Friday, Aug 19th, Colorado River

My mom was in town from NC and I decided to take her on a surprise trip up into the mountains - do a little horseback riding, fly fish a little and then she'd end the day at the hot springs with a massage.

The morning started late for us fly fisherman, but early for a 62 year old woman. We left around 6:45, stopped in Silverthorne for some coffee and a donut, then at Cutthroat Anglers to get a day fishing license, then were in Kremmling at Rusty Spurr Ranch at 9am - we had a horseback riding trip at 10am - this ranch was located up Rt 9, about a mile or so from the Pumphouse entry - but you turn right instead. About 4.5 miles back there is a ranch with no electricity. The area is almost all scrub brush, but it borders on some aspen/pine forest and has some good riding areas.



Our trip ended around noon and we bee-lined it for the Parshall Hole. When we got there we saw 2 cars in the lot, and as we ate lunch one of them left - the old guys said they caught a few on Barr's Emergers in size 20. Umm, ok, not going to fish anything that small with my Mom. We were then attacked by mosquitos - pretty crazy. We sprayed down, dressed and headed for the river. It took us a while to get my Mom down that little hill, over fallen trees, through the muddy banks and out about 10 feet into the water. But we made it and we actually caught fish. It took about 20 minutes to figure out the right depth, but we caught 3 nice browns in about 30 minutes.





As you can see from behind my Mom, the weather was starting to turn and we got some showers as we stood there and fished. My Mom had to be in Hot Sulphur Springs by 2:30, so we headed out. I dropped her off at the resort and told her I'd be back at 4:30 after her massage. Werm had mentioned there are some smaller dumb fish in the Hot Sulphur Springs section just north of the bridge - so I figured I'd try it. He was right. I hooked a couple little guys.

I did end up hooking one nice brownie, I taped him just over 16" and he fought a lot better - I thought for sure he would go 19". He ran down the fast water and headed for a bush that was submerged because of the high water. I landed him after a fun fight - and he was a fattie. Great fish for this section.





That was about it, I had a good 2+ hours total on the water today, but it was worth it - then I fought the rain and stupid traffic on the way home over Berthoud. We did see a moose along the road side almost at the top of Berthoud. I was home and eating Chinese food at 7pm.

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RMNP August 7, 2011

On Sunday, Steffan, my neighbor Tom and myself headed up to the Roaring River drainage in RMNP to do some fishing. I was at Steffan's house at 5:30am and we were in the parking lot of Lawn Lake Trailhead at 6:30 - lots of other cars in the lot - we assumed these were from overnight campers.

The hike in was pretty uneventful, it took a good 30 minutes, but wasn't too bad. I took a video of the entire hike up, but not a single picture the whole day. The water was rolling down the hill, fastest I have seen it in my few trips up there. We tied up and jumped in the water, leapfrogging each other. The soft/slow areas that are normally everywhere in this river were hard to find. We'd see fish, but where we had seen 5 or 6 of them in the past in the slow water, we could only see 1 now tucked up to the bank. We didn't catch fish for a while - it was tough going, so we kept moving up river - there is a flatter section further up where we started getting into fish - but not many. I think we got 9 fish total and by 12 noon we decided to head down the hill and head for the Fall River.

The Fall River right there by Lawn Lake Trailhead looks like a beautiful river, but it still had quite a bit of water in it. It was clear and we could see the fish, but they weren't any easier to catch. There are some great bend pools in this river - at lower levels I bet the fish just stack up in them. Steffan headed off with a dry fly and Tom and I stuck to nymphing. I managed a couple brown dinks and Steffan hooked a bunch on dries. We hiked up to the confluence of the Roaring and Fall to check it out and then headed for the truck. We left around 3pm and were home by 5:30.

Not much else to report. Beautiful day, not so great fishing.

Sylvan Lake Camping, Fri July 22 - Sun July 24, 2011

So, we did a little camping this weekend up in the mountains at Sylvan Lake (15 miles south of Eagle). The place is great for kids - 15 miles away from any town - keeps the riff raff out. Just a bunch of families enjoying the lake, mountains and sun. Got up there Friday around 6pm, set up the camper, made some hot dogs, started a fire and had smores. The kids were pretty wired from being in the mountains and enjoyed running around the campground and "walking" Cabo. Hit the hay pretty early - probably 10pm or so.

I got up at 5:30 on Saturday morning and took the dog and kayak out on the lake. The wind was steady in your face from the far side of the lake - nothing too bad though, just had to dig in the paddles a little more. I like the inlet to the lake because the water seems to be moving a little and I have seen fish in that section. I set up shop about 60 yards from the inlet and dropped anchor.







I was surprised how cold the breeze was and the sun wasn't even visible on the far off peaks yet. I started getting hits right away - had a orange scud/grey chiro/peach pegged egg rig on. The first fish I had on was the best, I never landed it, but I could tell it was good sized as it started running horizontal at a very fast pace - no head shakes, not real tugs, just a 20 foot run to the side in about 2 seconds and he was off. I was excited to get a hit so quickly. The indicator kept bouncing, but I wasn't hooking into anything. Finally, I got a pretty little rainbow. He was maybe 11 inches, not much of a pull on the rod - but it was fun to be into fish.



