Day 3 of vacation!

So, I went to bed again pretty late on Day 1, and when I woke up a little hungover and around 6am on Day 2, it was raining outside and I convinced myself not to go fishing.  The night of day 2 was also a tough drinking night, but I made it a point to get my ass out of bed on the morning of Day 3.

I decided to hit the spillway between Shadow Mountain and Granby - it is super close and I knew I'd pick up a few fish.

Along the way I did see a moose feeding on the trees in one of the clear cut sections by the expensive houses along the way to the Spillway.  I made it to the parking lot around 6am and on the water right around 6:15am.  I hiked into the top section and found the water to be that nasty looking green slippery weeds that looks like rock snot - it isn't rock snot, but covers everything and is slippery as hell and causes walking on it to be impossible.  I spotted a osprey's nest high up in a tree and the momma was feeding her babies.  I also saw a couple of deer cross the river.

This section borders RMNP and is beautiful country.

It is impossible to fish when the weeds are so thick and you constantly have to remove them from your flies.  I kept moving down river, fishing the riffle stretches.  The water was pretty low, so there was slim pickins.  I managed to pick up 2 fish in each of the first 3 or 4 spots I stopped - they were hoffer strands of rainbows all around 11 inches and all fought fiercely! I managed a small brown as well.

I kept hiking down river towards the lake.  Not having a whole lot of time, I lost track of time and soon it was 8am - so I started hiking down and skipping holes - then I came to the grassy meadow sections of the river - the long sections where the trees are pushed back and the grass lines the river.  I spotted these bedded down sections of grass - it was obvious I was a few minutes from seeing these guys.

As I was walking back, I noticed the skeleton of a dead elk.  It was pretty crazy to see the huge skeleton and clumps of hair thrown every where.  As I was walking back on the path I noticed a 1/2 leg and hoof, and then several yards more was another twisted leg.

No pics of fish, I wanted to get them back in the water as soon as I could.  The bigger fish seemed to be higher up by the dam and I caught some 4 inch dinks further down before the meadow section.  Crazy, as I thought the size would get larger as you approached the lake - not the case.

Still, Day 3 of vacation and 2 were out on the river!  Not too shabby.  I did manage to fish a few more time with the kids on the lake, but we got skunked!  Oh well, we'll get more shots in July!

First day of vacation

My first real day of vacation up here in Grand Lake I decided to spend the morning fishing the Parshall Hole. I know the hole pretty well (in the winter) and it is only about 30 minutes from the cabin here. I was planning on being awake and on the road at 5am, but after going to bed at midnight, that didn’t happen. I was about 30 minutes late and landed at the parking lot at 6am. Beautiful morning with fog in the low laying areas and it was about 39 degrees. The water was up but only slightly off color, but not as high as most years on this first week of July. As you can see, typical morning view – minus the 12 feet sections of ice on the banks like I saw all winter.



I think I landed 2 small browns around 6:30 ish, both had lip/mouth damage – which was disappointing. And then nothing until about 7:30 when it “heated up”. I think I landed 3 or 4 pretty quickly, including this dink that I hooked on a red wire worm that was twice as big as his head. I think I casted him 2 times thinking he was a twig or branch before I realized he was a fish. He was no worse for wear as he shot off back into the abyss.




I managed a couple of rainbows – including one decent sized one at about 15 inches that gave a good pull. I managed a decent brown at the end of the day, but I forgot my net and when I tried to muscle him in he popped off the top fly and temporarily hooked himself on the bottom fly, then popped off completely, But that was it. I saw one other angler around 8:30, he hopped over me to the top of the pool. I promised Jen I’d be home at a decent hour, so I was out at 9am and back to the cabin (after gas) at about 9:45.

Good start to the vacation.

That afternoon the kids wanted to go out on Scott’s boat (thanks for letting us borrow the boat Scott!!) and try fishing in Shadow Mountain Lake. I motored out to deeper water and anchored up next to some floating grass/weeds and threw a worm on the Barbie pole and the Transformers pole and each kid fished for a bit. Pretty soon Z’s bobber was under and we landed a very nice 15 inch rainbow that was a beauty. I did manage to fish some chironomids, which I didn’t get any hits, but when I was reeling in a fish hit at them on the surface – which was weird, so I moved Avi’s rod to that spot, but no luck. Soon after I got asked for my license by a DOW guy, and then he was on his way. The wind kicked up, the rain started a bit and the kids were bored, so we headed back in. Avi and I tried fishing off the dock at our cabin and Avi did get a hit from a dink, but it is hard to land them when they are that small. It started raining harder so we called it a day.





