Just Brownies On Williams Fk 30Jul18

I finished what I needed to last eve' so hit the Williams Fk @ 175cfs today. For me that's a rare summer appearance at this short tailwater. I saw PMDs and Red Quills hatching and matched decently but only caught the 14" browns this outing. I did spend 30 min trying to entice a larger, targeted and feeding rainbow but couldn't get the right bug or drift or whatever. I caught plenty of fish like these fish on rainbow warrior, caddis, mayfly nymphs and yellow sallie and PMD dries. Gorgeous day.

New Beer & Out With DD 28Jul18-29Jul18

Sometimes work needs a little motivation; this is especially true when house cleaning is the main task. During such mundane tasks I discovered a couple of new keen IPAs... Wicked Weed Lieutenant Dank is just that, a tasty dank IPA from the venerable Asheville brewery - in a cool can too. And 2ndly, again from a venerable brewhouse - the latest RIPA from Melvin, Chuck Morris.

Better than work and beer, despite discoveries, is a Supertramp? with my buddy DD. We hit our fav brewery in Summit Co, Outer Range (ORB) and enjoyed the new hazy juicy stuff and awesome bluegrass from excellent locals, Shaky Hands String Band.

HaineaRADo 23Jul18-26Jul18

Six river sections and three breweries in 3.5 days with dozens of trout caught and pints consumed. I grabbed the youngster from the COS airport and we headed out immediately bound for the Roaring Fork Valley. Along the way to Aspen we stopped first at the Tomahawk section of the Middle Fork of the South Platte, where almost immediately we were deluged with hail and rain. We got outta there with aid of the mighty Crusher - there might be hail damage but how would anyone know anyway?

After we cleared the storm we stopped again to fish the headwaters of the Arkansas River at the Kobe access just north of Twin Lks. We sang some powered punk at Kobe to kick it off and caught some smallish browns as expected but the water was a smidge high and tinted, so the fishing was not great.

We felt and partook of the splendor atop Independence Pass before dropping into Aspen. We dined at the tasty Bamboo Bear and opened Rob's sinuses from the decline. We also tasted some decent but not great IPAs at Aspen Brewing Company before heading to bed in Basalt.

Our hotel was right on the Frying Pan River - pretty cool. Not cool was the fact that the WiFi while free, was largely broken, as was the TV.

Tuesday was Haine & Harry day. Rob crushed it on the Frying Pan tailwater section as well as mid-river. We'd hired Harry, who thought the loquacious Robster was his lost brother; he also thought I was the devil incarnate. We used tiny dries at the Boulders section - and had each life stage (emerger with trailing shuck, adult, spinner) for each of BWOs, Red Quills and PMDs - and we used them all. Harry was a master rig tier though he always positioned me a bit downstream from Rob and didn't always get to me. Rob caught a number of rainbows and browns, including the nice 19+"er, at the Boulders and I caught one 16"er (no pic). We did go downstream for lunch and a passel of tiny browns at 12.5 mile or so. Harry taught us quite a bit about the Pan and short line dry fly fishing with 7X. Sheesh. We dined back in Basalt in the sports bar right on the river next to our hotel - pretty sweet and decent, not great, food.

Wednesday was Dave & Jets day on the Roaring Fork River. We fished upstream from Jaffe Pk near Aspen/Pitkin airport. It was an amazing display of wealth as likely 50 personal jets flew into and out of the airport all day while we fished. I caught a number of nice rainbows 15"-17" and all were very strong with long fights in tough landing conditions; Rob wasn't as lucky. The river is gorgeous but tough wading on very round river rocks. We saw no rises this day and did most of the damage with stonefly, caddis and dark mayfly nymphing rigs. I think its a great spot on a good river but even on a Wednesday it was a bit crowded and a noob jumped into a sweet patch just as we were in position and prepping to hit it.

Thunder & lightening cracked again in the afternoon and we packed up and headed to El Jebel for a beer at Capitol Brewing Company. There we had a front row seat to some fire fighting ops as huge coast guard choppers lifted buckets of water from a nearby pond to dump on the Lake Christine fire. The fire and smoke smell in the valley was obvious but seemingly getting under control with recent rains. There were MANY properties for sale in Aspen and I wonder if the fire had any causal effect in that - maybe just profit taking, dunno. 

Rob was a smidge intolerant as we drove over Independence Pass and helped berate a few weaker drivers - he was actually just anxious to make amends for the performance on the RF as we intended to fish the Arkansas again that evening on the way to Salida. It was dark by the time we left the Stone Bridge section where we were both skunked by the dirty water. It was a gorgeous spot however, and a nice sunset for me as I retired to the beer truck early. Of course we then hit Amica's for dinner and followed that with an evening discussion of all things most important in life - love, family, fishing & work.

