Taylor River

High Adventure this weekend in the mountains of Colorado. Living life to the fullest and coming home to tell about it - doesn't get any better than that!

Destination Taylor River this trip. Ben Lewis and I were at our company's national sales meeting in Vegas this week. We had planned on going to the Taylor this weekend with my Dad and Marty and planned on leaving Friday night as soon as Ben and I were back in town. Bone head idea which I have to take full credit for. Not a relaxing week and when I walked in the house to drop one bag for another (already in zombie autopilot mode) I realized what an a-hole move it was..... OK so making it up to the Fam today, hold off on the hate mail!

On to the fishing and we'll wrap it up with a small but significant near death experience (for those that wan't to skip the ramble, head to the "We don't got it" section). We arrived in Gunnison around 8PM and grabbed lunch for the next day at Subway. The guy that snores the loudest insisted on stopping by Safeway for some ear plugs. After I bought my plugs we headed to the hotel to rig up. Within 5 minutes our Super 8 room looked like a fly shop. Lamp shades off the lamps, gear spread out everywhere, at least 8 rods being worked on like helpless patients. About an hour or so later we were ready, lights off, queue the snoring.

Dad with a sweet cutty

We hit the water at 8. Not a soul in sight! Ben and I decided to pick out some hogs to cast to. We found a few huge bows around the bridge. I'm sure one pushed 30 inches. It was massive. These guys don't get big on accident. You can lay out a 7x, split shotless, indicatorless rig on a bed of feathers and they'll swim off. At one point I headed up the hill on the far side of the Avalanche hole to spot for Ben. My legs slid out from under me in the snow and I went down. SNAP!!! I looked down and my net had taken the full weight of my fall. It was broken in three places. Crap... We continued to site fish for about an hour. We had some looks but no takes. It was friggin cold and Dad and Marty were having luck dredging the Avalanche hole so we decided to join them. 

Dad and Marty dialed in quick and were consistently catching fish. Ben and I struggled for most of the day. Dad had the drop off going into the Avalanche hole nailed. He was casting far enough upstream to get his flies down right along the drop off. As soon as he cleared the drop off, BAM! Tan sparkle worms and beadhead blood midges were killing it for him. Marty was fishing the slack water on the near side of the main channel. He had a cool technique going where he would cast into the still water, wait for some sort of drift and if his indicator wasn't drifting he'd give it a little twitch to get it moving. He was getting a ton of takes during the twitch and when the flies were settling. #26 midge pupa in black, red, green were working great for him.

Ben and I weren't so skilled. We were hooking up but they were few and far between. I decided to head to the far side of the Avalanche hole in order to reach the main current without so much slack line on the water. After finding a good drift around the massive fly shop bush that inhabits the bottom of this hole, I dialed in my depth. A few casts later I had a subtle take and set the hook. I immediately new it was a big fish. I saw the white of his mouth through a couple of big sweeping head shakes. Yes!!!! Oh no!!! I don't have a net.... I knew he was on my #22 midge so I had to be careful with him until someone with a net could help out. This guy was behaving well and hanging deep. As soon as my Dad made it over he went on two long runs. I had already had him on for over a minute and knew that those small barbless hooks don't stay in long. My Ross Evolution LT 1.5 handled it without issue. Love that reel!  Dad made a nice net job and he was landed! He went 23" and had a huge head on him with nice big spots. Probably the nicest brown I've landed on the Taylor. Unfortunately that was about it for large fish. This guy took one of my Miracle Nymphs (future post) with a nickle tungsten bead and some brown quick descent dubbing. I tried the same fly later on in the day up in a riffle by the bridge and missed a HUGE bow on it. I only had him on for a second but he came up and broke the water just long enough to tease me. Good fly that was put together at tie night at the Covey!

It was a good day all around. Everyone caught fish and we landed a trophy. Little did we know that the excitement was far from over.

