Grape Ck Outing 04Jun24

With the freestones mostly raging, the decent flowing tailwaters too crowded, and the alpine trails snowy and muddy, I chose to hit Grape Ck. I dropped in via the West Bear Gorge access; it's always an adventure. With #115 under construction it was 1 hr to Canon City; it was an additional 40min out to the West Bear turn; it was 30 min (1 album worth) down the 8mi 4WD path to the creek. I donned my Chota ultralight hip waders and Astral ultralight boots.

I was on the water 30 min or so later after rigging and walking 1.4 mi downstream to begin my pass back up. I moved past the barbed wire through fisherman access another 1/4 mile or so downstream and the wended my way back upstream to the car via the "upper" access point to the Crusher Too. Grape Ck is a quasi-tailwater tributary of the Ark available when other streams are in snowmelt runoff conditions.

Actually the ~60cfs here today was decently high (though I did cross in strategic spots) and the water was off color a bit. I kicked up plenty of yellow hoppers on the access gulch so went with a hopper dropper rig led by a #14 electric yellow chubby (I sense some of the wiser fish rejected it, especially on slower water). Given it's a trib of the Ark I rigged the Rodfather Endless Wisdom (ERN 2.8) like the Ark with trailer of chartreuse CDC caddis and rainbow warrior, to pierce the off-color water. I changed to BHFBPT during the meager mayfly hatch. My rigs worked decently well but nearly all the fish were in pockets along the banks. I caught nothing in typically great runs (I am a smidge early here) and tongues. The fish are NOT spread out yet at these flows.. they are bank-hugging. I nabbed ~20 fish but only landed about a dozen over 4 hours; 75% were on the chubby (read ~ fun AF). All were 10"-12" browns basically like those shown. I dropped quite a few with my landing technique today of flying them to hand mostly... I rarely used the net. No rainbows, which is a bit off for me on this stretch. The day was overcast but very warm and near hook-ups did leave me with a couple of tree rig losses behind me. Dang it.

Wildflowers are "on" here but few cactus had bloomed; I saw one. It was a blast being on Grape Ck as the only guy in the area all day. It's a beautiful spot. Downside was that no mates were able to join on the "investment" down West Bear.