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.

Above COS Hike & Deck Happy Hour 07May20-08May20

Thursday was gorgeous so Kala & I headed above the Waldo burn and above the quarry to the southern ridgeline of Blodgett Pk. The trail was sometimes great and often sketchy at near the top... steep with loose pink granite made the descent harrowing. We got to about 8400 ft (~200 below the ridge) before turning back. The route roughly follows our local unnamed stream, which is still flowing well. We finally have begun to see more spring wildflowers. Great outing with Kala in some perilous spots.

Despite the 20° drop in temps on Friday we held another felonious deck party with social distances and wine & nosh. Excellent time with Brantleys and Yohanans, except we missed Jim. I made glazed Korean meatballs, which the team seemed to like, and Kala prepared stuffed 'shrooms, dipped strawberries and chilled chili shrimp... yumm. Of course we brought out some fine wines: Edgar's '13 grenache-syrah, a Spanish '10 gran reserve rioja alvesa and a L'Venture '14 GSM. We needed and enjoyed stuff that could stand up to the spicy foods.