The Browns Canyon hotel was fine in Salida - TV and WiFi worked and it was refurbished and clean. We left there to fish the Arkansas at the Chaffe Co line CG area. Whoa - this CG got a nice facelift and update - but it also now has a price, designated day use parking and CG hosts. The water was still pretty stained even here but we saw later that downstream from Hayden Ck it was totally chocolate milk; I am glad we wet lines early. I fished strictly a huge and garish electric green & yellow foam Amy's Ant and turned over a number of fish and managed to catch some too, like these.

It was a great summer visit to introduce Rob to some new waters. While we missed the scale and camaraderie of full CoWW onslaughts, we fished hard and partied hard with little protocol or administration and had a blast.

Hamilton & The Regrettes Update 21Jul18

I still love the LA girl punk-pop band the Regrettes. While Lydia's songs are adolescent yet - it's all there raw. They will be huge. They play the best venues naked as sin with just acoustics yet ace their punk riffs. They covered Helpless, a Hamilton song, in the studio, to my raves...

Regrettes - Helpless

And they headed to Paste and performed their recent album's songs Come Thru and Red Light. The percussionist is Drew, new.

Regrettes - Come Through & Red Light

Then of course you can get angrier but still carry a tune with the Bombpops. Here's one of the very approachable tunes.

Bombpops - Be Sweet

Bendin' It Bad 21Jul18

Back in COS to collect some heat (too many 50° nights makes a guy short of suffer) and friends (Haine's here in a couple of days for the summer fish fest) - meanwhile I'm testin' limits on SKAcore/Rocksteady stuff and bent it hard on modern stages to some cool stuff beyond LA's Interupters and Nashville's Soul Radics (both of whom are stellar). Of course I chased down hazy juicy IPAs for the task and found Two Juicy from Two Roads in Connecticut - up to the task.

First SKA bend around the corner is Lolly Pop Lorry ~ a Russian SKA endeavor. Right? Weird. Very good shit actually. Recent?- youbetcha... but there's plenty of competent stuff in turquoise and red - dive deep and you see these youngsters are makin' keen vibe.

Silent River Runs Deep 2018

2nd bend about is equally weird but different - an dub-rap-SKA variant named Wicked Dub Division meets North East Ska Jazz Orchestra. So cool.

Wicked Dub Division meets North East Ska Jazz Orchestra - Mama

Finally Fishing The Gore 19Jul18

Despite just a 2 star current fishing rating by local shops, I decided to fish Gore Ck today as I had not even been out there yet this season. It was a worthwhile choice as I caught a gob of fish including a nice 17" cutbow at the Minturn end on a caddis dry and a nice 16" brown at the West Exit on a buckskin caddis. At Minturn it was oddly all cutbows - and most on black WD40s.

After a fine lunch at the Rocky Mtn Taco truck and a tasty hazy IPA called Ebb & Flow at Vail Brewing Co, I moved upstream to the West Vail exit.

I started at the end of the frontage road among the townhomes and began to catch a number of browns and some rainbows - here on a variety of flies but the buckskin caddis seemed the most useful. I did land one nicer 16" brown but most were smaller. I also can make a strong "fail" video as I did lose plenty of fish too.

I moved upstream again to the Dawg Pk section and caught some more as evening caddis returned to the river. I include only one pic for this section as it was a Colorado River cutthroat but escaped a good picture leaping back into the river.

Soundwaves Are Shakin' With SKA ~ Soul Radics18Jul18

Released a bit ago but still scintillating to my ear, despite the lack of a bit of anger, is Soul Radics' fine album Big Shot. There's more from this mid-US (yeah - Nashville) killer SKA band.

Soul Radics on Prime

This Is Cool ~ Decemberists 18Jul18

Dropped yesterday ~ Decemberists, Once In My Life.

Once In My Life

Mohawk & Jackson ~ GR8 Day 17Jul18

We ventured to the end of the Spruce Ck 4WD road in the mighty Crusher and took out for Mohawk Lks with Kala & me and Scott & Peg. I went to Mohawk 5 (5.2mi & 1400ft elevation) and fished a smidge while the team rested at Mohawk 3 and then descended. The day was gorgeous despite a brief hailstorm on my descent. I caught a number of nice 12"-14" greenback cutthroats on dry flies, including a lipless 2nd chancer, and even caught a smaller CO cutty. There was still evidence of spawning at the outlet - so cool. Not many people on arrival but mobbed on departure... amazingly I was only one of two fisherman at lake 5 as most unaware folks stopped at the lower, less populated, lakes.

Once down we quickly showered and headed to Morrison for dinner and a concert with Yohanans. Cafe Prague was tasty and the Jackson Browne concert was very good. Not only does the 69 year old prolific singer-songwriter still have his voice but his stature in the industry enables him to add great accompanists. The lap steel and lead guitars were very cool and the backing ladies harmonized well. We had glorious weather and a GR8 time with our friends. Key addition to our Red Rocks "kit" are our stadium seats - makes the concerts so much more comfortable. Crappy pics of the band but a fine concert in a spectacular venue.