Fun Weekend at the East Portal

Mike, Ben, and I had an awesome two and a half days on the Gunnison last weekend. We finally planned a camping trip with Mike who has a pop-up camper. Talk about camping in style. Can sleep six, has a heater, fridge, stove, lights.... We must be living right! Still took a day for me to figure out that I could put my waders on in the camper instead of doing a balancing act on my raincoat though.....

We took off early Friday and when we pulled in we had our choice of camping spot. I think there was only one other car in the parking lot. Sweet! First thing I noticed is that they fixed the spillway that was damaged last summer. I preferred fishing that spot before it was damaged so it was good to see it fixed.

Mike backed the camper in to our chosen space like a boss and we got to setting things up. Everything went off without a hitch, minus having to make a foil fuse for our creature comforts, and we were fishing in an hour.

We started off at the spillway and it took us a bit to figure out what was going on. I had stoneflys on my brain and even though it was later in the afternoon and only mid May, that's what I started throwing. I think the trout laughed a little when they saw that. Wait till June and wake up early if you want to toss big bugs.

Ben and I did a quick seine and it was more than apparent what we should be throwing. Size 20-22 dark baetis nymphs and scuds! There were a TON of dark (almost black) beatis nymphs and a few large dark olive scuds in each sample. Time to re-rig. That's what you get for assuming you'll show up and start slaying them in the middle of the afternoon on huge stone patterns! Hey, stranger things have happened......

At about that time I started noticing BWOs coming off. This was going to be good. We switched to pheasant tails and RS2s and started hooking up pretty quickly. We landed some nice bows but the action switched off pretty quickly. It did seem that the concentration of fish was not as heavy in this section as it had been on previous trips. Or should I say concentration of fish we could catch. We decided to call it an evening.

We got back to our camp site and Ben started cooking up some chicken that he had marinating. It was good. Damn good! We really went all out on food this trip. First camping trip of the season, first time taking Mike's camper out. We did it up right. So much so that Mike had to take a few pics! Chicken, steak, bacon, eggs, cowboy crepes.... And I think we may have actually LOST weight on this trip. Not the easiest river to wade.

We decided that we would head downstream in the morning to see what we could find. I've been to the East Portal a handful of times and we had always fished the spillway up. We've always done well so we didn't really have a reason to go downstream but we thought we might be able to find some good water to fish so we decided to go exploring.

Downstream is way better.... Just a ton of good water. It was fairly crowded though so we had to pass up a lot of it. I decided to just walk a while and get past the bulk of the crowd. I'm glad I did because when I finally stopped it was on one of the prettiest sections of river I've fished. I could stand in one spot and hit three different runs. It wasn't just a pretty spot either. It was chalk full of brick red 16-20" rainbows that were willing to hit a fly hard. No subtle takes for the next two hours.

These fish were amazing. Absolutley beautiful rainbows and browns that hit like a freight train and fought just as hard. One of the runs I was fishing from my sandbar perch was the inside seam of the main river channel. When fish would hit in this area they would take a quick turn to the current and torpedo downstream. Line peelers for sure. I kept thinking, "get your arses down here Mike and Ben"! For the next hour or so I had this little slice of
heaven all to myself. I must have landed a dozen fish by the time Mike made it down.

I had been watching a very large brown rising at the head of the pool I was fishing. He was out of reach from where I was standing and I didn't want to move so I just watched him steadily rise to BWOs... Mike FINALLY made it and I knew he had a dry fly rig so I pointed out where I had seen the rises. Mike took one cast and got a bite! I think it surprised him a little and he set a little too fast. He didn't make the same mistake when the brown rose again on his second cast! Unreal.... It wasn't to be though and the weight of the first few head shakes snapped the line.

The disappointment didn't last long though. I gave Mike a few RS2s and he was dialed in quick. He landed some absolutely stunning rainbows over the next hour or so. Some of the best fishing in recent memory.

We had to walk away from catching fish...... Ughhh.... Ben hadn't made it down and we hadn't eaten lunch. We figured it was at least noon so we walked away and decided to go find Ben. He was upstream a ways and had spend the morning catching some nice fish on dry flies. We made it back to camp and started getting lunch together. I asked if anyone had the time and Ben looked down at his watch in amazement. Four PM!!! LOL.... Time traveling on the river. We would have to treat our shock with a huge steaks.

