Crowded On Williams Fk 30Jul17

Despite the weekend bringing a crowd to Williams Fk (I've never seen this many cars at the TH), I gathered a decent day (wow - 3 articles used, I hate that). I wet my line late at 10am near the mouth with the Colorado facing 125cfs flows (a skosh high) after the 30 min hike to the river. I was clearly "last" in and fishing was pretty slow (as a follower) as a result - and bug juice was very necessary - I even reloaded once to avoid the squitee bites. When I arrived at guides and his clients upstream-bound I'd skip a couple spots to give them space. The 3.5 hr fishing day rendered a number of the small browns typical of this fishery but also several nice rainbows (an 18" and 19" here) also possible on this river, one breaking off below me off my own boot - sheesh. The rainbows came only after some of the friendly passings I made. I caught up with the likely #1 dude near the top I think but scored right beneath him on something he might've overlooked. Best performers for the 'bows were rainbow warrior and olive KF midge though one nabbed a glass head FBPT. I've been experimenting with colors on the glass head and today I threw red intended to mimic PMD red eyes... but I've made them in BWO mercury and red quill caramel color as well. Browns took anything but cream colored stuff. Good outing when good fish get to the net. I left early with the crowd and beat the vacationers to town for happy hour at Baker's.

Wilbur Sailing & Beers In Summit 28Jul17

Though broheme DD couldn't make the event, I sailed varied winds with Jason & his kid Matt and his friend Dr Scott Kaiser. Cool team despite the lineage exclusively Iowa. They executed the maneuvers I needed on time and with a smile under mostly very modest winds. I introed them after to the Nest and to the Whole Foods - Outer Range play. Not universal applause but a strong afternoon with CO appreciation apparent. That not enough that JW would come up mountain for his next gig. His 'tude was impressive actually - confident and not anxious about taking a next step in the face of a year off and such modest skills. ;) Here we are wing on wing downwind but Jason ill-manned his post on the front sail. Great fun.

Double Triple on Gore Ck 27Jul17

I took the morning to repair the garage thermostat; the existing one died and I found the decommissioned one from when I installed Nest... woohoo. I also (finally) commissioned the front sail on Mon Ami and checked the engine - ready to sail... woohoo.

As some weather rolled in over the lake I headed to lunch then Vail to fish Gore Ck for the 1st time this season. Awesome day on the Gore where I scored my 2nd triple in a row in landing a cutthroat, a rainbow and a brown from the Gore. Many good browns were caught but the first two fish were the cutty and 'bow from the lowest Gore near the mouth with the Eagle. I turned over many fish with stimis and caddis dries but caught the cut on a WD40 and the bow on the stimi. I caught the brown on a rainbow warrior but caught many other similar sized ones on WD40s and other nymphs both at the lower section and the West Vail section. Two bigger ones got away after long fights - they ran downstream faster than I could traverse this rocky creek. What a blast.

I was fortunate to connect with an old friend from Fluke days; Jason Wilbur is back from Spain and hiking with his kid and friend Scott in Breck. They'll sail and party with me again tomorrow.

Tomahawk Triple 26Jul17

I traveled the back way to Summit and checked out the Middle Fk of the So Platte @ Tomahawk on the way. I caught the 3rd triple of my life from this meadow stream! I caught a mess of browns on dry caddis imitations and bigger fish, including a 16" brown, subsurface with caddis and mayfly nymphs. I was using the GLoomis 3 weight and the flows were still pretty high at 275cfs or so and I could've used more gun to fling the weighted stuff into the deeper spots. I don't have a pic of the bigger brown as I dropped him fumbling with the camera... still, here are representative images of the smaller rainbows, browns and a brook trout!

Parting Paso Pales 22Jul17

I could not leave SLO without trying the notable brews in the county. Kala (yep - she was the only brave one) & I hit Libertine for the wild (sours) ales after a fine lunch at Novo on the creek. Neither of us are big sour fans and the Wild IPA was OK but did not move us to stay long. I especially wanted to hit Firestone Walker, who is #4 craft brewer in Cal and did sell out to Durval. Still, they are one of the early and few great west coast hoppy ale houses so I was excited to get there; it's right in Paso Robles. We didn't tour the brewery but saw a cool campus as we made our way to the taproom. We did learn that these boys revived an olde English style of brewing employing oak barrels - part of their signature taste - so cool. Once seated at the busy bar I focused on trying the beers borne from "the crucible of conflict" between the Lion and the Bear (Adam Firestone and David Walker), who now are experimenting in producing new brew... one way to keep innovation alive in an acquired entity is to keep the founders interested but dispatched along a new vector. We had the Fortem and Adversus DIPAs and the Ekuanot IPA... Wookey Jack won't be missed as the unfiltered Adversus is very good. I shared some already with friends and it harkens back to Deviants as they are 16oz cans of DIPA. Some of my mates may argue the packaging but to me this is perfect in many ways. The place was fun but crowded, mid-Cal regional fair was held very near by; the beer was excellent.

