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