We headed downstream on our final morning and hit the same spot we had found the previous day only from the other side. Unfortunately it wasn't nearly as good from this side so we worked our way back upstream. Mike was soon dialed in and hooking up on RS2s. Ben was killing it on dries just upstream from Mike. I hooked a few but was really just enjoying being in such a beautiful place watching my buddies land river gems.

It was a great weekend and I wish I could do it over again. Time absolutely flew by. Our only worries were how long to leave the baked potatoes on the fire and how many RS2s we had left. Small first world problems. So lucky to have the opportunity to decompress in the mountains of Colorado. It's an addiction but a good one. Already looking forward to our next trip to this amazing canyon.

Fall Trip to the East Portal

Had to squeeze in one more trip to the East Portal in before winter hit and we just made it. I've been to the East Portal a few times in the past couple of years and it's really a fun place to go. I've never seen it crowded and there are a few runs that just produce nice, brick red bows.

Mike was able to make it on this trip after having to canx a trip the previous weekend because of work (get your priorities straight Mike)! We headed up Friday evening and hit Colorado Boy Pizza which is delish. Almost worth the trip itself. We rigged up, watched Low and Clear and were up around 5.

We got down in the canyon just before daylight. I walked over to look at the water and noticed the spillway looked totally different.  The far side of the spillway was really calm and a new central outflow had formed. It looks like the dam was damaged this spring in the high flows. So fishing was a little different from what we are used to but we still caught some nice fish.

White streamers cast right up against the spillway worked best in the morning. Dad was on fire for about 15 minutes. One right after another. Things calmed down though after about an hour and we moved upstream. No one pattern killed it the rest of the day but we picked up a few on egg patterns.

Not the best trip up to the East Portal but it was a fun time as always.

Gunnison River Float (with a touch of Taylor)

This is a long one! After writing this I couldn't believe how long it turned out. Just too many good things to ignore. I won't be offended if you skip straight to the vid/pics but this was an awesome trip and I hope you'll stick it out.


GUNNISON RIVER FLOAT TRIP 6-13-14 from Jamie Roth on Vimeo.

I love it when a plan comes together. When a plan comes together that you didn't even really have to do anything for, it's great! I admit that I'm not the best at taking the time to plan a fishing trip much in advance (which I'm sure the Old Man loves). Usually it's just a "Hey Dad/Dude, wanna hit the X on Saturday"? Luckily for me Ben Lewis was on POINT planning this bad boy out.

Darren second from left and Ben right end in AK

This trip started out with news that Ben's buddy Darren Peterson, who lives in San Diego, wanted to come out to our great state of Colorado for a little water whipping this summer. We (Ben) had some really good fishing to plan! Ben met Darren through a mutual friend up in Alaska when Ben was stationed there with the Chair.... eh hem Air Force. They have gone on some pretty epic fishing trips together. Several day floats down big Alaskan rivers, bears, huge flesh fly on 2x eating rainbow slabs..... Ben's first trout actually was up in Alaska. It was 26". Ben asked if that was good. All downhill from there but hey Ben, you have good fishing buddies at least.... And Darren is one of them.

I guess I did contribute a little to this trip. Ben and I spoke about places to fish and I have been wanting to do a float on the Gunnison for years. Ben was totally down but I was a little worried about runoff. We didn't know if the river would be fishable mid June. We decided to book it (Ben) and if it came to it we could always hit the Taylor twice. We already had reservations (Ben) to stay in Gunnison after our float trip in order to introduce an Alaskan Veteran to the hog trough. Worst case scenario we could take the Guide trip on the Taylor and learn some juicy tid-bits.

Ben did some digging and came across Gunnison River Guides. He compared a few web sites and decided on these guys and I'm glad he did. These guys were great to deal (Ben) with from day 1. They expressed the same concern about the river flow but offered up a few alternatives including the Taylor and even a day for Pike fishing on Taylor Reservoir. We almost just chucked the float trip idea for the Pike idea but decided to save that for plan B.

