Gunnison River (East Portal)

Back to the East Portal for the first time this year. We were originally planning on hitting the East Portal this spring when the road first opened but it didn't work out this year. Definitely on the radar for next spring!

The Old Man and I headed up to Montrose Friday afternoon. New Alice in Chains, QOTSA, and Sabbath on the ride up! Great ride.  We checked into the Super 8. $80 to save a 4 hour drive at the butt crack of dawn is a no brainer. Coffee is ready at 4 AM and the turn off for the Black Canyon is 5 minutes up the road.

After checking in we hit the strip to find some grub. MacDonalds , Arbys, a few other small places, and Colorado Boy Pizzeria! I could eat Pizza every day of the week and thrice on Sunday. I'm always down for new Pizza and Colorado Boy didn't disappoint. 11" personal pizzas cooked to order in a brick oven. I went for the Pizza Calda (san marzano, mozzarella, pepperoni, mushrooms, hot olive oil, kalmata olives and fresh arugula). One word, delish. Very reasonably priced too. East Portal = stop at Colorado Boy from here on out. Shown here, the Calda in HDR. What a dork.

Caught up on a few blog entries later on in the room. Seems my fishing is far outpacing my writing. I'm struggling every week to keep up. But I haven't missed a trip yet and I'm not about to start.

We hit the canyon at daylight. Wanted to toss some stones early while the fish were looking for them. We waded out to our honey hole and Dad hooked up on the first or second cast. I hooked up a cast or two after that. Ah yes, good to be back on the Gunny. Fishing was hot and heavy for the first half hour then slowly tapered off. Any sort of stone pattern in 12-14 was good for a bite. Rubber legs in a 12 seemed to be the most consistent fly of the morning. I have to say the Gunny has some of the prettiest bows in the state. The colors really come through in the pictures but they were even more vivid in person.

Crazy event of the day - Dad set the hook and snagged the bottom. He was trying not to retail snap
when I hooked a nice bow, probably 17" or so and he was heading for some faster water. Dad put his rod down, got below me,  and was wading out just above the heavy current in a really rocky run. At this point I notice Dad's indicator dart upstream and a 8" bow jumping like crazy out of the water. This little dude had swam up to Dad's hung up rig and picked his fly off a rock! He was fighting
like crazy on a line with no one on the other end. At this point my bow was just about to enter the fast water. We were both distracted watching Dad's rod catch a fish without him, and Dad took a spill. In the process he had to let go of his net which was now heading fast towards some pretty heavy rapids. Dad dove on his net. Picture bending at the waist and doing a power belly flop without leaving your feet. I was holding the trout just above the heavy current just in front of Dad. He came up with the net and started looking all around for the trout that was right in front of him. LOL, he said, "where's the fish.... oh!" and netted the fish. Hilarious! I'm getting a Go Pro.

We didn't manage to hook the big boy we were after and things really died down around lunch so we decided to grab our lunchables and then hit some new water. Pizza Calda to lunchables? Next trip, Pizza Calda for dinner, Pizza Calda to go, Pizza Calda for lunch on the river.

We headed upstream to some runs we did well in last summer. We fished for a good hour up and down these runs without a hit. Crazy! No hatch to speak of but nothing would touch the standard between hatch go to patterns. I even got crazy with a pegged egg sucking leach on a dead drift. Nothing! Stumped on this one. There were fish but they weren't eating anything we had.

Hoping to see a PMD hatch in the afternoon but I think we were a few weeks to early. Last July there was a massive PMD hatch in the afternoon and a size 16 Barr Emerger would have been killer if I had any. I tied a dozen of them last summer specifically because of that afternoon. Will have to wait till next month to hit the PMD hatch.

Back to the honey hole after lunch. Things were dead. Stone bite was off. No hatch, not much activity. Tough afternoon. If we hadn't had such a good morning it would have been a tough day. I even chucked the Chinese Chicken without a look.

As usual no crowd to speak of. I can't believe more people don't fish here. It can be tough but if you know where to fish you will always hook fish in the morning and the afternoons can be great too if you hit a good hatch. I'm not complaining though. Really becoming one of my favorite places to fish.

Rainbow Falls (Mom's First Trip)

Finally got Mom out to Rainbow Falls. She hasn't caught too many fish in the last year or so and I was excited to get her hooked into some nice Donaldson. Dad and Alicia were along for the trip as well. Alicia was on camera duty and man am I glad she was. She managed to get some great fishing pics and capture some of the natural beauty at RF. This picture just blows me away. Such a great instant in time.

We started in the usual spot at Spring Lake. After a few casts.......WTF?  That throw anyone off? That's not our usual spot. Everyone knows that. Hey I have to try and keep things interesting. Throw a curve ball every now and then. We started on Trout Creek of course. I do have to say that things were pretty slow which is still great fishing at RF. Just not nearly as hot as it usually is. A lot of fish are moving downstream in Trout Creek. I think the pressure in the popular spots has caused a lot of the big fish to move down. Evidence? Yes, courtesy of my Alicia. Is this not one of the most tantalizing pics I've posted? Love this pic. If you look closely you'll see a trout that is either just a rebel or really confused. These guys are still pretty fresh out of the hatchery though so I'll cut him some slack. He'll get the hang of it.

