us and is almost there, come pick her......wait, I have a fish, I have to go. Then bang - another fish pops off. We decide to go get Kelly at the dock. A quick trip in and a quick return right to the same spot. We need to get Scott into a fish or we might all die.

About 2 minutes later Scott is hooked up, and as I'm getting the camera ready to film Scott landing the fish I feel a tug and next think I know we have a double. These fish were twins (not technically, Scott's was a 1/2 inch bigger and a lot fatter) - and it was a nice break from losing fish. Maybe we were onto something.





I'm a big fan of harassing Jr, I mean the poor kid better get used to it. The problem is when the kid slams back to back 22 inchers in a matter of 15 minutes it makes it a lot tougher to pick on him. Don't feel too bad for him, the kid can dish out the shit too. Like father, like son.





Although we had some luck, we weren't exactly lighting it up, we spent about an hour and a half in the hole with not a ton more success after the initial few fish - so we decided to move to the bluffs. We never actually made it to the bluffs - Scott was watching the fish finder when we did about 100 mph over a ton of fish, so we scooted back to a nice shelf that looked promising. I don't have a whole lot more to say then WOW. We didn't "kill them" here, but we caught some of the biggest fish we have ever caught in here. Between the 3 of us we fished from about 12:30 to 3:30 and landed about 10 pigs. The largest being a 23 inch almost 5 lber by Scott and I had 23 incher that was slightly skinnier, here are some of the pics:







We lost a ton of good fish - I had on a nice looking colorful pink rainbow that I lost at the net. I missed a pig of Scott's when I hooked the top fly in the net on him (sorry bud). Scott also had a fish sink him - straight into the weeds. It stopped fighting and Scott was still hung up on the bottom - just waiting - he had to break it off. So strange. Lots of other unbuttons, but that is pretty typical day.

Oh, and our last fish of the day - by the pike slayer:



Not a knock'em dead day, but it was pretty damn good. The morning SUCKED! But the afternoon more than made up for it. About 15 fish boated - only 4 were smaller than 18 inches, 5 were at least 22 inches. Unreal.

Flies of the day were size 14 orange scuds and a size 14 damsel. I had some on chiro's but not consistently. Water temp was 62 in the AM and 65 when we left. Lots of big clouds, but partly sunny temps were about 72-75 degrees.

Thanks for the great trip Scott and Scotty and thanks for putting up with all of us Kelly!

FOTD - Roughfisher Scuds

Roughfisher has some nice looking scud on his site this AM. Great colors and great ties. These look like they would work great rolling on the bottom of the river.

Wish my scuds came out looking that nice (not to mention the photography!). Great ties Ruf!

Caddis for Spinney

So I finally tied up some nice bugs - good enough to eat. I can't wait for Spinney on Sunday. I tied up a couple of emergers too - because if the trout are slamming the dries they will be cruising for emergers too! Let me know what you think.

GoPro Helmet Camera

For those of you who are interested in getting an "EXTREME" HD video/still camera, this is highly recommended. I got it about a month ago and love it - it takes amazing video and stills. Underwater it is just as good. I have taken it surfing, fishing, camping, to the pool, on my daughter's bike helmet, my inline hockey games, basically everywhere. Things works great.


GoPro Helmet HD Camera

My buddy here at work just bought one and took the below video of his drive into work on his motorcycle - this looks cool! Great video taken at 60 fps in 720p. Battery lasts 2.5 hours.

2009 Suzuki V-Strom DL1000 from Tim K. on Vimeo.

August 11, 2010 - Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island

Sorry it has taken me so long to post. I haven't exactly been tearing it up fishing, been busy with work, family stuff, and camping.

Anyways. The family and I did the every other year family get together trip to Narragansett, RI last week. The trip was awesome. Got there Friday around 6. The cottage we stayed at was super nice - just redone - way over done considering it is a cottage and college kids live there from Sept-May. But it was nice to have everything redone in the last month or so.

Saturday we decided to do some clamming at low tide. If anyone hasn't been clamming it is quite an experience - you go out to the mud flats and walk barefoot in the water and feel for "rocks" - those rocks are usually quohoags. You can sometimes use a rake to feel for these "rocks" - about 14 of us went out and got about 6 dozen clams over a couple of hours. I got a sweet sunburn on my ass from bending over so much.




On the way back, we decided to get some crabs for lunch - so we stopped at the boats that are docked in Narragansett Harbor - they were good, but not great.



