Frying Pan River 2/18-19/12

22" Fatty

This was a trip of firsts. This was the first time my buddy Marty fished the Frying Pan River, it was the first time my Dad almost backup up over Marty in the Rav 4, and believe it or not it was the first time my Dad ate an Egg Mcmuffin. This is also the first time I’m writing about fishing the Frying Pan River even though I’ve been fishing it for the last 20 years.

Marty and I met my Dad at Tiffany Square at 6 in the morning on Saturday. We were hoping to get up I70 before the ski traffic piled up. We had perfect timing…….. to hit the piled up ski traffic. It held us up around the exits but it could have been a lot worse. All in all we were only held up a half an hour or so.

We decided to get a quick bite to eat in Glenwood Springs and stopped by a McDonalds. I was craving lunch but it was breakfast all the way for another hour at this MDs. We started driving up to Basalt while inhaling our breakfast. My Dad kept saying, “wow this is good”. Turns out that this was the first Egg Mcfuffin he had ever eaten. Crazy! Makes me wonder about a McRib or a Soft Taco Supreme. I need to get my old man out to eat more cheep, processed, artery clogging junk foot more often!

We pulled into the Greene Drake Inn in Basalt around 10:30 or so and we decided to see if we could check in early. The Greene Drake, an awesome mayfly and also very accommodating, gave us our room key. We were able to pull all the gear out of the Rav and get our waders on in the comfort of the heated room.

DAY 1

Layered up and waterproof from the chest down we headed up river to the Rudei Reservoir damn. We were hoping (against hope) to find the Toilet Bowl (the area just below the damn where the water coming out of the damn swirls around in a big hole that must be 25 feet deep in some areas) open but when we walked around the corner we found it loaded up. No such luck today.

Marty showing off

We drove back downstream and noticed a nice run we have fished many times before open. This run is a nice long stretch of water where the main channel cuts along the far bank. There are nice riffles all along the main channel on the near side of the bank. The run will easily fit three guys (depending on what jack-ass is fishing there any given day) so we lined up in a row and started fishing. We each managed to hook a small trout or two but it didn’t’ start out too hot. After about 20 minutes a nice midge hatch started and the fish began rising. I didn’t have any Griffith’s Nats on me so I decided to take my weight off and fish an emerger just under the surface. That was the ticked to 3 or 4 descent trout to include a nicely colored rainbow about of about 12”. I told My Dad and Marty to try fishing just under the surface and that seemed to be the trick because they hooked a few more after that.

After a while the action died down so we decided to move down to Beatis Bridge. There was one guy fishing the tail end of the run but no one was at the head end. We waded out to the beginning of the run and started fishing. We didn’t have much luck at first and my Dad took off upstream. Marty and I hung back and kept fishing. I knew I was in front of fish but nothing was taking. I kept putting on weight and adjusting my indicator until I hooked a fish. They were holding at the very bottom of the hole which was 6-10 feet deep. Marty and I hooked a few trout but nothing huge. We decided to head back up to see if the Toilet Bowl had emptied out (yeah I know).

21" Caught on the far side of the TB

We got back up to the Toilet Bowl and the prime area was still loaded up. The far side of the hole had opened up though. We decided to give it a shot. I waded over and positioned myself in line with the current coming out of the damn. It was a long cast across slack water but it was the best position on this side of the hole. I made a few long casts and patiently waited as my indicator drifted back towards me OH SO SLOWLY…. This was boring fishing. And the wind was blowing directly into my face. I made a nice long cast between gusts directly into the current and waited as my indicator eddied out to the side of the main channel. It had almost come to a complete stop in the slack water when it started moving sideways very slowly. It didn’t seem like a hit but it was something different so I set the hook. Fish on! This was not a tiny fish. It held deep and took a few nice runs. My Dad had made it over to provide net assistance. This was a strong fish and I didn’t see him for the first few minutes. Eventually the fish came up to where I could see it. It was a nice, not huge, rainbow. She took several more runs after seeing the net but eventually came in. My Dad provided a perfect net and we had her in. She turned out to be 21” long and fairly fat. We were on the board! We fished for another hour or so in the Toilet Bowl but didn’t do anything else. The temperature bombed out on us and the wind got stronger and stronger. It was time to head into town for some more greezy, fat packed, fast food.

DAY 2

We got up EARLY. We had seen the guys that had the prime spot on the Toilet Bowl the night before in the hotel parking lot and decided that we MUST beat them out of the parking lot. I think my Dad got up every time he heard a car door shut just to check. It was about 4:30 and Marty checked the parking lot for the suspect cars. All cars were parked and no lights were on. Even if they were up they didn’t have any air in their tires. We were the only ones crazy enough to be up at this hour. Yes! We packed up, grabbed the chocolate Entenmann’s and headed out the door leaving the cold orange juice safely in the fridge in the locked room. Damn…. Dad and Ioaded up while Marty was behind the Rav loading up some equipment. My Dad, with 10lb trout on his brain, threw it in reverse and hit the gas. Whoaaahhh!! Where is Marty? Luckily we didn’t move very far and Marty remained alive. I asked if he was alright and he replied, “that’ll wake you up!”.

We decided to hit 7 Eleven for some coffee. I walked up and dumped half a pot of decaf in my mug before Marty and my Dad asked why the hell I was drinking decaf. I was not on it this morning. I poured the decaf back into the pot and filled it up with regular unleaded. 10lb trout on the brain….

We pulled into the empty parking lot just below the damn. We would have prime real estate this morning. We got out of the Rav and the wind was blowing like crazy! It was too cold to fish. We decided to sit in the Rav for a while until it warmed up. About a half hour later (about an hour too early) we saw headlights coming around the bend. We had to jump out and start fishing. It was still dark and VERY cold but there was no way we were going to let someone in ahead of us.