Back to the fishing. It was pretty slow but we did manage to hook some nice ones. Mom was on a tear for a while hooking up one after the other. Just took a take or two to knock the rust off. She hooked and landed the fish of the Day! Not bad for someone out of practice. Again, great arm extension. What do we call this? Good coaching - yes you are correct. What do you call the haters that complain about a good arm extension? Correct - jealous.

I'll let Alicia's pics do the rest of the talking. Another really memorable evening in the mountains. This is the good life!

Rainbow Falls

Took a quick evening trip to Rainbow Falls with Alicia. She's really picking things up quickly. It's always a matter of getting over the initial learning curve in fly fishing. Once you have a taste of fly fishing success that's it. You'll tie size 24 flies, you'll stand in a mountain river in January for hours, you'll know what these numbers mean 100, 200R, 5262, 5263 and the difference between these numbers and other manufacturer's numbers... Ok one was a letter but these will jump out at any tying fiend. She's not there yet but she will be... muh ha ha ha ha... I love a woman that can handle a size 24 miracle nymph. Ummmm anyway...

We started out at Trout Creek as we usually do. We fished the first bend down from the tubes. We need to start naming these things. I saw a nice bow feeding in about two feet of water. We hadn't started fishing yet so I called Alicia over and said, "watch this". I tied on a bright pink Gummy Egg (which by the way if you haven't tried yet are great. Still soft but much more durable than an Otter Egg. Use clear mono thread and a little Zap A Gap and you have a soft durable egg). I cast about 10 feet upstream and watched the bright pink ball slowly drift downstream. About two feet from impact the trout slowly and deliberately lined up with the egg and opened the bug trap. Waited a half second, set the hook, and handed Alicia the rod. What a cool thing to see! I'll never get tired of watching a trout take my fly.

We caught several more in the creek but there were some folks fishing my favorite runs. I don't really like to crowd in on people so we decided to head down to Cougar Lake which is always good for a nice trout on a red Chinese Chicken which is really just a really tweaked out red, pink, and purple Meat Whistle. You can see this monstrosity hanging out of a nice trout's mouth in a previous RF post. Sure enough had a good take and set the hook. These Donaldson's really put up a great fight and this guy took a good five minutes to pull in.

Another fun night at RF. Really enjoy fishing the evenings here. Especially on week nights.

Rainbow Falls (Not My Fault)

Pop Quiz: What do you do when your wife says she wants to go fishing two days in a row? Other than nearly choking to death on the bite of french toast you just stuffed in your mouth, you get your arse in gear and head for the hills.

Ah yes! I am creating a monster. Uh and I mean that in the best sense of the word Dear. :-) I think it's safe to say that Alicia has caught the bug. The girls on the other hand..... still working on that.

Back up to Rainbow Falls with Laurie and Marty. We worked our way down Trout Creek almost all the way to Cougar Lake and hit nice fish in almost every hole. Alicia and I traded off each run. I hooked this chunk in very small water. Any sort of holding area is almost certain to hold a nice trout in this creek.

Even a "slow" evening at Rainbow Falls is a good one. We didn't hook up as much as we had the night before but we were catching fish pretty regularly.

We were about to call it an evening and Marty hooked into a beastie. Caddis were coming off like crazy and he stuck this pig on a graphic caddis. He got my attention and I headed up with the net but he managed to slide this gal into his net just as I got up to him. I took this pic and noticed Alicia in the background with a bent rod. Back down the creek with the net! I got there just in time to see a nice bow Alicia had been fighting tail slap the water and spit the hook. For the first time I saw that all too familiar look in Alicia's eye of the sinking feeling that comes with losing a good fish. It was like losing all the big fish I've ever lost all at once. I wanted to dive in and wrestle the finned heart breaker right into a picture with my smiling Alicia. I wanted to tell her it gets easier but we all know it doesn't. But hey, first world problem. 

Great way to wrap up Memorial Day weekend. So thankful for what so many have given to make weekends like this possible.

Rainbow Falls (Alicia's first trip this year)

Alicia has been looking forward to fishing since our last outing this past fall on the Arkansas. The weather has finally warmed up enough and Alicia mentioned that she felt like fishing. Done.

Two and a half minutes later we were in the car headed up to Rainbow Falls. We made a rolling stop so Laurie and Marty could throw their gear through the window and jump in and we were off. Eight minutes later and we were on the water.

We figured it would be pretty crowded on Memorial Day weekend but it wasn't crowded at all when we arrived. There were people fishing in our first choice of water but we kept driving down Trout Creek and our second pick was wide open. I asked Alicia if she remembered everything I showed her last fall, tossed her a rod, and wished her good luck over my shoulder as I headed for one of my favorite runs.

