Slide Lake 31Jul15

With a late start on the day for work in the AM, I headed down Leadville way to hike into the Holy Cross Wilderness to Slide Lake. The road from Rt 24 to Slide Lk TH was brutal. I smashed and cut the liner on my driver-side running board... really just more jewelry as no function was ruined.This is the Tennessee Pass area and I recognized the terrain from climbing Holy Cross and from skinning our to the 10th Mtn hut previously. I hit the trailhead ~2:45PM and executed a short and simple hike to the lake which was reported to be "good for cuts" in the 80's. The fish were 4-6" at least where I was and rose to tiny dries but many had a hard time hooking up, on my rod at least. I didn't have time to encircle the lake and they might be bigger near the Homestake Pk headwall, but I doubt it. Its investigated and gorgeous but I don't think I'd return. No fish pics as I forgot the camera but a dude I caught up with (Sean the web dev guy from Boulder) was able to get some pics and pans. That's Ski Cooper looking back down the trail and Homestake Pk looking over the lake, and Sean.

Gracious Gore Ck 30Jul15

After AM at the keyboard I headed over Vail Pass and hit the west end of Gore Ck. Not many folks as I moved upstream from the West Vail Frontage Rd parking... rocky bottom is tough to navigate, and I stared into folks' back decks, but it yielded some nice rainbows and browns to my hand.  There are a few cutthroats in here, or so I've heard, but not today in my net. I did best at "the aquarium" where most see 'em but don't catch 'em. But the entire pass from West Vail to first bridge upstream did fine for me on mainly black WD40s and grey flash wing RS2s - mayfly emergers. I saw some coming off so tied that on. I spoke to a guy who liked caddis dries but I switched when moving upstream to the park and did jack on that. I moved back to nymphing and netted some more of these strong fat fish (representatives below) on this gorgeous late July day in Eagle Co. Colorado is so cool.

Time @ Tomahawk SWA 29Jul15

With the big waters still surging I stopped along the Middle Fk of So Platte in South Park at the Tomahawk SWA on my way to Summit. I arrived mid AM with a couple of folks in the parking areas. Flows were high but manageable at ~120cfs and the day was gorgeous. I was immediately into fish with a #18 caddis and green PT-like dropper. I didn't catch a thing on the dropper all day... all dries, all day, all water, all fun. Smallish caddis were all over my hat (retired the rasty olive one for a new brown wool - sweet). I switched to a double dry caddis rig with the top being larger foam body (to aid seeing) and the 2nd 30" dropped being dark-bodied with flash ~#20 Caddistastic. I was out there with my GLoomis 3 wt. and no net as I don't usually need it there. For the first time at Tomahawk I was into bigger fish, catching them along overhanging banks where the water was deep enough to hold them. The fights and landing on lighter gear was a blast. I caught a number of browns ~16" and some rainbows almost that size... and I caught a gaggle of smaller ones for the most productive outing this year. I also caught a hellacious allergic reaction to something growing in that area and am still working it out of my system - yech. I hope all your meetings went well. ;)

Goin' Ghetto With New Computing Rig 26Jul15

Well, rather than fishing, I spent the day converting my "mobile" computing rig to a Mac! I have to turn over my current corporate PC to DD to out-process from DHR appropriately and while the XPS15 was a competent machine, it ran Windoze and UX aspects of 8.1 and the hardware itself were just wrong. I'll see how I fare after being an MS user for so many years (though I am still holding onto an original signed cabinet Mac). I will move away from Win and away from Office; I will have to get some image and video processor apps. My setup here is a ghetto hodgepodge of the best I know... MacBook Pro 15 biggie, Samsung 27" monitor, Jabra speakerphone, DAS keyboard, Audeze headset and now an Apple magic mouse. Interconnect wiring for the rig sucks right now... I don't like how PC vendors have abandoned real docking schemes. iTunes is absorbing my music library now and it'll take hours... but the challenging part will really be finding the best email/contacts/calendar synchronizing schemes between iOS, Mac, Google and a Win7 server. Brave new world.

