Summit Fun In The Sun ~ Encouraged Kala To The Nest 04Jun26-07Jun26

Kala and I headed to Summit for some days out of the heat along the Front Range. We planned some events and had a great times with Matt visits, the Vail Mtn Games, beers @ ORB, hiking the Eagles Nest Wilderness, watching F1 @ Monaco, and fishing 10 Mile Ck. Our backyard...

Wed 03Jun26-Thu 04Jun26 ~ Visiting Matt In Den  & Hiking "Kala's Trail"... we stopped in the DTC to visit TK on the way. Mostly "hi" and "bye" but we would see him again on the other end. All's well in the tough coding world. We decided to hike on Thu and defer our visit to Vail to Friday. We did a 5 mile loop in the White River NF and Eagle's Nest Wild in our backyard. It was nice being out hiking the wild with Kala again ~ knees did not fail and hip flexor stayed sane. Dillon Rez is very low and will not fill ~ Frisco even closed their marina for this season. I tried to find a way to hike all the way down to ORB but we decided to drive. We stopped at the new Tiki Bar (new operator Steep) at Dillon Marina to check it out - nice and there's a stage now for live music and Steep's beers are approved.

Fri 05Jun26 ~ The Vail Mountain Games... With the weak snowpack the runoff into Gore Ck did not swell the stream enough to host the water sports (which were moved to Glenwood Spgs on the Colorado). Still the games are fun and we especially like seeing the dog events. Big Air champion was a greyhound named Mayhem and Dueling Dogs champ was a black lab named Ace, nosing out a golden named Brianna. We heard a bit of music just walking around the games but chose against seeing bands at the Ford Amp this time. I did catch Kala checking some math with Rocky (Hail Mary reference) during our visit.

Sat 06Jun26 ~ Monaco GP Qualifying & Race... One of the best hours in motorsport is the qualifying for Monaco. This is a tight track with tons of turns and walls in your face... so, there are few passing opportunities during the grand prix, placing a premium on quali position. The pole sitter at Monaco wins the race 70% of the time. It was very exciting to watch on the NestMT, though Apple has added plenty of advertising over prior F1 channel viewing pleasure. Max threw down a blistering lap late in the final qualifying session but Kimi bested him by 4msec to take pole. I slept through the early race on Sunday but was regaled of it's many penalties and race car failures. Kimi basically went wire-to-wire from pole. My un-rebuilt team fell from 2nd to nearly last in Alpine Rippers F1 fantasy league.

Sat 06Jun26 ~ Fishing 10 Mile Ck... My back was oddly blown yesterday but the hot tub really helped so I chose to head out to fish 10Mile Ck during this odd flowing (~100cfs) spring this afternoon. I hit the Copper Mtn area of the stream then went downstream to the Officer's Gulch area. I had a decent outing and caught a number of 10" browns and a couple of similarly-sized rainbows, it was a decent double handled well on the Rodfather True 3 v2. I was all sub-surface but a decent brown hit my bobber. Best flies on the day were the oil can Perdigon, the Wired Ice caddis, and the MHFBPT. 

Sun 07Jun26 ~ Visit With Matt... After the Monaco GP we packed up and cleaned up and headed down to the Front Range. We made seared tuna steaks with salad for us at Matt's place on Hampden, and he provided spicy quinoa! I finally scored my Cars & Canyons sticker for the FlyBox and adorned it.

One Weight Fun On Ten Mile Ck ~ RFSB1 Is The Shizzle 15Aug24

I kept my streak alive, fly fishing for the 4th day in a row. The rains came in last night and messed with flows on the Williams Fk and the Ark Headwaters, so I went local to 10 Mile Ck. These waters are pretty small but a ton of fun in the right conditions (like today @ 58cfs). I pulled off @ Officer's Gulch and loaded up my ultra-ultralight 1 weight, the Rodfather Sage Buster One. Actually my Sage 1 weight will sell now on eBay for ~$400, so it is great that the RFSB1 handled itself so well... it was a blast with these 8"-13" fish. I hiked down ~ 3/4 mile and fished back to the car. I was immediately into some fish. I flung a yellow or UV #16 chubby trailed by a #18 beadhead gold ribbed hares ear. After a while with only one fish on the dropper and plenty on the chubby, I just cut off the trailer. I did not land everything but I did fine; one bigger rainbow took me downstream and then broke off on a rock. Other misses were from insufficient hookups. After a pass @ Officer's Gulch I headed downstream on I70 and just pulled off at another spot (till now untried by me) ~ it yielded too. Yeah, it was a trip re-entering full speed I70 traffic from the grass... Crusher Too can do anything.

Golf With Matt & Summit Stuff; CoWWBoyz Too 26Aug23-30Aug23

I dropped off Kala @ COS for her trip to Raleigh and headed up to Denver for a round with MLC @ Kennedy. Good time with the kid; after I drove to Summit for some audio measuring and fishing. I measured and updated the center channel latency and delay settings ~ that description is HERE.

I don't drink a lot of sugary drinks but if I do they are Izzes or San Pelegrinos or hand made Arnold Palmers, which are less sugary and costly. Here's a batch in prep with a kettle gift from Matt to facilitate with much less power yet greater speed. Spa time in Summit Co is sublime below Peak One.