Darren, Ben, and I met up the morning before the trip at the Angler's Covey to stock up on flies, tippet, split shot, etc, etc. It never seizes to amaze me how much of this stuff we go through. I've actually gone away from tapered leaders on my nymph rig but I don't skimp on tippet. Especially with the trout we fish to. By the way, always check out the bargain bin flies at the Covey. I picked up a few patterns out of that bin and they paid off big time on a very recent trip.

We loaded back up in the truck and I had a great feeling come over me. Freedom.... We didn't have any hard plans for the rest of the day other than to get some fishing in on our way over to Gunnison. Maybe thats why I suck at fishing plans...... what a great thing to experience during summer in Colorado. I felt like I was in high school again on a Friday afternoon with a full tank and nowhere to be....The next best thing, a Thursday morning in the Fish Pimp Tacoma, on vacation with three days of fishing planned (Ben).

I pulled out my eerilysmart phone and took a quick look at flows. Elevenmile Canyon seemed to be just right so we decided to hit that for a few hours. We mainly wanted to show Darren that area since it is such a pretty section of the South Platte. We caught a few and missed a few but we were eager to get back on the road. We were headed to the Gunny and had big flies on the brain. Small emergers just weren't cutting it! I wanted to hear my bugs hit the water!

Cottonwood - Older pic but could have been taken last week

We decided to head over Cottonwood Pass. It's my second favorite Colorado Pass (second to Independence) and we thought Darren would appreciate it. Somewhere along the line I remembered that I had fished Willow Creek (which flows off of Cottonwood and into the Taylor Reservoir) before when I was in high school with my buddy Nate Pamperin (how the hell are you anyway Man?). We decided to get a little small stream fishing in. Plus we could scout out the Taylor. My folks were going to meet us in Gunnison the next night and were thinking of hitting the Taylor before fishing it with us on Saturday. Could be some biggins to steer my Dad away from.

Willow Creek brown

We fished for an hour or so and landed some nice little browns. Willow Creek was running high and wading was actually pretty hard. I took my first and only swim of the trip after stepping into an overgrown hole instantly stopping the lower half of my body while my upper body continued into the COLD Cottonwood water (I feel ya Marty). It didn't matter though. We were on a beautiful creek with 3 weights fishing for aggressive little trout. Last time I fished this creek it was all top water but they weren't too interested in dries with the higher flow. So call me crazy but I was using a sparkle worm and a bead head PT. They were crushing both when I took the time to sneak up on them and present a descent cast.

Taylor Res output

The wind picked up and the clouds started
moving in so we decided we better start heading towards Gunnison. Besides we (Ben) still had plans to make with our Guides for the next day. We found out that our Guides were going to be on the water the day prior so we decided to see how they did before deciding on where to fish. We stopped to show Darren the output of Taylor Reservoir which is worth a quick look if you've never seen it. It's no wonder Craven's Mysis work so well here. They certainly take a beating on the way down.I'm thinking a white crystal flash dubbing ball on a hook....

On the way in to town we (Ben) were able to get in touch with one of our Guides for the next day and the word was that the river was still high but fishing well! Saweet!!!! I love the Taylor but I really didn't want two days in a row of light tippet and small flies...... (I was forgetting the kind of fish that live in the Taylor).....

THE FLOAT TRIP PART!

We met up with our guides at 10 AM in Almont. Yes 10 AM! Turns out that the river flow peaks overnight from the previous day's runoff and it's best to start late and fish late in order to get the clearest water. You would think after 20 years of fishing I'd know this but it just goes to show that you never stop learning in this sport. Especially when you change things up and take a break from tailwaters to cover some ground on a big freestone.

When we got there our guides already had the boats in the water and were rigging up. Jason was going to be guiding Darren and Ben in the first boat and I was going to jump in the second with Hunter. They both had about half a dozen rigs setup for us. Why? With the water moving as fast as it was, taking time to rig up on the drift would burn lots of river. Score a quick one for the Guides. So far so good. 

I'll save you a few, I promise!