Ok I'm not that big of an A-hole. I wanted to start her off with a nymph rig before we attempted some chuck and duck with the big hooks. We went over the rig and she picked right up where we left off last fall. The big difference is that the fish in Pueblo wait till the fly hits the water before taking it. I think the quick action caught Alicia by surprise a little. She soon picked it up though and hooked a really nice rainbow that came completely out of the water several times. She's hooked now for sure! Yes! Unfortunately the fish took a quick turn and charged hard for the far bank and broke the line. Good learning experience! Alicia hooked a few more but was still dialing in on the fight. We decided to head to some new water.

Alicia had knocked the rust off at this point and was hooking up regularly. She got a good hook set on the bow pictured above and did everything right on the fight. Head up into the net and a great pic. Notice the arm extension? That's called good coaching.

The action kept up and Alicia hooked up to a nice bow. This one was going to push 20". Another great fight and we had her in the net. 19" bow. Very nice fish but you'll have to take my word for it because I was a touch late on snapping the pic. I know I'm going to catch hell for this but It's an instant classic. My girl looks like some sort of fly fishing quarterback getting ready to drop back and deliver a game winning hail Mary trout pass......  or something like that. It sucked not getting a pick of that fish. It was a good 24-26".

We kept at it and Alicia had it down. I decided to do a little fishing myself and Alicia went upstream on her own and hooked 3 fish to include this nice cutty. I landed a nice 21" bow on a streamer but didn't take a pic. So so sad that a 21" bow doesn't make the pic cut.... I regret it now but I was having fun seeing Alicia catch fish.

I really enjoyed spending time on the water with my best friend. I think I've mellowed out enough to be a patient teacher. Something special about teaching someone you care about how to share in something that has given you so much enjoyment. The hook is in deep now! I saw her eying my Sage One though... Hmmmm

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Ben Lewis and I met up with Ben Wurster at Steel City Anglers for a morning of fishing on the Ark. Ben W's truck had recently been robbed and he lost a lot of his gear. He was offering up a killer deal on guided trips so we decided to sign up. We'd be able to help Ben out and we'd get a great day of fishing in return.

Believe it or not, we had never fished the Carp Hole before. I've fished all around it but have never spent any time in this run. Ben set us up along the run and we were hooked up within 5 minutes. This run is a lot of fun to fish. The flow started off around 270. The run was fast up top and slowed as it deepened. There is a nice gradual slope out from the south bank and you can fish different depths by adjusting your cast.

Ben W gave us some good tips on where the trout have been holding and he was spot on. Very counter intuitive too as far as where we were hooking up. Learned something new within the first 5 minutes of the trip. The sport that keeps on giving.

After we landed half a dozen fish or so I started noticing a lot of debris in the water. The water was clouding up and the current was picking up. The island that we had stashed our other rods was gone. Luckily our guide was paying attention and had moved them to the bank. The flow went up 230 cfs.

We worked our way back to the Nature Center and picked up a few fish here and there but the flow definitely sent the fish looking for cover. Really underestimated the current just above the Nature Center and almost went for a swim. Just a little water can hold a lot of power!

We met up with Lou and had a nice lunch at the Coyote Grill. I had the Pueblo Burger which has cream cheese and Pueblo chillies on it. Fantastic!

A great trip with good friends. Can't ask for more!

Rainbow Falls

Me again - uh decided to hit Rainbow Falls. It's nice to be able to fish on a weeknight. Especially.... ok ok. I really don't want to be known for inventing the blog rerun. You know the drill by now. Rainbow Falls, except this was the second night in a row because the fishing was so good the night before. Ben went up with me this trip. Started at the creek again and it was great, again. Here are the creek pics. The first one is really worth zooming in on (sorry Ben.. too good not to share). Good story behind this one actually.

 I started fishing the second run up and was showing Ben where I had picked them up the night before when on queue I hooked up on a subtle take. Ben laughed and took 10 steps up creek and took a cast and hooked up..... with a nice brown. My Dad and I were just talking the night before that we hadn't pulled a lot of browns out of the creek. I wanted to get a pic. So..... I just took the pic while fighting the fish I hooked which by then, I had figured out was a really nice bow. Got this first snap off and went back to my fight when Ben said that he still had the fish. Refocused and got the second snap. Ben came down and netted my fish. Talk about a first world problem. "Dude, I don't know if I can get a good pic of your big fish that you hooked on your first cast while I'm fighting my big fish that I hooked on my first cast". Really? When you step back and look at it, two week nights in a row of great fishing with great company, you really have to be thankful for the good moments in life. They happen more than we recognize I think.

We forced ourselves off the creek after an hour or so and headed to cougar lake. I've been tying some large Meat Whistles with dumbbell eyes and it turns out pink and red ones are just big fish magnets at Rainbow Falls. You won't catch a ton of fish on them but the ones that eat them are usually pigs. It does feel like you are sailing a rooster though when you cast. If you want to know the materials I've been using let me know and I'd be happy to share. Better hurry though if you want to get in on the action. This guy below has already studied up on the red rooster Meat Whistle and I don't think he'll be fooled again! Imagine looking into those beady little red eyes perched on the hook in the corner of your mouth. I'm going to stop thinking about that now.

We went up to Spring Lake and Elk Lake but things slowed down at 7:45 or so. Not sure why. It was a great sun set. We had the entire place to ourselves. Just can't beat it. Life is good.