I tied a couple dozen mayflies and fished a couple of sections of 10 Mile Ck again (Officer's Gulch & Adjacent Copper Ponds). I caught some browns and rainbows but felt the catch was smaller in size and quantity than on previous year's outings to these sections.

While I bailed on my CoWWBoyz they crushed it on the Green River ~ with 3 local captains leading the way. Just a shout out here as none of them can type. Nice fish Haine-O-Nado. Headed to OBX tomorrow!

10 Mile Tribulations 15Jul23

Yikes. I headed to 10 Mile Ck and the I70 ponds downstream of Copper Mtn this morning. Hey, I remembered my cams this time.

Once on the water 1/2 mi from the car I discovered I lost more than mayflies yesterday ~ I lost my tippet (7 spools of TroutHunter flouro) and my terrestrial & chubbies box. Grrr. I had to conserve bugs to those already on and precious little tippet on my vest. I caught some 8" rainbows in the pure cold, gin clear, AM waters flowing ~140cfs but didn't take pics due to fish size. Weak. Little did I know at the time that I'd leave early for Cutthroat Anglers to reload chubbies and get a now tippet rig. Grrr. Good thing I'm a local (-10%).

$170 later I am far from flush, but functional in summer. I was un-entuhused to return to 10 Mile given timing and grabbed more local discounts, this time on local beers. The ORB Walk Of Life from Thu purchase is pure NZ Motueka hops and the VBC Utopiate is my favored double dry hopped hazy styling; both are super tasty.

Mtn Stream Fishing: Six Spots In Three Days: Gore, Ark, 10 Mile, Blue, & Middle Fk SPlatte 26Jul22-28Jul22

July 26 @ Gore Creek @ Confluence ~ I jumped Vail Pass this morning and hit the Gore Ck in my usual spots. I started at the mouth but the construction of a replacement sewer pipe over the Eagle and Gore has put a lot of construction traffic and vehicles right on the Gore at it's confluence with the Eagle. This used to be a solid fishery but today I caught just one brown at the upper end and I didn't even see or spook any others. The construction has taken it's toll for now IMO and I won't return till they are completed. Flows @ 40cfs and color & temps were great - It's just the construction.

July 26 @ Gore Creek @ West Vail ~ I cut my pass of the confluence/construction section short by a smidge and headed to VBC, but they didn't open till 11:30am and I wasn't gonna wait the 30 min. I drove to the West Vail section (go west on frontage till the end). Fishing was much better here between the townhomes. It's a sketch dance on the river, but the fishing was very good - I caught a dozen 12"-14" browns and one rainbow on caddis larva, Chubby, DCEZWD40, and rainbow warrior weight.. I chose the Rodfather Diamond Blaze 4wt as it was assembled but this creek really could use the Lightning Rod 3wt. Too bad about the lower section; I haven't tried Stephens Park (Dawg Park) yet.

July 27 @ Arkansas River Headwaters ~ With Williams Fork flows just bumped 3X I decided to try the Ark Headwaters and started by moving upstream from the bridge above Hayden Meadows. Ther were quite a few folks on the river but the flows and color were good. I turned over a number on the Chubby and caught several on it or the BHFBPT dropper. Small fish and far from epic catch pace. I moved down to Hayden Meadows and hiked in an fished back to the car. Similar smaller browns all looking like this 12"er. Fishing was not good enough so I left and grabbed tacos at the food truck in Leadville, they were excellent but the service time was long with a decent crowd. I wielded the Lightning Rod today - super lightweight but shoots a good distance accurately. I did have to trim down the leader some to get to line more quickly.

July 27 @ 10 Mile Creek @ Copper ~ I hopped over Freemont Pass and stopped near Copper to fish the 10 Mile Ck there. I caught a couple small browns but really saw many fewer fish than I have in past years... I made my normal pass in this section and scared up precious few fish. Something has happened at this fishery as flows and clarity were stellar.

July 28 @ Blue In Breck ~ I was headed home so went the back way and stopped at the 4 Mile bridge to fish the headwaters of the Blue just downstream of Breck. Meh. I caught some small ones (8" rainbow and 6" brown - no pics) on rainbow warrior and tan chubby but the flows were a smidge faster than I prefer for this section and I frankly feel the Breck construction edging further downstream has put pressure on this once prolific brown trout section. I just spent 90 minutes there and saw 5 other fishermen! Shot the Lightning Rod again.

July 28 @ Middle Fk SPlatte @ Tomahawk ~ Sprinkles and traffic followed me from Breck through Fairplay but I still jumped off Rt 9 to try the Tomahawk section. I waited out the sprinkles over lunch and then headed out on the Middle Fk. Total overcast day with good flows and visibility. Modest bug sign. I caught a number of small 'bows and browns on the tiny chubby and turned over others. Then, I did well for this section and got a couple of nicer browns. I landed the biggest brown I've ever caught here ~ a nice 19" Scottish brown! She took 7 min to land on the Rodfather Lightning Rod. Fooled her with black ice trailer. That made the day a wrap for me; I  hiked back to the car and drove to COS. It was a good end to the "6 Spots" effort, which ran very hot & cold.