An even better ending to a great first day of vacation!!

Fishing with my daughter Avelyn!

While we were camping over Memorial Day Weekend, I was surprised to hear Avi ask me to take her fishing. She packed her back pack and grabbed her waders and we were in our way.
We only had a couple hours while Z napped so we hit the Roaring Fork River. The water was muddy, but had slightly better visibility than the prior day, but it was much higher.

We fished with minimal luck initially, but right before leaving I switched up my rig and picked up a nice brown, that Avi fought with the rod and I netted for her.  She gave it a kiss and dropped it back into the water.  Next, I hooked a nice 18 inch cuttbow that fought hard into the fast water.  We landed the fish way down river and I gave her a chance to release this one too - she was so excited, but was worn out and wanted to go back to the camp site.

We got a chance to work on her casting in she did very well.  Either way, it was a huge win for me and her - hopefully she asks me again. 

North Park, Sat/Sun June 1-2, 2013

Pictures are worth a 1,000 words!

A good day

 

 

Stillwater fishing - Saturday May 4th

Bay Fishing - Port Aransas, TX 4/16/13

Just to give you guys some background on this trip. I was invited to a VP meeting for my region. Two days of meetings! One day of fishing.  We headed out from Port A at about 7, drove on the boat for an hour up the intercoastal. Pretty cool the see "fishing camps" built right in the middle of the bay. Some were nice, some were scary.

These were the guys in my boat. Guide on the left was a true pro, me, then my Houston MVP David, and the vendor Eric. We fished live shrimp, except David fished plastics and killed us.

As you can see we did pretty well. I think I got 6 total, 5 trout and a skip jack. The boat mostly got trout, but we managed some skips, catfish, a redfish (8th from the left) and a huge amberjack.

This is the huge amber jack - David caught it on a plastic - this taped at 30 inches on the nose - it came in like a LOG!

This was Eric's biggest speckled trout - it taped at 27 inches and I think 6.5 lbs. I netted this bad boy and the guide said if he knew it was that big he would have done it himself. This was the "first" big'un of the day.

This is David's beast of a speck - it taped at 27.5 inches and 8.5 lbs. We let this hen go so she could have a few thousand more babies. Amazing fish.

This was my biggest fish - a 26.5 incher - and yes, we kept and ate her. She fought hard and was one of the heaviest fish I've ever caught. I forget how much she weighed in at.

Another smaller trout I caught.
We had sporadic fish in the morning, moved a couple times, hooked up a couple of times and finally at around 12:30 we found the spot. In about 1.5 hours we hooked and landed our 8 biggest fish. It was awesome.
The redfish was a cool fish - they are tough as nails and they fight like a carp - won't come off the bottom and are tough mf'ers. Skip jacks are trash fish, they'd eat anything and when you bring them in the boat they shit everywhere - we unhooked ours outside the boat. The amber was the coolest fish - huge girth, 30 inches long and fought like a tire. Seeing a catfish in saltwater that looks EXACTLY like a freshwater cat was funny.
I struggled in the morning casting the rig. The rig was basically a braided line, with a huge orange/green bobber at the end that had bb's in it, then a 2 foot section of leader a weight and a live shrimp. The issue with casting it was the weight, but also because the rod was set up with left hand retrieve. As soon as I switched to a right handed retrieve I casted fine and started setting the hook better/quicker. The hardest part about fishing was "how" you fished. You cast the rig to the grassline, then you jerked it to cause the bb's in the indicator to rattle - this imitates a shrimp clicking its tail to flee - the trout love that and crash the shrimp. It is the exact opposite of how we fish on freshwater, where any extra movements scare fish away.
At the end of the day we got back to the dock, the guide cleaned the fish and we headed next door for fresh fish (other boats got in earlier than us) - fried, blackened, baked - with tartar, cocktail, fried pickles, fried jalapenos and all the beer you could drink. Dude, that was livin'!
Texas is an interesting place. Saw a bunch of dolphins. It's not "pretty" down there, but very interesting. I'd take the family and camp down there if it wasn't a 16-18 hour drive.

KS Large Mouth Bass!

I had the chance to do some fishing while I was in Kansas on my co-workers private farm pond. The pond was muddy and small but had some very willing takers! The pics are of a 3lber (my co-workers guess) - he said if it had been summer, that fish would have been a 5lber. I have to admit I fished with a spinning rod and used a blue and black squid looking thing with a huge weight and an even bigger hook. Amazing what these frickin things will eat.