-WE DON'T GOT IT-

It was snowing pretty good throughout the day on the river. We were thinking that Monarch Pass was going to be rough but we got up and over it without issue. The further we got into South Park though the worse the weather got. Heavy snow and slush covered icy roads were starting to form. We were a little worn out and were probably going a little too fast. Marty's Durango was handling it fine so we weren't too worried. As we came up to a bridge the tail end broke loose. We started fish tailing.... A collective wooooooaaaahhhhhh came out.. Marty: Hold on we got it..... Me: You got it man, you got it.... Ben: WE'RE DEAD..... Dad: (we would later find out had already closed his eyes and was thinking that he almost made it to the first social security check he was due to receive next month. I picture that seen in Happy Gilmore with my Dad sitting on a golf course with social security checks falling from the sky)..... Me: We got it man, you got it.... it... it...... (back end comes around).... shit -  WE DON'T GOT IT!....... hold on! At this point all I could see were guard rails as the back end came around. I was in the front passenger seat and just as we were de-roading I got a birds eye view of the embankment that we were about to head down. I absolutely knew for SURE that we were going to roll. Marty somehow straightened us up enough to go down the embankment at an angle and we stayed upright! No WAY!!! We were down the embankment but we were still stepping in it. The Durango wouldn't stop. We were sliding backwards toward who knows what. At this point things got pretty surreal. The slide down the embankment wasn't rough at all.  We were all sitting upright and pretty comfortable... We were all just looking out the window as we slid backwards like we were taking the scenic route somewhere and were relaxing to take in the sites. It was super quite and we just kept sliding. Crazy!!!! Eventually we came to a stop - Dad: Where are we what happend???.... Everyone else: Jaws on the floorboard. WE ARE ALIVE!!!!! Me: THAT WAS AWESOME!........ Ben: THAT WAS NOT AWESOME!!! .......Dad opened the door and snow was up to the bottom of the door. All of a sudden we realized we were WAY off the road in 2-3ft snow. This was going to be a pain in the ASS!!! Marty, on autopilot at this point, started the truck. I flipped the switch to 4L... Dad instinctively knew to close the door.. Marty started rocking the Durango back and forth. We got traction and started moving!!!! HOLY CRAP.... We picked up speed as we headed up the embankment....... Next Problem: We were going to launch back up onto the road like some huge white 4WD Elk with no way of knowing who was coming. We all were straining our necks trying to see if any lights were coming. No lights as we launched back up on the road!!! NO WAY WE JUST DROVE AWAY FROM THAT!!!!!! AH HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! AWESOME!!!! We spent the next hour breaking down every second of what seemed like an hour of sliding around in a big white sled. We did slow WAY down... and had a line of cars behind us. Didn't care. We were not going through that again! We made it home and the story telling was ON!! Great time! This is one for the history books.. or blogs anyway. Glad everyone made it through unscathed to live through our next adventure. Love you guys! Can't wait for the next trip!

Nice brown Marty caught

Blue River

Decided to mix things up a bit and head to the Blue River today. I used to fish the Blue quite a bit but haven't fished it in a few years. I knew it would be low and slow but I kept dwelling on the brick red bows we had caught there in the past.

Ben Lewis and I got on the water at the crack of 10:30 and I started flogging away with an indicator and split shot. An hour later without having a bump I decided that I needed to earn my fish today. Off with the indicator and split shot, on with the 8x and a weighted midge larva.

We were fishing the "cable riffle" (just made that up - it's the riffle above the spillway) and we were spotting fish pretty well. I was high sticking without my indicator touching the water anyway so all it really was doing was giving the fish a heads up.

The change in tactics produced some nice trout to include the blushed fatty shown above. These fish were not taking flies very hard. Any flash of white or any movement at all required a hook set. The problem with that were the bushes lining the bank directly behind us. This caused my hook sets to be short and, if it was a miss, a quick cast downstream to avoid the bushes. I thought I was pretty smart until this disaster manifested itself on the end of my rod. Seriously? A birds nest so nasty I had to take a picture of it.

The only thing the fish would consider touching today were TINY midge larva #24-28. A #24 Miracle Nymph and a #28 Blood Midge worked best for me. 6x seemed to be way too much. If you have the right rod and reel you can get away with 8x if you are very careful.

We got some really good sight fishing in today and learned a lot. I love that I still learn something new every time I hit the water. It never gets stale for me. After 20 years of fishing these rivers I still feel like a beginner.

