Back to Colorado

The fishing was so much fun last week I just had to come back with my brother to prove it to him. Still plenty of snowmelt left to fill the reservoir.

Running at 700 cfs. An unbelievable number of huge fish can be seen in this photo. All totally off limits by decree of the Federal Government.
Several years ago a huge avalanche came down this path and blew a bunch of huge fish out of the river. Witnesses claim to have seen 10+ pound fish dead on the highway.

More than a few fish survived it though :)

whip out the trusty stomach pump

Pumped a ton of mysis, one baetis nymph, and one scud.

Back to the car to make some imitations.

Disgusting Dinty Moore soup. Even the animals don't deserve that kind of nastiness.

The winning patterns

Todd hooks into a massive bow. Looked to be around 9-11 pounds. I almost netted it before it took off down the rapids and broke off. Todd said he needed counseling after that.
Don't worry Todd, there's plenty more fish in the river.

brilliant red spots

brilliant red stripe
There was a ton of fish visible in the upper river thanks to the high flows.

The upper river was very crowded on Saturday (no suprise). I didn't see many large fish in the lower section except for one pod of 6-9 pounders. Hooked 3 of them. One snapped me off with one jump. The other 2 ran across river and wrapped around boulders. Soooo frustrating. Evening fishing in the rain using mysis patterns was incredibly fast. Just about EDC. However every fish over 8 pounds managed to spit the hook or do some ridiculous move to break me off. I was using 5x on size 20 and 18 flies. I have only used 6x on previous trips because of how wary the fish are but I went with 5x this time because of the high flows. I guess 4x was necessary to land the pigs but I couldn't bring myself to tie 4x on #18-20 flies (especially on such a technical river). At least we landed some decent sized fish.

Never have I fought fish so powerful. The 9 pounder I got last week didn't fight as hard as some 5 pounders I hooked on this trip. I simply cannot believe how strong the fish were this time considering the water temp was only 41 (1 degree higher than last week). I think they fought harder than anything I've hooked on the Missouri, Big Horn, San Juan, Beaverhead, North Platte, or Frying Pan. I suppose the fact that they were absolutely GORGING on mysis being flushed out with the high flows had something to do with it. Amazing how those shrimp make the fish super colorful and powerful.



last week's fish

Timpanogos Cave & bouldering

Always a blast to hang out with my siblings and zillions of nieces and nephews.

My nephews Luke and Daniel trekking through the rock fall danger zone as designated by the red stripe
Box Elder area
They say the water is perfectly pure
Stunning

The Heart

These will join in just a quick couple thousand years

Psycho looking helectites

Did some night bouldering at the Campus Boulder (Lisa Falls area, LCC)

Skiing the Obelisk

The objective: First I planned on skiing the north face of Nebo. While driving over the point of the mountain at 7:30 a.m. I saw Nebo was already covered by storm clouds coming in on the southwest flow. Because lower Little Cottonwood doesn't get the southwest flow as much I thought I could climb North Thunder Mountain and ski the Needle before it got too bad . Wish there was snow at the trailhead.

The bottom of Scotties
Little Pine. What an amazing chute- when it's filled in that is...
absolutely nasty snow down low
melting...melting!
lush spring green
sun cups on west aspect

Can't get enough Pfiefferhorn pics- seems like all my TRs have one

The Obelisk: a V0 boulder problem? I imagine standing on top would be tricky :)

There she is: The Hypodermic Needle. Looks even more defined in the spring.

I was hoping the weathermen would be wrong about the forecasted rain and lightning- but no. Better get the freak outta here! Dang, I really really wanted to check the Needle off my list.

It was easy to trigger shallow sluffs on the east face of the Obelisk. Not sure what the temp was up there but the valley reached 78 for a high. Clouds overnight and throughout the day definately helped keep the snow too warm. A.k.a. greenhouse effect

The sluff erased my track in the chute but you can see it left of the debris on the apron

It started raining as soon as I reached the parking lot. Definately wouldn't want to be in a 50 degree chute while its raining. Frustrating that I didn't reach my goal but glad I got out cause I almost decided to waste the day by going to a movie or something.

Colorado fishing

Flow: 500 cfs

Water temp: 40 degrees

Stomach sample: #18 & 22 baetis nymphs

Big fish were just beginning to move onto the flats so there wasn't a high concentration of them for sight fishing.

Parking lot was full-even on a weekday.

This pig measured 26.5" long and 16" girth!
Caught it on a #20 tan midge larva

photoshop cleaned this pic up nicely
Other flies that produced were red midge larva, mercer micro mayfly, olive pheasant tail, and sowbug (all in the #20-22 range). Mysis patterns became very effective in the evening. I'm guessing it's because the fish are more easily fooled by our rather opaque imitations of translucent mysis when the light is low. Or maybe more mysis are sucked through the dam during the evening?

Strawberry: Horse Creek

Fished from 6-7:30 a.m.. Water temp 46 degrees. Seems like the fish are starting to spread out more, I guess cause turnover is coming. Nothing big again, just average size cutts. Had a few take the ridiculous looking attractor fly (orange head and rainbow body)- over my favorite olive leech trailer. Action seems to be faster on steeper banks as opposed to the longer shallows.

Zion: Angel's Landing

National Park or Amusement Park?

Prickly Pear Cactus

If only all peaks had a paved trail. I suppose the escalator for this hike is coming soon

Uber crowded. An accident waiting to happen

The top

Great White Throne

rabies

Don't EVER do this hike in shoes like these. That was spicy!

Falling is not advised here

Angel's Landing has quite an impressive wall. My bro climbed it once.