Soon after that I had anohter hit, a fun little fight and landed this brookie (again, about 11 inches) on the chiro. My first brookie in a long long time.





I managed another rainbow, and tried drifting back with the wind to the boat ramp. But the wind stopped, the sun came out strong and the fishing turned off. I saw the family waving at me back at the ramp, so I paddled out.

We had a fun day of playing in the water, eating lunch, and hiking - the kids got grumpy and the wife wanted a nap - so they crashed in the camper around 3pm and I hit the water again. I trolled around a few spots - again, a bunch of plops on the indicator, but nothing I could hook up with. I caught one nice 11 inch rainbow, then hooked a tiny rainbow as I had just cast my rig - must have been falling through the water column. I paddled back down to the inlet and hooked this brookie - again, same size - this one on a green scud.





I was done by about 5:30 and paddles back to the boat ramp. Avi and Mom were awake, but Z and Emma were still sleeping. We woke them up and headed into Eagle for Diner food and bowling. We got back to camp around 9:30 and had a small fire and more smores (of course). Hit bed around 10 again. I was going to get up the next morning and fish, but Avi slept next to me and there was no way to sneak out without waking her - so I slept in.

Sunday we played some more in the water - found lots of mayflies, damsel flies, thousands of grey/green scuds and just had fun checking it out. Here are some more fun pics of the weekend:







Great weather all weekend, no rain, in the mid-80's. We tried some off roading on the roads up behind Sylvan - went about 10 miles deep trying to find the old resort beaver ponds, but couldn't find them. Took all the roads back there, but couldn't find them. We did find Lede Reservoir - which was infested with horseflies. Some rough road back there. I would guess we were almost all the way over to Ruedi, but we didn't see any signs for it. Very pretty country.

We hit some traffic coming home, so we stopped in Frisco at the brewery for some food and sitting on the deck - very relaxing. Got home around 4pm. A very nice trip with the family.

South Park lake fishing - July 12, 2011

D and I hit up a lake in SP - first boat on the water at 6am - by over a half an hour. Morning was dead calm, and dead slow. The first thing I noticed in the morning was the noser - hundreds of fishing nosing up in the water really early in the morning. It was a sea of noses.



D picked up 4, missed at least a dozen others. I landed 2 - had another half dozen or so takes.





D's last fish of the morning was a sweet 20+inch fat bow caught on a red brassie chiro.



We could see a huge storm and thunder/lightning hitting just south of the dam - a couple of miles away. Since it was way off we weren't nervous. It was still partly sunny over our heads - we had missed the storm. Then a clap of thunder and lightning hit right over our heads, and we were reeled in and headed for shore in less than 30 secs. It started raining, so we docked the boat and sat in the truck and ate lunch around 1pm. 20 mins later it had stopped and the sun was out - we fished right off the parking lot and started hammering them. Of course the storm decided to come back over the mtns and just pounded us for the nmext hour - on and off. But we kept slamming the fish - catching about 15 or so in the next 1:45 mins.

During the rain storm! I wish I could explain how hard and wet it rained.



Flies: we caught a couple on chiros, but most everything on eggs.

Bugs: one huge damsel in army man green - a size 8 I'd say. Some size 12 yellow caddis - cool looking, but they crawl up your neck (weird). And tons of callibaetis - the dries were a size 10 or so and they were light tan/light grey/albino colored - they were everywhere. No sign of chiros - which was weird.

This is a pic of soaked D and his cool boat. We were headed out - the weather kicked our butt, but it was fun!



Home by 5:30 or so. Thanks for floating us D!

The Workhorse - FOTD

The Workhorse by the Haddis Catch. Great looking fly (and even better photo - fly porn!). Check out his website for tons more great fishing stories and patterns.

Great job (again) Brian!

Delaney's Sat & Sun, June 11-12, 2011

I hit up Delaney's on Saturday night - got the hall pass with my MIL in town - stayed through Sunday. Got up there around 6pm, South Lake had about 40 boaters/belly boaters/tubers/canoers in it (not kidding). Chatted with my buddy Mark over at North Lake for about an hour. Hit South Lake from about 7:30 until 9am. Hooked 4 fish, landed a 15 inch sucker and got a 16 or so inch rainbow right up to me before he popped off. Headed back to my buddies camper to hang out - when a nasty storm came in - literally 45 mph winds and driving rain. Lasted about 40 minutes then it was dead calm. I was going to fish, but by now it was 11pm, so I called it a night and slept in the truck. Killed about 1,000,000,000 chironomids that had snuck in the truck and attacked my dome light. Took about 30 minutes to kill them all.

Sunday morning was up at 6am, on the water by 7am on North Lake - fishing for some nice browns - paddled across the lake in the kayak. Fished in 9 feet of water with no luck. Paddled my ass back (into the wind) around 9am, and went to South Lake. Fished the South Lake until about 2pm, had a bunch of hits, landed NOTHING. I'm embarrassed I got skunked at the D's. Saw a few fish, perfect weather, medium breeze, warm, lots of chiros hatching - just couldn't figure it out. Long drive for no fish.