Next up - The Taylor!

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

I'm typing this very slowly because my hands haven't thawed yet. It was a bit nippley today in Pueblo... Ben Lewis and I were a few of the crazies on the river today. The trout didn't even show up. We started fishing around the pump house and it was very slow going. I hooked and landed a 14" bow during the first half hour or so and if I thought that would be the only fish of the day I'd have taken a picture. So here is a pic of the fly I used.

I'm not sure if anyone else has done this but it's just micro chenille covered in thick CC. It looks amazing and took the only fish of the day. Had a great hit on a size 12 purple CC worm but didn't hook up. I had some #12 Dai-Riki 135s that I wasn't using and figured I'd experiment. I noticed how dull they were when I put them in the vise but didn't take the time to sharpen them and it cost me a nice fish today. I knew it would end up biting me in the arse and it did. Another lesson learned the hard way....

Can't wait to try some of these this spring in high flows. So far the CC doesn't seem to be cracking or flaking off so it may wind up being a regular "fly" I use. The CC I used for these is the thick CC Tack Free.

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Solo trip down to Pueblo today to get some fishing in before vacation is over. First trip of 2013! Crazy that the holidays have come and gone. Time is a strange bird..... Anyway - the weather looked promising and with it being a weekday I was excited to fish some open water.

I started below the Nature Center at the fence run but got a very slow start. Foul hooked one trout before moving upstream. Just above the Nature Center I found a riffle with a half dozen trout feeding and they readily took a size 20 Purple Poison Tung. Hooked 5 and landed 3 within 15 minutes before the riffle emptied out. This little male was very colorful. Can't wait to see him when he grows up.

Continued upstream and started to run into people. By noon the flag hole was a zoo. That was my sign to head downstream. I jumped in the Taco and drove down to the 4th street bridge. I wanted to see if the Bud hole was open so I parked at Dutch Clark Stadium. This run was wide open! Not a soul in site! Made my way down the hill and changed up my rig for some deeper water. I tied on a tan San Juan Worm and a size 18 red Two Bit Hooker and took a cast. Wham! First cast and hooked the nicest fish of the day. Getting lucky with a Two Bit Hooker in the Bud Hole is a lot more fun than it sounds! I worked my way up and down the Martini Hole and hooked a few more nice bows before calling it a day.

I'm starting to move around more on these trips. Fish the Nature Center upstream early and when the Dude hatch comes off head downstream. Really good fishing up and downstream from the 4th street bridge and up and downstream from the water treatment plant. My nicest fish in this river have come downstream from Pueblo Blvd.

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Day two of an epic fishing weekend in Pueblo. Ok... so maybe not epic but fun for sure. Ben and I had seen the pump house hole the day before and wanted to give it a shot so we parked off of Cotton Wood Road and headed straight for the fence line. Dad and Marty had joined us so we had a herd. We weren't the first people on the river but the hole directly under the pump house outlet was open.

Same flies as the day before. Yellow eggs, PTs, FB Mercury Black Beauties. Ben and I hooked up right away while Dad went downstream and Marty rigged up. This run is absolutely jam packed with trout. You could barley run a line through without hooking or foul hooking a trout. These runs are tough because you don't want to foul hook a trout but at the same time the takes are very subtle so you set the hook on any movement. We brought in the foul hooked trout quickly and with barbless hooks the release was very quick.

Ben in some sort of strange sun storm

After things died down I wanted to try a sink tip line with a heavy weight where the pump house outlet enters the river. This is a technique that I use at the toilet bowl that works really well. I was able to get a good "drift" on the bottom but there is a nasty snag (feels like a log) that you cannot avoid fishing this way. Lost two good fish fry patterns that I tie that imitate a small fry with the egg yolk still attached before moving on to other water. Thought that some of these may get discharged from the hatchery (no clue really where this water comes from but it was worth a shot) and if they did I could imagine a few hogs sitting in the white water getting huge on unlucky fish fry. 

Wrong date on the camera on this one

Dad hooked into some nice fish below this run below the first weir downstream. While we were fishing this run. Marty jumped in and started hooking fish as well.

