Gore Ck & Eagle River 14Jul23

Today I headed out to Eagle Co to try Gore Ck & the Eagle River ~ these are favored summer fishing spots for me after runoff. Well, runoff is still underway with Gore Ck cascading @ ~162cfs and the Eagle (above the Gore) running 135cfs. Yikes, mostly shoreline wading. I first hit the Gore @ the dog park at ~10am and did nothing below the bridge. That's unexpected but might be time of day ~ I persevered and began catching many nice 14"-16" cutbows & browns above the bridge. Lots of onlookers with dogs or just hiking & biking; it was fishbowl viewing from the bridge or the shore. I again wielded the Rodfather True 3 and was tossing a chubby with wired ice caddis and #22 black ice trailers. All action was subsurface with most on the tiny black fly (always good on the Gore). I didn't use the DCEZWD40 as I wanted weight in the heavier water. It worked. I forgot my camera and Hero5 from yesterday so risked my iPhone out on the water... weird pics.

I dined Nepalese at Annapurna in Vail which was tasty; I then headed to the Eagle just downstream from Minturn. I used the same rig and it continues to work well. After landing a couple of similar browns however, the bigger flows grabbed me and I biffed in the Eagle. I was wet but not a big problem until I noticed that the river got my mayfly box! It was very full given runoff downtime; that's 4 sheets of 250 flies each and that is a 200 hr or $2500 problem. Most of my ties are pretty custom for the CO rivers so it'll be weeks of work. I can only hope that a thoughtful stranger sees it and sends it back. That'd be worthy of a reward.Grrr.