No callis or damsels hatching yet. Don't believe the North Park Anglers reports of the D's like the other 100 or so other campers that were up there. Literally the place was insane, no doubt all due to the rivers being blown out, no mosquitoes yet, and the NPA glamorous reports. Rumor has it that it isn't on fire yet - my buddy has fished it the last 4 weeks with limited success. It has not "turned on" just yet, but it will - I'm sure the callibaetis hatch will bring on a feeding frenzy.

If you go, good luck, I wish you the best.

South Platte River below Chatfield

Today I hit up the South Platter River below Chatfield. This part of the river is so close to my house, but the reputation as a warm water trashy river completely turned me off to it. Not knowing if this reputation was deserved or not, I finally decided to give it a chance. Unfortunately the reputation is well deserved.

Yes, the flows below Chatfield are historically low right now (not sure why - I guess trying to fill up Chatty), but no matter how you view it, the place is just a nightmare. However, the parks department has put a parking area/ranger station/park office right behind Aspen Grove mall on Santa Fe in Littleton. I had no idea it was there and stumbled upon it. I went inside and talked to a nice guy about the area and he explained the river and the surrounding areas. Inside the office there is a greeting area with all kinds of stuff animals that are in this area - from snakes to foxes to hawks to weasels to coyotes to beavers. Pretty cool little exhibit.

I decided to grab my gear and hike in there right at Ken Caryl. As I was walking in I dropped down to the river and scared a cool colored lizard - he was a limey green color, but I only saw him for a second. The river is horrible colored with nasty algea growing on the bottom, and it was terribly off color - which makes no sense since the flows were so low. I kept moving up river towards Chatfield, hoping to find some fish moving. I did not even string up the rod - just hiked along the rivers edge. There are a couple nice runs, but the water is ugly, no way any trout are in there. I took the temp and it said 60 degrees, which is way too warm for that river in mid May.

There are some restored areas with riffles and waterfalls, but I saw nothing. I even threw in some rocks to see if I could see something scatter - nothing. I moved all the way up to first small pond - there on a fallen little tree I saw a black snake all stretched out on the branch - pretty cool position - he was just sunning himself. I saw tons and tons of different birds as well - flitting in and out of the brush and singing to each other. Of course the bike path follows the river - so lots of bikers, runners and walkers going down the path giving me dirty looks.

The little pond that connects to the river was full of shadowy figures sitting up on top of the water sunning themselves - huge carp, some I'd guess hit 30 lbs or so. I tried my best to cast to them with my carp flies, spooked a bunch of them, had a few laugh at my flies and ended up getting skunked. At least I know where they are now!!

I headed back to the truck - my 3 hour excursion was over - I was not disappointed with the adventure - I saw lots of different animals, tons of fox and raccoon footprints, listened to the birds and saw some fish. Not a bad afternoon only 4 miles from my house!

I know TU is thinking about fixing this section of the Platte, but until Denver Water promises consistent flows out of Chatty, this would be a waste of time. That section needs to be blown out for 6 months straight, and then consistent flows in the 1,000cfs range - which will never happen.

I'm just glad I got out.

Spinney, Fri & Sat, May 13-14, 2011

I can't even come close to describing our fishing trip to you - lots of inside jokes, 2 cases of beer, tons of bullshitting and fish tales and of course a ton of fish. We got a reputation this weekend, when you see the big red boat with the loud asshole in the Red Sox hat on it - you follow it wherever it goes. We had boats within 100 feet of us all weekend, and one time I counted 5 within range. A couple boats came by to ask what we were using, when we said chironomids they didn't beleive us. We should have said powerbait. The fish were beautiful and we were lucky to have a good couple of days with warm sun and very little wind (for 2 half days at least).

Scott, Werm and myself camped at Chaparral General Store, got to check out the new camper and got the luxury of Scott's boat - thanks man!

Here is some fish porn, enjoy:

First beer of the morning - pwned by Scott!












































It was a great trip, I think we cleared 75 fish total. It took us a while, but we kept moving and found the fish. Once we did we stayed on it and were rewarded. Thanks boys for the great trip. Thanks Scott for letting us use the camper and the boat.

I don't like to kiss and tell, but this is a very large lake and there isn't many secrets on this lake. Plus, the water was so low that our favorite spot could be completely different when the water starts coming into the lake (it was at least 7 feet low). You can't get to this spot on foot, and it would take an Olympic kick swimmer to get there by belly boat.

I will say that although Spinney is a flies and lures only lake and mostly a catch and release (you can keep a 20+ trout or any pike) we as anglers need to respect the regulations and fish in this lake. We did see too many people mishandling fish, horsing in fish on spin rods with 10 lb test and bad boating in general. I ask that if you are fishing with someone who decides to do any of these things that you point out that it is careless and only hurts the experience of others and future fishermen. Let's ensure the future of this (and all) fisheries.

I'm looking forward to a great fishing summer!