Here's an update regarding synchronization. I experimented with Google Contacts, the latest version of which is nice, and got it to sync with Mac Contacts and my Win Contacts but never got a sufficient synchronizing connector to iOS (it'd work with an extra app/step each time which isn't good enough). I therefore bailed on that and will use iCloud to keep iOS and OSX based contacts synced, which is most important in my workflow, and then keep a static exported version on the Win server. 

Cutthroat Slammin' 17Jul15-19Jul15

Intrepid fishermen of the CoWW clan and an aged peak bagger trounced into Colorado's backcountry in the Front Range and 10 Mile Range in search of the elusive Cutthroat Slam, a Colorado cutthroat from each of four lakes over 12,000 ft elevation. The weather was not great for the entire weekend but sunbreaks and a decent pace got us with some fishing time at each of Silver Dollar Lake, Murray Lake, Shelf Lake and Mohawk Lake. We were skunked at Silver Dollar and Murray but saw a few six pound cruisers there... despite arriving after ice out we were still too early as the fish were heavily spawning. Once DD and TW arrived our luck improved and at Shelf and Mohawk we met our objectives. Rocket Rob (aka SuperFly) of the Gulf lowlands dispatched himself well and entertained us with some grunts and a biff. Summit Wilks gathered intel and images from above by climbing Decatur. CoWWs TroutDude and Cerevisiaevelo Piscator did most of the catching but Jim and I marked too. The wildflowers were awesome. Most of the story can be told in pictures... Colorado is so cool.

Golden Eagles Over Paso Robles 10Jul15

Kala and I and friends rambled into the Central Coast outback near Paso Robles  through 3 gates and many serpentine roads to Rangeland Estates, a unique sustainable winery and organic cattle & sheep ranch. We got the pitch and tasted wine with the owner - a tech exec from Silicon Valley who took his winnings and built a vineyard and ultimately a winery. Totally boutique, requiring an appointment for the tasting... the wines and trip were excellent. We saw a pair of Golden Eagles flying and hunting overhead and a wildfire burning in front of the 5Kft elevation Coastal Range. The golden hills of Cal certainly were. I got the chance too to ride from town to the ocean on multiple occasions and kayak the bays. SLO is so cool.

Fishin' Williams Fork River 07Jul15

I was jonesin' for bigger prey but the Front Range rivers were still swollen. I stole an afternoon in the Colorado River basin on the Williams Fork River which had lower snowpack. This is a very short tailwater where flows from its reservoir had by this day been reduced to a manageable 270 cfs (though I typically have fished it <150 cfs, but so what). I know that bug juice is vital in this valley and today was no exception... I fought plenty of mosquitoes but only 5 other (unfortunately fishless) fishermen. Undeterred by roadwork, thunderclaps, the 30 min hike in or the real time reports, I arrived and set out from the TH about noon. The pic series is simply the trail... park in lot on W side of #3 after passing through Bar Lazy J Ranch, just off #40, just E of Parshall (I know this as I dabbled elsewhere in the area and my directions are the slunge). Gear up not forgetting insect repellent, get through the gate and head W on the double and triple trail (there may be horse trail rides happening from the Lazy J) till a fork... go left. Cross an arroyo with very little water and take another left at a single track Y; get through a fisherman's gate and descend to the river and then upstream a smidge via double track. You can fish either up to dam or down to mouth with Colorado... I've done better fishing up. I was lucky and did catch a number of nice rainbows and several good browns this day on RS2s and Rainbow Warriors, one on a FBPT. While it was not epic and I only got a couple fish/hr I was excited to be back in the hunt after spring runoff. On this July 4th visit to Silverthorne I've caught brook trout, cutthroat trout, rainbow trout and and brown trout. After returning to Silvertorne I was greeted by $2 Tuesdays at Baker's Brewery... Colorado is so cool.