Summer Of Wine Continues 17Jul17-21Jul17

Wow, the summer of wines continued with vengeance. While I've been biking to the ocean, golfing in the marine layer, and eating like a king, hitting the great and small wine makers in SLO county was stellar. My fav is Bodega de Edgar - where the focus is on Spanish varietals, which grow so well in the hot days and cool marine nights of this area. I took advantage of club pricing, now no longer offered, to score some great stuff and we had a fun time tasting with Edgar himself, including 11 wines, one of which was a reserve Tempranillo blended from barrels directly before our eyes. He'll bottle it in Aug17 after 3 years on oak and let it rest again till Fall18 for sale. It is very good. We've known Edgar for several "seasons" but his stuff is now selling out, he's applying for righteous US citizenship and he's getting some notoriety (http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/business/article157271369.html), though he related the labeling of Mexican-American is not as satisfying as our heralding his wine-making. Really good guy with really good wine. As we left the tasting room he simply gave us two additional bottles we had not yet tried; "for dinner guys."

We of course hit the gorgeous Sextant house and restocked with the latest Kamal and Cavario after tasting that they indeed kick ass.

We enjoyed a number of wines at Denner but they were pricy and I did not buy (others are pricey too... I know guys). At Brecon I did buy the spectacular tannat-tempranillo-mourvedre for it's taste and unusual blend. We went to JDusi as well and bought, but drank, the zinfandel brandy.

We hit Tin City, the start-up area of SLO vintners, where I'd booked a special appointment with Nicora. Good tasting and very good wines, now in the cellar - I was flinching as we passed up J Toft, Torrin and others but did roll into ONX for another tasty GSM buy.

The day closed with a mini-party at Ancient Peaks in Atascadero near Duffy's house. We met others in her family. AP's price points were better but their "library offers" were best and we bought the Renegade GSM and Oyster Ridge Bordeaux blend using Duffy's membership.

On down the SLO roads with Grant Trexler, husband of Steve's cousin Dana, we enjoyed some of "his" spots. Being a wine industry guy he knows some stuff and gains access to some stuff - plus he and Dana, and Dana's mom Duffy, are very cool. Keep your friends close and your wine club members closer. We hit Terry Hogue's fine caves and syrah-centric wines first but prices and offers didn't move me to buy. Fabulous stuff was tasted and acquired from L'Aventure - a club like some others is now closed as to discounts, but not from us... fortunate as the price was very high but the wine was great - 100 points on many from Robert Parker. I liked the GSM best and bought some of the Cote A Cote.

Lunch at Calcareous with an ebullient young pourer, and of course some good wines moved us to buy for lunch and buy for the cellar. We leveraged Grant's industry discount of 30%, so that's nice. Kala and I liked the Moose syrah and Tres Violets GSM.

I "demanded" we go to Nadeau to try the "famous" zinfandels - unfortunately while they produce 5 zins per year they were sold out of all but 1 and that version would be sold out by the end of day. I bought two of the mega-jammy tasting Pirate 2014. It seems attending the March zin weekend is the way to gain access to these more and more rare zins from Robert Nadeau. Dang it; but thank goodness I got one.

Of course I heard bands, beached, rode bikes, hiked mountains, dined wonderfully and played golf. Great outings.

All this was spent with our long-time buddies in debauchery, Steve & Anne Gordon. But others in wine appreciation are waiting for the delivery party back in COS. The car is quite loaded with fine wine and we are prepped to handle it all carefully.

SLO & Paso Robles 17Jul17

Headed to SLO from PG and drove #101 through the berry, artichoke and brussel sprout capitals of America. Arriving at noon we wasted no time to enjoy local cuisine (Hush-Harbor Bakery) and hit Denner and Brecon wineries. Awesome views. Both excellent purveyors du vin, but I'm tasting for six now and it's only day 1 so I only acquired the Brecon 2015 Tannat/Mourvedre/Tempranillo - so good, so different and it seems it could last 25 years. Great times with Steve & Anne, again.

Reunion And The Pacific 15Jul17-16Jul17

We enjoyed a raucous (ok, for us anyway) NorCal reunion with Bill & Michael, Rick & Trish and Ed & Laurie at Riley's house in Palo Alto. Great food, great wine and great old friends.

Today we drove south and west to Pacific Grove to Ed & Laurie's ocean place. Awesome spot to enjoy some cooler temps and ocean breezes. We caught some harbor seals, whales and seal lions sun bathing and playing so far.

Dinner at the wonderful Passionfish with our buddies. Yummm...