Dad and I worked upstream to the run Ben and I had done well in the day before. This is the riffle into a drop off that runs along a rock pile bend. We fished from the rock pile side but things had slown down in this run from the day before. Not much action except a descent bow on a red tungsten bead head PT.

We worked back downstream to the pump house where Marty had dialed in on the slow side of the drop off. He was killing them with yellow sucker egg patterns. I probably watched him land over half a dozen within 15 minutes. Big smile on Marty's face :-)

By this time the mob had arrived and I felt like I was in a fly fishing zombie apocalypse film. Guys were slowly walking towards us with arms outstretched holding fly rods... Time to move on. We hopped in the car and headed down to Pillars Park. No one was fishing the weirs but there was a guy in the Bud hole that we wanted to fish so back to the car... We hit reservoir road and fished the water treatment plant. The temperature had really dropped and the fishing dropped off with it. We fished a few hours around the water treatment plant and landed a few fish between the 4 of us but it was  slow going. Ben had a nice articulated pumpkin Sex Dungeon on him and I decided to give a few stockers a heart attack with it.

I was slow stripping it in a deep hole when I hooked a massive branch that bumped along the bottom when I set the hook. Oh yeah!!!! Big Fish!!! Get the net!!! The branch came up and rolled on the surface to my dismay. It was super exciting while it lasted but it was a terrible let down.

The good side is that it was an awesome weekend of fishing with family and friends. Everyone caught fish and had a great time. Can't beat that.

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Headed up towards the damn today to get familiar with the water upstream from the pump house. I normally don't fish this stretch of water because it pulls a crowd. Today was no exception but Ben and I wanted to get a feel for the stretches of water that we haven't fished before above the Nature Center in order to get ready for the Frost Bite Fish Off in Feb.

We started off just below the bridge just below the damn (Juniper / Pueblo Res Road). There is a nice riffle that drops off into a deep run. The fishing was fantastic right away. Ben and I probably landed closed to 20 fish in a half hour. The bows could not resist a yellow otter egg with a yellow bead yolk. There were some bait fishers directly across from us that looked pretty surprised at the amount of fish we were catching. Hopefully they'll convert....!

We decided to move downstream and cover more water. There were some nice pockets for the next few hundred yards downstream but we weren't able to hook up until the next deep bend pool. This run is NICE!  I would love to fish this run at 70-100 CFS vs the 40 that was running because it would make the riffle before the drop off perfect during a hatch. The fish were hanging in the tail end of the deep water and Ben and I both hooked some descent bows. Yellow (sucker) eggs, and a red tungsten bead head PTs size 18 worked well. The secret to this run is to fish it from the rocky side of the river along the main current. There is too much slack water to cover from the other side and line control becomes an issue. If you come across this run you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. If you are reading this you were probably with me fishing this run today anyway :-)

We made it down to the pump house which I had not fished before. The first thing that came to my mind was the toilet bowl on the Frying Pan. I knew exactly what I wanted to do in this hole but it was packed with bubbas.  No worry my Old Man wants to go fishing tomorrow so I know where we'll be starting out!

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Decided to take a solo trip down to Pueblo this afternoon for a few hours of fishing. Wanted to find a closer parking spot to the run I had found last week. Somehow I managed to find a way through the park and a neighborhood to a road that led right down to the river just downstream from where I was fishing last week.

I headed upstream to the run I had missed a 20 incher in the week before and rigged up. There was a guy fishing just upstream from the run but the run was open. I waded out and started getting rigged up. He came down and we started talking. His name was Jeremy. He lives in Pueblo and fishes the Ark every week. We talked about this section of river and how we liked it because of the good runs and lack of people. He asked for some pointers and I gave him a few flies. He said he wanted to watch me fish for a few so I said cool. I waded out to the run and took a cast. I missed a fish on my first cast and hooked on on my second! Love this run! Jeremy offered to take a pick and I'm glad he did. This is one pretty fish.

I stayed in this run for a while and landed another half dozen or so. I wanted to hit the runs down by the train bridge. Every descent run produced at least a take. Probably landed close to 10 descent bows in a few hours. Just what I needed to recover from a stressful week!

Batteries are recharged and I'm ready for the Holidays!