Climb and Fish Pikes Pk & N Catamount 24Aug13

BK and I climbed Pikes Pk from Devil's Playground to commemorate Tom Wilke's final climb of the CO 14ers circuit. We await the infamous book "58 After 50" in which we'll have a part. Wilks brought a pulse oximeter to test our engines - as expected I was mediocre with 88% effective (might be fall allergies) while BK was a 94% converter. After descending and celebrating with my now famous and highly sought 58amoes we headed to North Catamount to fish for a bit. We caught some 13" rainbows on chironomids, silver nymphs and a top water black beetle. No fish pics - forgot to take the phone down to the water.

Cheaters Top 14.1K

Dog Days - Half Doz Half Day On PT 23Aug13

The dog days of summer are here. Fishing was slow after a substantial storm last night which left the Pueblo Tailwater of the Arki dirty and with less than a foot of visibility. The dirt road to parking at the Nature Center was almost washed out... the Crusher was soiled and Nature Center area was hit hard with mud and clay from the surrounding washes. I caught seven over about a half day of fishing with flashy RS2 and black ice taking most of the fish. Nothing big landed but I lost two - all rainbows not unlike this 16"er.

11 Mile Doz 20Aug13

Gorgeous weather in 11 Mile Canyon today but still drove my sinuses nuts with fall allergies. Caught a doz ~14" (nothing bigger though) rainbows and one brown - mostly on dries. The trico spinner fall was huge and long but frustrating as usual. Still, my persistence yielded some to hand despite a number of misses. I caught most on trico spinners but some on PMD and red quill duns and smallish EHC at the end of the day too; just a couple subsurface on dropped mayfly nymphs. The Hardy was sweet and a great balance with the One. Here's the brown - didn't photo the 'bows.

Handy Hardy for One 15Aug13

My newish Sage One just wasn't quite balanced right using the GLoomis 5 wt reel from the Z-Axis. So, I scored a Hardy 4000 DD Ultralight. Smooth, sweet, solid, sexy, so sophisticated. Heh. It sports a super large arbor but is pretty thin. Click retrieve and nice lookin'  IMO... plus a skosh heavier than my other 5 wt making it a perfect balance for the One. Nice.

Elevenmile Friday Afternoon 16Aug13

Afternoon run to the canyon. Left work about 2pm and after a stop for gas, sinus meds and beer I was in the canyon about 3:30pm. I set up at Messenger Gulch as I needed to use the facilities and thought why not, no other fishermen in sight.  I started out nymphing but after about 30 min of not much luck and observing a tiny hatch of something coming off I switched off to a small Adams and a small top secret emerger trailing. I caught one brown and missed a couple others on the Adams but it was still pretty slow. I noticed some Caddis starting to come off and cut off the emerger and added a EHC for a dual dry setup.  They really started hitting the EHC and I brought about 6 nice browns(9-10in) to the net.After fishing out that section, I decided I was going to move up river to see if I could raise some bigger fish.
After moving up to just past the tunnels and seeing a lot of traffic I decided to try that section, was about 5pm. I tied on an EHC dropping a black bead head midge. That seemed to do the trick and I did well for the next hour or so on that setup with eight nice fat bows brought to the net about equal number on the EHC and midge. Fishing slowed and I took off about 7:30 to head back home.

Bountiful Brookies in the Beauty of Willow Lks 10Aug13

Greg & I caught over 100 gorgeous brook trout up alpine way at treeline in the Willow Lakes. We hiked N. Willow Ck the entire way up to Salmon-Willow and camped above Willow Lk #1... with a great view. Weather was superb among rainy days so we were lucky. At camp the packs came off and poles were readied... we hiked in 1 mile further to the last two lakes, Willos Lks #3 & #4 below the fabulous Zodiac Spires. For 3 hours we cast and removed gorgeous brook trout from our flies - catching most on tiny Adams, caddis, and mayfly nymphs. Most were 8-12 inches and age was seemingly determined by size of jaw and darkness of body... we caught a wide range of colorings but favored the larger, darker, and with bigger red dots clearly haloed with blue. Woohoo. We fished Willow Lk #2 on day 2 in the AM. Again we had lots of luck but fewer fish to hand... average size was the same. The prefect reflection on the lake was awesome this morning.

The Pack Trip Summary to Willow Lakes

Below Zodiac Spires at Willow Lk #4

Bountiful Brookies fromWillow Lakes

Cool reflected ridge line in Willow Lk #2

Dirt in the Works... Arki BHSC 06Aug13

With the flows >600cfs and recent rains, visibility and wading were pretty scant on the Arkansas in Big Horn Sheep Canyon. Still, I caught ten 10-13in browns around Pinnacle Rock this morning. #14 yellow simulators and Joe's hoppers worked up top and a couple new variants of BH pheasant tail I tied worked on dropper. Fuzzy brown mercury head Smethhurt's midge worked too as bottom dropper. Funny thing though... trillions of tiny olive gnats bugged me all morning - they got into every orifice. I couldn't cross so only worked the near bank... I'm really waiting for the fall flows so I can access the whole river again.

Floatin' the Gunny with My Honey 12Jul13

It was gorgeous and fun in Taylor Pk. We camped at Rosy Ln and fished the Taylor, East and Gunnison. We set camp on Thu and kicked back. On Fri AM we fished the Taylor near camp and both caught browns and cutthroat on caddis and tiny CJs… we had a 3:30pm appt with Joel the guide to float the upper Gunny so ate lunch streamside then headed to the East near Roaring Judy where I was skunked but Kala landed a nice rainbow on a nymph. It started to pour on our way to Gunnison so we shared a Hoptastic IPA at Gunnison Brewery waiting for the storm to pass. What’s not to like a brewery with a stonefly slamming a pint as their logo. Fortunately the rain abated and we boarded a well-used catamaran float fish craft rigged for guide plus front and rear casters. We floated till dark and landed plenty of fish… I caught a couple nice 18’ browns on caddis and white streamer once (no pics) and others including rainbows on two bit hookers. Kala caught a mess of fish both browns and ‘bows. It wasn't epic but I was satisfied… especially that Kala got into quite a few fish and really improved her casting and fishing with a competent guide’s instruction. We stopped along Cottonwood Ck on the way back to the Springs and caught gobs of nice brookies between the beaver ponds.

Oodles @ 11 Mile 01Aug13

Saw hatches of and used the tricos, caddis, PMDs and nymphs & emergers of same at 11 Mile Canyon on the So Platte today. Went to the last bridge and nymphed effectively till the trico spinner fall then caught some during that. Switched to dry caddistrophic at the sight of caddis and that worked too for a bit. Fish were in the riffles for the emergence and slack water for the fall then in the tail of runs and pools the rest of the time. I caught 10 in the AM since 9am and 8 in the PM till 3pm on a variety of bugs. Nothing big this day but a number of 12-14" fish with half and half browns and 'bows. It was good to catch the browns again out there but I didn't catch the cuts I saw. Some Texan moved within 15 ft of me shadowning the water - I lunched streamside then departed. Dropped in to just above the last tunnel for the last 2 hours and caught some there too - slightly smaller and thinner but still a blast on the Winston 4 wt.. Tried grasshopper but nadda despite streamside aplenty of these. Shown are representative fish - diggin' the football shape of the brown - others were longer but more slender.