Marty with an awesome bow on a Rapala

We all started throwing Rapalas. I had a hit but missed the set. Marty started hooking fish almost immediately. He was throwing a really nice brown trout Rapala that he had found on the Arkansas a few weeks before. He wound up catching a nice 20” bow (right) and a few other nice trout. My Dad wound up catching 3 or 4 nice trout. I didn’t catch anything on Rapalas and was itching to start fly fishing.

22" (same fish shown above)

The next 5-6 hours of fishing were excellent! We kept rotating around the run as each of us caught nice fish. I don’t think we hooked anything massive (although we had several hooked that we never saw) but we wound up with 6 board fish (any fish over 20”). It seemed like the fish were holding right up against the damn in the white water. We caught almost all of them on Mysis patterns. The biggest fish of the day was a nice 22” female rainbow that was holding just as the water exited the damn. She hit one of my own Mysis patterns and took a nice long steady run. We got her in within 5 minutes. She was FAT! Probably a 5lb fish.

It was another awesome trip to the Frying Pan. I have loved this river for 20 years and hope to fish it at least another 20!

Nice buck! (20")

This brown had some teeth

Nice hook jaw on this guy

Fat 21" Bow

REALLY dark Bow (20")

Marty with a nice brown

Dad with a 20" bow

Dad with a nice brown

Another nice male bow

Dad with an early morning brown on a Rapala

Marty with a nice bow on a Rapala

Arkansas River (Pueblo) 2/11/12

Another great day of fishing on the Ark. Marty and I left CO Springs at 6 and got to the speed limit parking lot around 7. The wind was blowing, the snow was flying and we were the only ones in the parking lot. We may be a little off but we had the river to ourselves. We threw the layers on and headed downstream for Valco Bridge. It was strange seeing the bridge hole without it being stuffed with bubbas. Marty walked across the bridge to fish the far side of the run and I stayed on the near side. We started hooking fish almost immediately. I landed one or two descent fish on a Jujubee Midge. Marty and I had doubles going at one point which is always fun. I waded up towards the bridge a little and took a cast up under the bridge and hooked a nice bow. This 18" rainbow (shown above) has to be one of the darker rainbows I've caught on the Arkansas and maybe anywhere. The red on his sides seemed to just keep going all the way around his belly. His mouth was a little messed up from being caught before but he was a healthy fish.

Around this time Mike Greene showed up sporting brand new waders. He had stated that the next time we went fishing he'd have a pair. Mike only had a few hours to fish before he had to be somewhere but he did wind up landing 3 or 4 nice trout. I was able to get an action shot of him netting a fish.


The next nice fish I caught and landed was this fat rainbow which was 19" (below top). I kept fishing just under the bridge and wound up hooking 10 more to include this 20.5" bow (below bottom). I decided to offer up the hole I was fishing to Marty or Mike and Marty took me up on the offer. He got to my side of the river and went to clear the ice out of his rod eye and the tip of his rod broke! Bummer! It's an Orvis rod so it's covered but it still didn't help the situation. He had to walk back to the other side of the river to grab his spinning rod. He got to that side of the river and started fishing only to have a birds nest on his reel after a few casts. Not Marty's day! Marty decided to come back over to my side of the river and watch me fish for a little while.

We were both watching my indicator when it shot upstream like a torpedo. A fish had just hit my fly like a freight train! It took several nice long runs upstream. I was eventually able to bring it back down towards us and we were able to get a good look at him. It was at least a 22" bow and it may have gone 23-24". It was fat as a football and red as a brick. Nice fish! I knew this was going to be a long fight. He started running downstream and I mentioned to Marty that I'd probably need help netting this one. We had to follow this fish downstream run after run. The bank we were on was full of snow covered rocks. The bank was pretty much just a steep slope that kept going once it hit the water. We couldn't take a step off the bank really without being in water that was WAY too deep to wade. The fish had come up to the surface several times at this point and we both had several really good looks at him. I wanted to land this one BAD! I had followed the fish downstream and knew there were some obstacles in the water about 40' down from where I was at. Just as I was thinking to myself that I needed to keep him from going downstream any further he took a HUGE run downstream. There was NO stopping this fish. I realized what he had saw that he wanted to get to so bad. A tree that had fallen into the water. He had run under the tree with my line and was about 10' downstream from the tree. I had to put serious side pressure on this fish now or he would be gone. I somehow worked him out from under the log. As soon as he was on my side of the log I lifted straight up on him and he came up and over the log. Marty was on the downstream side of the log and went for the net. The fish came up broadside across the net and flopped a few times before diving back into the water. Ahhhhhh!!!!! Back to the chase! I had to pretty much run downstream at this point because the fish was in building current. I crossed the river and steered him through several submerged boulders. I finally got to a nice shallow riffle with him and he was ready to come in! I went to grab my net and....... NO NET!!!!! My net had fallen off somewhere upstream. Marty was too far upstream and couldn't make it downstream any further. I was on my own. I tried to beach him and got  him in about 6 inches of water. Just then the hook pulled out and there he was sitting with his back out of the water. I threw my rod on the bank and pounced like a cat. I grabbed him with both hands and he bucked hard and hit the water swimming. He was gone................................. What a bummer! It would have been great to land this fish but the experience of this fight was EPIC! On the way back upstream I took a picture of the tree that he had swam under. The chances of getting any fish out of this thing was slim to none. I can't believe he came out from under it.

It was an awesome half day of fishing but we were both pretty shot at this point. We called it a day and headed back to the jeep. It's always the big ones that get away....