Taylor River

A nice 20" Cutthroat that Dad caught

What's harder; tying on a size 28 miracle nymph on 8x tippet, or removing a size 28 miracle nymph tied to 8x from a trout jaw? I did both today and I'm not sure... Both cause you to lose flies, make your eyes bleed, and can cause you to speak in tongues. Some people skip the removal part and release the fish only to hear the invisible tippet snap releasing your invisible fly to swim off (sorry Dad but this was too funny). What's the best part of using 8x tippet? Switching to 6x.

Skinny brown with a Meat Whistle 

We spent Friday and Saturday fishing to ultra pressured hogs on the Taylor just below Taylor Res. We showed up Friday evening after fighting construction traffic in the high country of Colorado. We decided to do some chuck and duck Friday evening with streamers and Rapalas. Dad and Marty did well on hardware and I  managed to land a few on streamers. I was fishing to a large brown just under the bridge with an olive Meat Whistle. After a few casts he followed it up and bumped it but didn't eat it. It was enough to get my heart to stop though.

We finished up Friday evening around 8 and headed into Gunnison for the night. We headed into Safeway sporting our breathable waders and picked up some doughnuts for the morning. The lady at the register gave us the "they only come out at night" look and rang us up. We pulled into the Super 8 for a quick nap before heading out at 4:30! (it was 8 before we saw the first car)

Marty with a nice brown early Sat morning

Round two of chuck and duck started at daylight. We each caught a few nice fish but nothing huge. Marty and I stayed planted in the Avalanche hole almost the entire day. Dad fished the hog trough in the morning and the speed limit hole in the afternoon. He did great in the speed limit hole catching a dozen or so to include a 20" cutty (shown above) while Marty and I continued to whip the same abused fish we whipped all morning long.

Our first attempt at underwater video. You can see 

the brown trout I was fighting towards the end of this

video. CAUTIION - Marty decided to bump this family

movie up to an R rating at the end. Thanks Marty

We all tried fishing 8x tippet and were able to land a few but all in all 6x seemed to be just as effective. I switched to 6x after setting the hook on a take just a little too hard and snapped my whole rig off. I muttered a few choice words and ditched the 8x. I was however impressed by the strength of the size 28 Tiemco hooks.

The weather moving in

The weather on Saturday was typical springtime Colorado weather. The morning started out nice without any wind. After an hour or two of fishing I looked over at Marty and said, "It's getting colder Dude". Within an hour it was snowing. The temperature plummeted and Marty and I were shaking. It actually gives your fly nice action in the water. I had my heavy coat in the car and it would have taken under 4 minutes to stop fishing and go get it but I figured 4 hours of shivering uncontrollably was a better option. My brain ceases to function in the presence of large trout.  

The biggest fish of the day weren't landed. Dad had a 22" brown up the the bank but couldn't get a net on him. I missed a very large brown in the Avalanche hole. Marty had come over to where I was fishing and I was pointing out a huge rainbow to him that I had been watching. I took a few casts to the rainbow and at the end of one drift I saw my indicator twitch and I set the hook. A huge brown came up to the surface and threw several massive head shakes and spit my fly. Marty said "oh my god did you see that fish!" I said "yeah it was on the end of my line"! I hadn't even seen the brown there. Just goes to show how hard it is to see trout sometimes. 

It was another fun but tough trip to the Taylor. These fish can really humble you. Some guys just really get this river. I still struggle with it. It's always fun though and catching 16 - 18" browns is fun on any day.

Arkansas River (Cotopaxi)

The taste of dry fly fishing last weekend drew me back to the Arkansas this weekend for more. Mike Greene and I headed up past Cotopaxi. On the way we could see that the water was off color. I figured that runoff had begun but the flow wasn't that much higher than it was the previous weekend. It was a bummer to see dirty water but we were going to make the best of it.

We started out using the standard fare of green Caddis larva and pupa. Mike had a few hits but didn't have any luck hooking up. After covering a few runs without success I decided to change things up a bit. I tied on a small black Barr's Slump Buster and started dead drifting it. On about the second cast I had a hard hit and pulled in the nicest fish of the day. He seemed a little bigger than the standard 12-14" browns that we normally catch in this area. I'd say he was a good 15" (second fish from the right on the stringer).

I thought I was on to something with the dead drifted streamer but I was wrong. I took Kelly Galloup's advice and started running through the colors. I tried black then went tan. I tried purple and then went olive. NOTHING.... I was starting to really hate the dirty water.