Now I have to say that I had full intentions of rotating out of the second boat before we started. I figured Darren and Ben should get some fishing in together but if they wanted some time on a boat to themselves I'd be more than happy to jump on with Jason. I was even planning to offer it up the first chance we go. It quickly became apparent though just how good I had it. I'm an ass... Hunter got off to a quick start and we were the first boat to start downstream (I think to Ben's dismay - see pic - Sorry Ben! :-))

Great Guide and cool Dude Hunter

I could tell I liked Hunter right away. Another one of those guys that are just on the same wavelength as me. The first piece of advice I got from Hunter, before I even got in the boat, was to ditch the waders. This little gem of advice alone was worth a good tip it turned out. (The river was too high to wade and even though we stopped at good runs we never jumped out of the boat. Would have been WAY too  hot in waders).

Hunter has been guiding in Colorado for almost two decades. He has guided on many rivers but he finally decided that the Gunny was the river for him. He would wind up doing a fantastic job of convincing me why during the rest of the day.

One of the nicer browns

The "upper section" of the trip was really bonus water for us. With the river running so fast our Guides decided that we'd need more water than what they usually cover in order to fill a full day trip. Great! This trip was getting better and better. The upper section was between Almont and Gunnison and it turned out to be a great warm up for the day. Plenty of aggressive browns ranging in size between 8 and 14 inches. This was the type of fishing I was looking for. We had HUGE tippet on and double rubber legs (Girdle Bugs). Strikes were not very subtle! I absolutely live for this kind of fishing. When Hunter told me that it was feisty browns up top around Almont and bigger bows closer towards Gunnison I knew I was in for a really good day of fly fishing.

Darren having fun

We continued downstream hitting pockets on the drift along fast water and stopping at slower runs where the trout could get out of the heavy current. This provided an excellent mix of technical and laid back fishing. Half a dozen quick casts followed by half a dozen drifts through a nice run. Hunter had us on every possible holding area and there were a bunch of them. We found some pockets with no one home and some with players but every cast held the full expectation of a take. This lasted the entire trip which is really the kind of day you are after....They go fast.

Walking on water

Darren, Ben, and Jason in the sweet spot

Turned out that Darren and Ben were having just as much fun with Jason. We would leap frog each other on the way down stream and several times I'd see them go by with a fish on or in the net. It was a great feeling just being on the water. There were a handful of sections that were just a little too fast to hold much of anything. It gave me a chance to just stand up at the front of the boat and relax as we drifted down river. Float trips are a recent thing for me and for anyone who has never experienced one I full heartedly recommend it. There are a few things to get used to but with a good Guide it's easy. If you find yourself getting a bit tired of fishing the same crowded areas with very small flies and very light tippet, the remedy is a float on a large freestone river. Go with the Guides we went with and you will not be disappointed.

We continued downstream switching between a big nasty nymph rig and a hopper dropper combo. The hopper dropper was great to cast and added the element of a big bushy top water bug to the mix. I saw a few flashes just below the fly in the off color water but didn't wind up getting any takes on it. It did disappear frequently though. One second it's there and the next it's not. When it's not you set the hook and hold on.

Just as Hunter predicted we started getting into nicer and nicer bows the further toward Gunnnison we got. Both boats netted a 20" bow with several others in the 18" range. These were just icing on the cake. I have no idea how many fish we netted but I'd say somewhere around 40 total. Darren and Ben never asked to switch boats and I never brought it up! I would have switched but I just couldn't bring myself to walk away from the kind of fun I was having and neither one of them looked ready at all to jump ship.

I actually had a chance to catch up with Jason on the way back to Almont and he's a very cool Dude (see note below). Probably knows more about this river than anyone on the planet. He's put a ton of days on the water over the years and knows the river like the back of his hand. I'm so glad that Ben picked these guys for our trip. Ben hit a home run picking these guys and I recommend them 100%.

I'll finish up this friggin dissertation with some pictures of the bows we landed. Enjoy and do yourself a favor and take this trip! (BTW GRG - I'm willing to take any "referral" days we could perhaps earn from referring you to millions of readers).

Jason Booth with a Taylor Hawg!

Jason Booth: I did get a nagging feeling that I had seen Jason somewhere before when we met up that morning. I didn't think anything of it till I was talking to him on the way back. Turns out Jason is a good friend of Landon Mayer's and is in Landon's book, "Colorado's Best Fly Fishing" in the Taylor chapter. He gives some killer advise in the caption under this unforgettable photo - some advice that I use on the Taylor and some advice that led me to the biggest fish I ever caught on the Taylor (upcoming blog post). Buy the book! Well worth it.

