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.