Gunnison River (East Portal)

We decided to try some new water this weekend and I am sure glad we did! We decided to hit a tailwater on the Gunnison river under Crystal Dam. This is in Black Canyon National Park. This section of river is about a mile above the famous Black Canyon which we've fished years before.

We got to the river just after daylight. The road down into the canyon is about a 17% grade! Makes for some great views while driving in. You can see the road in this picture that I took while driving out. They close this road in the winter which is about 5 miles long. This sounds like a great way to get familiar with a snow mobile. You'd have the whole place to yourself.

Anyway, once we got down to the river we drove up to the dam and back down to scout out the best water. This is a big river and has long sections of flat deep water. We saw a few nice runs and decided to start upstream and work our way down. The first run we fished was a long, fairly slow run that had a nice gradual drop off into the main channel of the river. The further you cast out, the deeper the water. This is always nice because you can adjust your cast, instead of your rig, to get at the right depth.

I hooked a small rainbow on my first cast but he spit the hook. We each hooked a few fish in this run but nothing huge. My Dad worked his way upstream and found a nice section of white water behind a huge boulder. He took one cast with one of the flies I tied for him for Father's Day and he hit the slab shown at the top of the page. A 20" pig of a rainbow! Unfortunately my Mom and I were down stream when he pulled this guy in and we didn't get to see it. When my Dad came back downstream he asked how we were doing. I said not bad we caught a few small ones. He said, just before I stopped talking,  "oh that's nice, I caught a fat 20" bow". LOL - The following 4 pictures are of some small trout we pulled out of the first run we fished. Even thought they were small they were still a lot of fun and STRONG. These fish are as strong as the fish in the Arkansas below Pueblo. Almost all of the rainbows we caught were bright red and in really good shape. Catching a lot of nice bright red trout rainbows reminded me of the Frying Pan river in the mid 90s.

We fished this area for a few hours and decided to make our way down stream. We saw a really nice hole below a small damn when we were scouting the river earlier in the morning and we decided to give that a shot. This was REALLY nice water as you can see from this picture. You had to wade across a pretty fast section of water but then you came to a small island where I was standing when I took this picture. The flow was mid 600s and if it were any higher it would be really tough getting out to this section. You could wade out just far enough, toward the damn, to cast up just below the spill way. You would get a really nice drift coming back toward you. I started on the near side and worked my way across the damn. I caught a few nice rainbows on the near side of the damn but had no idea what was in store for me on the far side. The picture to the left was one of the nice rainbows I landed on the near side of the damn. All of these rainbows were bright red and really healthy. It's a good thing to see since the Gunnison was hit so hard by whirling disease in the late 90s. It seems like the rainbows have come back strong! I made my way to the far side of the damn where the river butted up against a rock face. It was a VERY fishing looking spot as you can see here. There were two really nice currents and a deep white water plunge hole between them as you can make out in this picture. You could wade up just far enough to cast into the white water but it was NOT easy wading here. There were a ton of big mossy rocks to step over while you were in waist deep current. Getting over to this spot required that you cross a fast waist deep section over more medium sized mossy rocks. In other words it wasn't easy getting over here and  

once you did get over to the far side it wasn't easy navigating. I started hooking fish right away in this section. I soon realized that the fish knew how to handle being hooked in this run. They stayed up towards the spill way for a few minutes and if that didn't work they headed downstream into very fast white water. I actually had to chase a 16" rainbow downstream about 60 yards! I knew if I hooked a big fish it would be a very big job getting him in the net. 

After catching a few fish things died down a bit and I decided to adjust my weight. I added a bunch of Mojo Mud around my split shot to try and get the fly down as close to the white water as possible. First cast produced a hit and a fat bow over 20" rolled up on the surface and spit the hook. Ah! Tough when the nice ones get away but I hadn't seen anything at that point. Almost every cast after that was a hit. I was dialed in! Deep Tungstones! On about my 10th cast I had a HARD hit and knew immediately that I had a big fish on. I knew I had to wait for my Dad to make his way over to my side of the river so I just held him up towards the spill way without applying too much pressure because I didn't want him to run down into the fast water. I hadn't seen him yet but I could feel the head shakes and I knew he was big. Just as my Dad was making his way across the hardest section of water I saw a HUGE tail come up and break the surface. This thing was a MONSTER! Huge brick red tail! I said "Oh Man that is a HUGE Bow!" My Dad had only seen the tail too but couldn't make out that it was just the tail and he said, "I don't think it's that big". I said, "It's HUGE!". He was heading downstream at this point! Nooooooooo!!! My Dad made it over to my side of the  river just in time to have to duck in order to avoid my line. He turned around just to see this monster roll on the top of the surface as it was entering the fast water. My hook pulled out and he was off!!! Ahhhhhh ***** I yelled! Oh the pain!!!!!!!!!! My Dad said, "That was a huge bow"!  I had missed a true trophy of a trout. Probably mid 20"s and 8 pounds. A football of brick red! I've played this over in my mind several hundred times and there were several things I could have done better to land this bow. One was to start wading across the river towards the near side as soon as he was hooked to bring him above the island instead of above the white water channel. The other was to let him run through the white water and chase him like I had earlier for the smaller bow. But with a net so close to the fish it's hard not to put pressure to hold him above the fast water for a chance at the net. 

There are BIG trout in this river. I fished half heartedly for a little while after that without much luck so we decided to take a break and eat lunch. There are nice facilities at this location and we had a nice picnic lunch on a covered picnic table. After lunch we decided to head downstream further to see what it looked like. It was nice water but the bubbas had started filling in and I couldn't get the image of that trout out of my head. I was heading back to the spill way! 

Releasing a nice little brown 

I started walking up stream and noticed a guy on the far side of the river walking up stream. I knew as soon as he turned the bend he would see the spot where I missed that big bow and park himself there for several years. Just as I was figuring this out my Dad said you better hurry up. I about broke my neck getting down to the water and had to power my way through the fast current. I must have looked like Richard Simmons in waders lifting my legs to get across the river. My legs were on FIRE as I just nudged him out to beat him to my spot! He was not pleased....... He started to turn to walk away and I took one step and fell in the river.... I stood up soaking wet only to see the look of a very satisfied bubba shake his head and walk away.... Karma...... I deserved it. Should have shared that spot. Lesson learned. Oh yeah and I didn't hook another big fish in that hole.....

My Mom stayed on the near side of the river and had found a nice run to fish and was hooking up pretty regularly. I didn't get a picture of a nice bow she caught but I was able to zoom in on this nice little brownie. I decided to head back over and join my folks for the last hour or so of fishing. It was a nice way to end the day. My Mom and I were both  hooking fish and it had been a great day of fishing. I starting fishing a nice pocket just upstream and hooked a fish that slowly and steadily swam upstream in very heavy current without stopping. I never saw him and he hung me up on a rock. More bad Karma pay off! I took a few more casts and actually wound up landing the nicest fish I had caught that trip. Karma bank even! 

It's nice to have some new water to fish. I really like this river and will be fishing in more in the future. Great weekend with the folks! Always a good time fishing with them and we all caught nice fish. Can't beat living in Colorado!