Monday, June 14, 2010

What I did on my summer vacation

I write this as I am trying to recall the last 5 days of fishing.  Where did I start?  Oh, yea, it started with the family making an annual summer trip to Los Alamos, NM for a week and by me taking some time off from work.  This past Thursday began with a question in my head, as did almost everyday thereafter.  Where do I want to fish today?  WIth the rivers changing daily, even hourly, in flows, where to go?
Day 1-Thursday I woke to wind and not just a breeze, but a howling wind.  I scratched off the reservoirs off my list for the day.  Looking at the flows, 11-mile canyon looked to be perfect.  The flows were up to around 250CFS.  I arrived and fished the lower canyon.  Lots and lots of moss in the drift.  No fun.  Had more than a few fish look at a Hopper Juan, but no solid takers. I went to it after getting fed up with the salad in the water.  No pictures for the day, no good stories either.
Day 2-Where to fish?  Called my preacher buddy and joined him on a local creek where we threw dries all day long.  I also used a dropper most of the day.  Many fish were caught and overall a great day.  Much better than the day before!!!!

Here are the flies used.
"Juanitos"  #12 Great small stream fly.
Fish's View

The dropper.  Started out as a red lightning bug type fly.  

Day 3-Where to fish?  Deckers sounded good.  Flow was about 500CFS.  Ok, so Deckers it is.  I just jumped in my car and left.  All my stuff is in the car right?  Has been there for the last three days.  Wrong!  No waders!  Crap!  Maybe I can cast from the banks, then the rain started.  Screw this place.  Maybe I'll just go home.  I can't go home.  No one is there and no one needs me to be home.  Maybe a stop at Manatou Lake.  I have $5 in my pocket this day for the day use fee.  I stop and actually have a good time catching stocker rainbows on mini leeches.  A day saved!
Day 4-Where to fish?  I have never been to Rosemont Reservoir and want to check it out.  A short trip through town and into the mountains.  After about an hour, I find the parking place.  A short hike to the water finds me casting to rising fish.  After about 20 minutes, the rain and sleet start. It was cold and very wet.  No pictures and I am glad I didn't take out the camera today.  After about 20 cutthroat and brookies, I called it a day.  Once back at home, the day actually turned out to be nice.  
Day 5- I had a plan!  The plan was to fish Rainbow Falls with a fellow guide from Anglers Covey.   Rainbow Falls is a private fly-fishing club located between Woodland Park and Deckers.  The plan was to do some work and then fish.   We worked for a while and fished a little but the rain came and forced us to some shelter.  After a wonderful lunch, we headed out to fish some more.  I fished a couple areas on some of the ponds.  The fish in these ponds are strong and hit like a freight train.  What a blast!  There was some moving water that I wanted to check out that I saw earlier.  It was loaded with many good sized fish.  The water looks like perfect 2wt. water, but you better bring a 4 or 5 wt. to haul in the big fish.   I caught some on a woolly bugger and then switched to a Hopper Juan.  That was fun.  Here are a few pictures of the day.  After a few days on the water, it was time to come home and prepare for the work week.  I heard that the evening rise was something not to be missed, but maybe next time guys!  Thanks to Dave H. and everyone else for this nice visit.   


Trout Creek

More water.  

Buddy checking this out.  

On the Hopper Juan 

Another one on The HJ.

This was about an 18" Brown.

Same fish

Very colorful brown.

The last fish of the day took the hopper as it was "kicking"!


The last Rainbow.  


4 comments:

  1. Nice stuff Juan! some pretty browns.

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  2. Fellas,

    I wish I had a better time frame for these trips, but you get what you get! The rivers were a bit off, and the weatehr was really weird for mid June. Rain and snow up high. If I could have picked a better time frame, I think I would have done better fish wise. I had fun and now I am back in the "regular" world!
    Juan

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