The Caddis hatch never materialized. Later in the afternoon the water started to clear up so I was hoping that they would start hatching but no dice. I figured the dirty water was from rain the night before upstream. We did get some saving grace with a descent Blue Wing Olive hatch in the afternoon. I tied on a size 20 Mercury RS2 and within a few casts had hooked into a brown. This ended a stretch of about 2 hours without a hit. This guy took off downstream and I had to chase him down.

Mike hooked into a nice trout around this time and I waded out to provide a net. The trout was running downstream from Mike and then did a 180 and headed upstream. It was enough pressure to pull the hook out. I think this fish was a little nicer. Mike said it didn't really freak out when it was hooked like a lot of little fish do. It's always the big ones that get away.

Even though it was a tough day we did wind up with 5 nice fish that Mike took home and cooked up in the smoker. Not a bad day's work!

First Dry Fly Action of the Season - Arkansas River (Canyon City)

Marty and I decided to chase the Caddis hatch on the Arkansas on Sunday. We started downstream of Cotopaxi in the morning and did well on Barr Uncased Caddis and Barr Graphic Caddis both green and size 16. After moving upstream a ways I decided to head back downstream to see how Marty was doing. I made it down to where Marty was and sat down on a rock for a rest. I had only been sitting for a few seconds when an entire herd of Big Horn Sheep popped up behind Marty! I thought they would take off as soon as one of us moved so I whispered to Mary, "Don't move..... Look behind you". Mary told me he didn't know how to do both of those things at the same time..... Good point. He turned around and this is what he saw.

This is the first time I've seen Big Horn Sheep in the wild! It was awesome. They just stood there and watched Marty fish for a few minutes and then walked down the railroad tracks. You just don't get these kinds of experiences sitting on the couch.

Around lunch I saw a few Caddis hatching but it didn't develop into much of a hatch. We decided to drive

upstream a few miles to see if the hatch had moved up towards Salida. We drove through Cotopaxi and stopped a few miles outside of town. This stretch of river was crowded! Almost every bit of fishable river had someone in it. We figured the hatch had moved upstream and brought the crowds with it. We found a run that was empty and started fishing. We caught a few on Barr Graphic Caddis but the hatch was really starting to take off and the trout were starting to rise! Oh yeah!!! First good hatch of the spring. We both tied on some nice Elk Hair Humpy's that Marty had tied and within a few casts we had hooked up. We had some awesome dry fly action for about 15 minutes. I think we landed 4 or so but had a lot more on. Then the sun came out from behind the clouds and the fish hit the bottom. It was like a light switch. One minute we are knocking them dead on dries and the next minute we are being schooled. We waited for a while till the sun went back behind the clouds but by that time the hatch was over. It was awesome while it lasted though! Not many things are more fun than catching a trout on a dry fly. I can think of only one....

Nice Rainbow Marty Caught

Arkansas River (Pueblo) 3/31/12

We had a crew out on the Arkansas today. Marty, my Dad, and I met Ben Lewis in town and we headed down to Pueblo. We met up with David Fitch and his sons Michael and Steven. We had every inch of water covered around Valco Bridge.

Clockwise from upper left - Marty, Steven, Michael, David, Ben, Dad

This area must have been stocked recently because we could not keep little stockers off our lines. Ben was hooking up almost every cast! We couldn't catch anything over 12"-14". Don't get me wrong it was a lot of fun. I like catching trout no matter the size but it's always nice to catch at least a few that are a little bigger. We fished this area till lunch and probably caught 50 fish all together. It didn't seem to matter what fly we were using. Anything was good for one or two but the main flies were the standard fare. San Juan Worms, Copper Johns, Tungteasers, etc.

 Ben and I made our way upstream and fished every nice run along the way. We had definitely made our way away from the stacked up stockers. The fishing was a lot tougher up stream. We fished about halfway back to the car when I hooked a nice rainbow. Ben grabbed the net and I was able to bring the trout's head up long enough for Ben to get the net on him. I thought he would go 20" but I couldn't quite stretch him that long. He was a nice 19" rainbow with a nice red stripe down his side. This guy wound up being the best fish of the day. Really enjoyed catching this one. This was the first descent fish I landed on my new Sage One 4WT 9' / Ross Evolution LT 1.5. What an awesome setup. Less than 7 ounces for the whole thing. Casts like a dream and the reel is smooth as silk.

