Frying Pan River (8/8 and 8/10)

8/8 - We made it to Basalt with minimal damage to the truck (see Roaring Fork post) and had about a half hour of daylight remaining which meant plenty of time to head up and hit the Frying Pan for a few. By the time we parked by the dam and rigged up it was dark. I flipped on the head lamp, walked toward the dam, looked up, and saw this.... 100 feet? Anyone hear anything about this? Usually I fish about 10 feet away from the plant... Hmmmmm... I will say that while it would suck to not fish right up against the dam, it would be good for the fish. They'd have to fence it off though and even then I'm sure people would poach it. Imagine the freaks of nature that would grow in a private toilet bowl (a sentence I never thought I'd write in a fishing blog).

We fished below the dam (101 feet away, rough estimate) for a few and then decided to cruise the flats with streamers. Ben and I covered most of the flats with streamers and didn't get a hit. I couldn't believe it... Not sure if our head lamps were spooking them or not but I thought we'd at least get one grab. Anyone fish the Pan at night? What gives?

We made it down to the bend hole and decided to fish it for a while. Nothin.... Not a thing. I could see fish and Ben and I both saw several really nice fish. It seemed like our headlamps were dazing them a bit. I saw this big mamma and we walked right up to her. I got the wild idea to get a closer look so I grabbed my net and lined it up just downstream from her in the water. Took a step, she turned and mozied down stream right into my net! Wow.... I didn't know it could be this easy. Ever have a fresh 24" pig in the net? They don't behave well.

This was the only "fish" of the night. Crazy... This sport never fails to surprise. It's a never ending game that you get to play in some of the prettiest country on earth. Even at night it's amazing. When's the last time you saw stars outside of city limits and pulled a pig out of a mountain river ninja style?

8-9 - Fished the Roaring Fork and it was awesome

8-10 - After 12 hours of solid fishing, plus the 100 foot snag, we decided that we'd sleep in a bit and not worry about getting the toilet bowl. We drove up around 6:30 and there were several cars below the dam. I'm not one to point elbows but there was some sub 100 foot fishing going on. I think this sign is probably seen by all and spoken by none. Well one.. on the internet. Can we just take it down and call it a mulligan? I'm not suggesting anyone break the law but I do have some wall space open in my office.

I've always enjoyed fishing downstream but haven't done it much over the years. Hard to pull away from the pig rig. Everything below the dam was filling up though and I have heard that streamers on the lower Pan are fun so we jumped in the Taco and headed down past the first long stretch of private water below the dam.

Fish geek

First cast was a downstream presentation with a natural rabbit slump buster and resulted in a tight line grab and a nice little brownie (see vid). Oh this is fun! A few casts later and a nice rainbow was following my slump. He chased it all the way into the main current. I put some heat on the streamer and he totally pulled a Jaws move and gobbled it. Way better view with polarized sun glasses.

We mixed it up with nymphs and streamers and had steady action. A size 6 natural rabbit slump buster with a silver cone, body, and

Recovery room

ribbing was the ticket for streamers. A size 18 BWO emerger (from the private reserve - hit me up if you want the pattern) was the hot nymph.

We were walking downstream and Ben spotted a really nice bow feeding heavily. This was a really good fish which looked to be 22-24" (see vid). Nice male bow with great color. With polarized glasses he stood out great. I'll be looking into getting a polarized filter for the GoPro. If they don't make them I may go into business. If you steal my idea make sure you take me to some good water.

We got schooled for the next 20 minutes. There were some small BWOs coming off and he seemed to be grabbing emergers. After each of us tried half a dozen patterns we decided to move on. Before we left though I got some good underwater footage of him.

We hit the road around lunch. We were both starving so we decided to get some grub and get home at a descent hour. The first part of that plan worked out. The second part of the plan died as soon as we got a good look at this water. We decided we could spare a little time and hit a few runs. We threw on the wading sneaks and jumped in. Holy sh1T!!! My heart seized up and started crawling up my throat. Damn cold water!!!! You get used to it though after about 40 minutes. Your feet go numb and then it's pretty comfortable actually.

We hit some nice bows and brookies on a hopper copper setup. This water is pristine! Crystal clear with post card runs. 3 hours went by in a flash. On the way back I almost ate it big time. I was getting ready to cross the river and was stepping off a bank into the creek about 3 feet below. My foot caught and I started falling forward. I was going to belly flop into the heart stopping water. At the VERY LAST second my
foot pulled loose and I took a hard step into the creek splashing water up everywhere. Ben was amused to say the least. Almost went swimming two weekends in a row.

What a trip! Lots of fishing of all types. I love this state. The pictures don't come close.

Have to send a shout out to Marty Murphy who is on the bench with a shoulder injury. Hope you heal up soon man. Let's hit some new water when you are back in the game.