30 Fish Day at Rainbow Falls

Had the pleasure of fishing with Brad and Ed on Friday up at Rainbow Falls. Neither had been to Rainbow Falls before. We had planned the trip a few months back and we were all looking forward to it. I hadn't fished with either of these guys before. I met Brad a few years back at work. His buddy Ed has the sickness and passed it to Brad. We got to talking one day at work and the conversation naturally led to fishing. I had to break out some fish pics and after that it was a done deal. We were going to Rainbow Falls.

We met up at Safeway and I piled all my gear into Brad's Denali. This thing can hold some gear. Good thing too since it looked like we were packing up for a road trip to Canada. We stopped at Safeway and stocked up for lunch. We split up, Ed got the bread, I got the drinks and wax doughnuts, and Brad stopped at the Deli and got some turkey and 5 pounds of cheese (Deli counter was a little "off"). We packed up the cooler, made a few pit stops in Woodland Park, and were on the water by 9.

Creek section had filled in a bit so we headed down below Cougar lake. It didn't take long to get some grabs. Nothing huge though. Just warming up. We hit Cougar Lake for a few but didn't have much luck so we decided to see if the Creek opened up. It had and we fished it from Cougar all the way to the tubes. This was a fun stretch. We all caught good fish and each of us at one point or another got on a tear and hooked up one right after the other. Brad even netted his first fish! Have I mentioned that RF is a great place to learn? Just as the sun started beating down we got a nice rain

shower to cool things off and that seemed to make the fishing even better.

After a quick break for a cheese sandwich with turkey we headed up to the Pumpkin Patch. We got a little crazy here and forded the "river" in the Denali. Bold Country! The Denali has now been baptized and Brad is a bonafide mountain man.

By this time the caddis were hatching like crazy. Fish were rising enough to get me to switch to a dry. I saw a 22-24" trout rising in the top run and he put his nose on my caddis on the first cast. I
called Ed over because I knew he was either going to eat my dry or my pupa 12" below it on the next cast. I said, "watch this" and made a cast. My dry disappeared about 12" below the trout and I set the hook. Ed was as surprised as I was! This fish was hell bent on getting to the far side bushes and that's just what he did. Only had him on for a few seconds but it sure was fun while it lasted.

We fished the Pumpkin Patch for another hour or so with pretty consistent action. By this time we had been fishing for 8 or 9 hours. No one was going to call it! We decided to head up and check out the culverts on the way out. I think you have a better chance of hookup up on a pig in this section than any other section on the property. Especially the inlet of Palmer. I've seen a lot of big fish caught there this year. So we had to hit it. Brad and I were done but Ed was still going strong. He hooked up right away and wound up catching a few of the nicest fish of the day in this section.

We finally called it at 10 hours or so of fishing. Helluva fun day on great water with two really cool Dudes. I think Brad turned a corner on this trip. He might be beyond help at this point. Don't fight it Brad!