We fished the next hole around the bend for a while but didn't hook up. We were in a perfect run but things sorta turned off around noon. Dad met up with us and started to cross the river downstream from us when he took a dive. It was a rerun of Marty's swim last week! He was able to grab on to a rock and save his net and rod. He was stuck in some pretty strong current  but was up on his feet before Ben and I got down to him.

I worked my way up to the head of the run and was high sticking the far side of the main channel. After a few casts at the head of the pool I had a HARD hit and set the hook. I knew this was a nicer fish. He took a nice run across the stream and I was giddy listening to my new Ross sing. Dad took a quick snap just as I was netting this guy. He wound up being about a 15"-16" rainbow. Was going to get a picture of him but he had other ideas.

We all ate lunch together at the parking lot which was nice and headed back down to the river for another hour or so of fishing. I had a good time fishing with Michael. He is quite a fisherman. I have a feeling I'll be reading one of his fly fishing books down the road. Really had a blast with everyone today. It's awesome to be able to fish on such a sweet river with such good people. Life is good!

Arkansas River (Canyon City)

 Summer has come early this year and Marty and I took full advantage yesterday. We drove up to the Arkansas River around Texas Creek about 15 miles outside of Canyon City. We scouted the water on the way up and then turned around at Texas Creek and headed back downstream to hit the spots that looked good on the way up. We started at mile marker 254 (I feel safe posting this since I have about 10 blog readers). There were several really nice runs here. The first was a long deep run that butted up agains a steep rock bank on the far side.

 I hooked up after a few minutes but something felt strange. It felt like a huge fish but I could see him and he was only about a 12" brown. Turns out this poor little guy had soemones bait rig in his gut that was hung up on the bottom of the river. I had to wade out to him to cut the line. I could see the eye someone's size 2 bait hook in this guy's throat. The rest of the hook was burried in the trout's stomach. I cut the line up to the eye of the hook and noticed that he was bleeding terribly. He swam off but I doubt he survived. Really pisses me off the way people treat wildlife. If you are going to bait fish, fish where it is legal and where you can keep the fish you hook in the stomach.

Marty releasing a brown

Marty and I hooked up several more times in this first run and in the run below the first run which was a nice hole that slowed up a deep center channel that ran 40 yards or so. We only hooked brown trout and they were all around 12" - 14". They were really keying in on stone flies. A size 12 tungstone was hot for about an hour.

Looked good to me but the fish
wanted a copper john instead

After things slowed down we headed downstream and stopped at a really nice hole that we had spotted earlier. There was a guy fishing upstream from it in a pretty horrible spot. I couldn't figure out why he wasn't fishing where Marty and I were about to but I wasn't going to complain about a pristine run free from fishermen. We hit the near side of the run first and hooked up almost immediatly. We hooked several browns on the near side of the run before wading accross to the far side where we could fish more of the slack water. We hooked more browns of the same size mostly on chartruse copper johns. We seined the water and found a TON of free swimming caddis larva. I had some size 16 bar caddis that were a pretty close match but the fish prefered the copper john. Go figure. We hooked and landed 8-10 more fish before the run died down.



16" Rainbow



The next spot we fished looked VERY fishy. Nice slack water all along the main cut with back eddies and film. The head of the hole was comprised of two huge white water plunges that created a huge white water pillow directly behind a big boulder. This was rainbow water! On about the second cast I hooked and landed this nice rainbow which wound up being the only rainbow of the day. No doubt rainbows prefer oxygenated white water.

We headed down stream and spotted a really nice run. The problem was that it would take scaling down a pretty steep rocky bank to get to it. We made our way down to the river without incident and I waded across to the far side. This was no easy task. This river is SLICK and the current was STRONG. I turned around to see Marty lose his footing and go face down into the water. He regained his footing and stood up only to have the rock he was standing on roll under his foot. He went down and was getting pushed downstream into a very turbulent and deep hole. I was getting worried at this point. At the last minute he made it to the bank and grabbed onto a rock. Phew!!!! Any further down and he would be in trouble! Marty was safe but his net and water bottle were gone. I took a few casts and landed a nice brown but we decided to move downstream to find some water that was a little more easily accessable.

We decided to make one more stop at the Salt Lick boat ramp. We landed one more small brown and decided to call it a day. All in all we probably landed 20 fish. The weather was absolutely perfect and as always we had an adventure.

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....