Plenty Of 'Bows On The PT ~ Including Another Broken RFCO2 Rod CutBow 13Apr23

Another very nice 80° day compelled me to fish... I'd intended 11 Mile but I headed to the PT again because my BC20X camper rear window, broken by vandals, was repaired and ready for pickup @ Windish in Fountain. I could grab it on the way back home. Here's the issue... all up $1200 directly out of my retirement assets... dammit.

Also in camper news... I was able to sell the venerable Coleman E1 popup toyhauler for nearly asking price... we lost only 20% of its value over 12 years of ownership and use! Great fun but the new BC20X is so much nicer.

On to the fishing though ~ 115cfs and only one guide with 2 clients rolled out of Nature Center @ 10am or so. I don't know why there was river vacancy, but I'll take it. I caught dozens of cutbows in just several hours on the NC section. That said, still, no 20+" fish, and that is very unusual for me in spring. I don't think it is me ~ I think the fisheries, or at least the PT has declined in production of larger fish. Frankly I am not surprised with the pressure and treatment I've encountered. I saw an older guy land a nice fish after a 10 minute fight. The fish was exhausted and lactic no doubt. He then proceeded to walk it in net through the air for 40 feet and still leave him out of the water further for pics for another 10min or so. Sad. Another shift observed on this outing was that mayflies (black ice perdigon, MHFBPT, and grey RS2) took 65% of the fish ~ the shift from midges has occurred and I even caught a number of fish moving into the riffles for the mayflies. Nice. Action on the redds is declining on the PT, but it's not "over:" Great fish are still very visible near the spawning beds.

Yet the real story of the fishing day for me is that I initially chose to weaponize the Rodfather Colorado Series 2 (based on the CTS Affinity X blank) to shoot as the PM winds were forecast to rage. I never got the chance to cheat winds as AGAIN, on an initial outing, on one of its 1st decent fish, the RFCO2.2 snapped on landing the fish. And, it broke exactly where it did in Nov '22 initially. After 4 months (and some pricing and fulfillment drama) I had received a matching  2nd section and rebuilt it (I didn't get to take it to NZ as planned but it was beautiful). Here are the break, the fish, the break... I've written the company imploring that the product manager and product development understand that their process or specs for grinding ferrules (CTS has not done this previously on the Affinity X line) SUCKS or at a bare minimum, they need to re-think stuff... reliability is currently very suspect. This is my objective opinion; once the broken section is replaced and rebuilt I will perform appropriate stress tests before loading the RFCOS2.3 into the rod vault again. WTF.

Shit happens. As the initial fishing pics show ~ I hiked back out and reloaded with the ever-true Rodfather True Five, based on a reliable New Zealand blank from Swift/Epic. The RFT5 cast brilliantly and landed everything hooked. C'mon man. But my fails did not end there this day. I summoned master fisherman Matt D_B to Windish to grab a Euro rod he coveted for a float of the upper Ark. Yet, I'd not loaded it in the Crusher; so yeah, more work for him, Dammit.