Gunnison River (East Portal)

Back to the East Portal for the first time this year. We were originally planning on hitting the East Portal this spring when the road first opened but it didn't work out this year. Definitely on the radar for next spring!

The Old Man and I headed up to Montrose Friday afternoon. New Alice in Chains, QOTSA, and Sabbath on the ride up! Great ride.  We checked into the Super 8. $80 to save a 4 hour drive at the butt crack of dawn is a no brainer. Coffee is ready at 4 AM and the turn off for the Black Canyon is 5 minutes up the road.

After checking in we hit the strip to find some grub. MacDonalds , Arbys, a few other small places, and Colorado Boy Pizzeria! I could eat Pizza every day of the week and thrice on Sunday. I'm always down for new Pizza and Colorado Boy didn't disappoint. 11" personal pizzas cooked to order in a brick oven. I went for the Pizza Calda (san marzano, mozzarella, pepperoni, mushrooms, hot olive oil, kalmata olives and fresh arugula). One word, delish. Very reasonably priced too. East Portal = stop at Colorado Boy from here on out. Shown here, the Calda in HDR. What a dork.

Caught up on a few blog entries later on in the room. Seems my fishing is far outpacing my writing. I'm struggling every week to keep up. But I haven't missed a trip yet and I'm not about to start.

We hit the canyon at daylight. Wanted to toss some stones early while the fish were looking for them. We waded out to our honey hole and Dad hooked up on the first or second cast. I hooked up a cast or two after that. Ah yes, good to be back on the Gunny. Fishing was hot and heavy for the first half hour then slowly tapered off. Any sort of stone pattern in 12-14 was good for a bite. Rubber legs in a 12 seemed to be the most consistent fly of the morning. I have to say the Gunny has some of the prettiest bows in the state. The colors really come through in the pictures but they were even more vivid in person.

Crazy event of the day - Dad set the hook and snagged the bottom. He was trying not to retail snap
when I hooked a nice bow, probably 17" or so and he was heading for some faster water. Dad put his rod down, got below me,  and was wading out just above the heavy current in a really rocky run. At this point I notice Dad's indicator dart upstream and a 8" bow jumping like crazy out of the water. This little dude had swam up to Dad's hung up rig and picked his fly off a rock! He was fighting
like crazy on a line with no one on the other end. At this point my bow was just about to enter the fast water. We were both distracted watching Dad's rod catch a fish without him, and Dad took a spill. In the process he had to let go of his net which was now heading fast towards some pretty heavy rapids. Dad dove on his net. Picture bending at the waist and doing a power belly flop without leaving your feet. I was holding the trout just above the heavy current just in front of Dad. He came up with the net and started looking all around for the trout that was right in front of him. LOL, he said, "where's the fish.... oh!" and netted the fish. Hilarious! I'm getting a Go Pro.

We didn't manage to hook the big boy we were after and things really died down around lunch so we decided to grab our lunchables and then hit some new water. Pizza Calda to lunchables? Next trip, Pizza Calda for dinner, Pizza Calda to go, Pizza Calda for lunch on the river.

We headed upstream to some runs we did well in last summer. We fished for a good hour up and down these runs without a hit. Crazy! No hatch to speak of but nothing would touch the standard between hatch go to patterns. I even got crazy with a pegged egg sucking leach on a dead drift. Nothing! Stumped on this one. There were fish but they weren't eating anything we had.

Hoping to see a PMD hatch in the afternoon but I think we were a few weeks to early. Last July there was a massive PMD hatch in the afternoon and a size 16 Barr Emerger would have been killer if I had any. I tied a dozen of them last summer specifically because of that afternoon. Will have to wait till next month to hit the PMD hatch.

Back to the honey hole after lunch. Things were dead. Stone bite was off. No hatch, not much activity. Tough afternoon. If we hadn't had such a good morning it would have been a tough day. I even chucked the Chinese Chicken without a look.

As usual no crowd to speak of. I can't believe more people don't fish here. It can be tough but if you know where to fish you will always hook fish in the morning and the afternoons can be great too if you hit a good hatch. I'm not complaining though. Really becoming one of my favorite places to fish.