Sunday Jen had friends down from college (and all their rug rats) - we decided we had already waited too long for lobster - so I splurged and bought 16 lobsters and Jen's Uncle Tony bought the big one - a 6.5 lber. We ate well.




Monday and Tuesday were mostly beach days, including one night at around 7:30 when all the old guys (me included) went out and body surfed the larger waves at high tide. Fun stuff. There was a tropical storm off the coast that caused some higher than normal waves.

Wednesday we did a little fishing before heading up to Boston for the afternoon to see my grandfather. We caught 5 flounder, all small, and a couple of seagulls. No, seriously, my sister in law caught the same seagull twice. She had very little weight on her line so when she cast the bait would take a few seconds to sink and the seagull would grab it - get the hook stuck in its beak and then start flying away - to no avail. After a minute or so the bird flipped the hook out. Funny though.





On the way to Boston we stopped off at the Bass Pro Shop in Foxborough next to the Patriots Stadium - had to get some Seagaur tippet. Got a cool photo of me and the kids with the Captn Hook bear chasing us (the bear was missing a few fingers on it's left paw!).



We hit Boston that night and I stopped and got my Poppy a nice lobster roll at Kelly's. Had a sweet fish sandwich and a scallop plate as well - worth every frickin' penny.

Thursday was again a beach day - just hung out and relaxed. Luckily we did steamers on Thursday night as an appetizer - these were ok as well (not great). This pile was not nearly enough to satisfy me.




Friday we had friends visit again, basically spent all day at the beach.

Saturday we were out of there at 10am and had a 5pm flight - home by 11:30pm.

That was the trip - not a lot of fishing, but still a good time. I dragged the 7wt down there and a bunch of Clouser's but never really had a chance to use them - used the rod on the flounder which was kind of fun.

We have a block party this weekend, then who knows what is up the following weekend - Spinney maybe?

Taylor River and Taylor Res 7/24 & 7/25

I don't have a lot to report - except a double skunk-itude.

Scott and I (and our families) camped at the Taylor this weekend (he is still there until Wednesday) and we got a chance to fish on the boat and the tailwater. Saturday night we headed over to the tailwater for some night fishing around 10:30pm until 12:30am. I saw a few, we heard a few jump, but neither of us hooked up. There was a lot of people over there - which was kind of surprising.

On Sunday Scott took us out on the boat - I tried my hand with the fly rod for trout - but no luck. His son (Scotty) however hooked this pretty 19 inch pike that Scott showed to my daughter Avelyn.



That was about it. It was nice to get out on the boat and have the kids experience it for the first time. They really enjoyed it and that was all Avi talked about the next day!

Big T - July 10, 2010

We went camping this weekend with Scott and family. Stayed at Elk Meadows RV Park - don't ever waste your time going there - it is a joke. We did however have a great time - even if there were 25 other campers within a 30 foot radius.

We had planned to fish the Roaring River in RMNP, but Z decided to wake up about 5:15am (15 minutes before we were scheduled to leave) and he was not going to let us sneak out without giving Jen a really hard time. So basically everyone got up at 5:30am and started the day a little earlier than expected. Trying not to piss off my wife the day before her birthday I decided to hang close until nap time for Z. Basically the RR was out and we'd have to fish closer to camp.

There are some pics of our campsites with my new GoPro Helmet cam - set at taking pics every 10 secs. These are some pretty cool pics for a video camera - and I actually like the warped edges of the wide angle lens. And yes, I got a lot of shit from Scott and family, but it was worth it - I got some great video too.





At around 9am when Z went down for a nap we headed to the Big T below the dam. The water was flowing perfectly at 143 cfs. We hit Steffan's (not so) secret spot (sorry dude). The spot was perfect - no one in it and we dressed quickly and got on the river. The pics below are from the helmet cam - set up to shoot every 10 seconds. Yes, I had about 140 pics I deleted - with random triplicate shots of the same fishing hole. But these are some of the best ones. You can really see the curvature of the bridge taken by the wide angle lense.











And of course - my favorite picture ever:



The bad news is that none of us caught anything - which is pretty embarrassing to say the least - considering how dumb the fish are in the Big T. I hooked 4 or 5, but couldn't land a damn thing. We could see lots and lots of fish as well - but I could not figure out what they were eating.

We hit another spot, but had no luck either and were back at the camp site at 12:30pm. Not much more than that to report.

I will try and post a video from the camera after I cut it up and get it up on Vimeo.

Updated to add video:

New GoPro Camera - Big T Fishing from Brandon Harnois on Vimeo.