Gunnison River (East Portal)

20" Slab of a buck (photo bomb by Dad's finger)

The East Portal did not disappoint. I was hoping our first trip there wasn't a fluke and it turns out that this section of the Gunnison, in my opinion, is one of the best kept secrets in Colorado fly fishing. Since I can count the number of my blog readers on two hands I feel safe in writing this. For my faithful reader(s) this is your reward for reading my ramblings several times a month.

Henry Comp with a nice brown

Henry Comp, my Dad's lifelong friend, flew out from Missouri to join us for a weekend of fishing. My Dad has known Henry since they were about 6 and it was nice listening to some of the old stories they had. I always learn some nugget of info about my Dad when Henry is in town. Henry is a huge Pike/Musky fisherman and knows how to fish. He landed this nice brown on the Taylor (took a quick detour to the Taylor on Thursday night on our way to the Gunnison). Dad is seen here showing Henry how to properly hold a phantom trout. As you can see by my Dad's hands, his phantom trout is still smaller than Henry's brown.

We hit the river shortly after daylight and I went straight to the hole I had missed the huge rainbow in a few weeks back. I have this run dialed in and knew exactly what files to fish and what depth. This hole is DEEP and I use my biggest split shot covered in Mojo Mud along with weighted flys to get down fast. Since it was early in the morning in oxygenated water, I knew the trout would be on the lookout for golden stones. I was right. For the first half hour of fishing I had a take on almost every other cast. Tungstones, Tungteasers, Pat's Rubberlegs, and Disco Worms were on the menu. These fish hit hard and fight harder. 4X is a MUST. Especially if you don't want to chase every fish 100 yards downstream. This section of the Gunny reminds me of the Frying Pan in the mid 90's. Fat, red, aggressive rainbows that are always hungry.

We fished the spill over for most of the morning. We moved downstream to fish some faster pocket water just before lunch. I hooked about a 14" brown on the edge of some fast white water and was to my backing within 20 seconds. Dad was with me and we started running downstream. During my run I noticed a nice simulator laying on the bank and took a quick pause to pick it up. Nice bead head stone attached to it. Quick stop for some free flys and it was back to the races. 100 yards later we netted the little brown that got both of our heart rates up. I couldn't imagine hitting a large Gunny bow in this water.

After lunch we went upstream to a nice long bend run that we had found during our first trip to the East Portal. Around this time (noon or one) a nice PMD hatch started developing. I was unprepared for this hatch. I had gone into the fly shop a few weeks back looking for PMD superfine dubbing and they were out. No big deal then, HUGE deal now. I'd have to go  with some BWO Bar Emergers and hope the fish I was fishing to were color blind. I told my Dad to tie on a Bar PMD Emerger and he was out too. But after taking a second look in the dark recesses of his fly boxes he found an old size 16 PMD that was barley hanging on to the hook. The fish loved it. He hooked several really nice rainbows at the head of the bend run.

The fish started rising pretty regularly and I decided to tie on the closest thing I had to a PMD dry. I had a few refuses on an Adams but the fish knew what they wanted. I will be better prepared for the PMD hatch next time. July and Colorado and I don't have any PMDs. You would think I would have learned something over the last 20 years of fly fishing...
  
We decided to head back to the spill way for the last hour of fishing. Dad decided to cross the river with me and hang out with the net ready. I rigged up again with heavy line and a boat anchor. Large Tungteaser as an attractor and a beadhead flashback Bar emerger as the rider. On about the 5th cast I set the hook to a bow that absolutely wen berserk! This thing jumped immediately after being hooked. She jumped and ran on top of the water several times. It was all I could do to give some slack and hang on! After 20 minutes of long runs, head shakes, and net scares Dad was able to corner her up against the bank and net her. She wasn't done fighting when she was netted! Amazing strength to this trout. One of the hardest fighting fish I've ever hooked. She fought like and 8lb trout. She turned out to be just a hair shy of 20" but she has earned her way on to the 20" board with that fight (and my arm extension). Truly a memorable trout on a fun and memorable trip.

If you are reading this from an email you will not see the videos that I add to these blog posts at the end. Jump on the blog site to see the videos.

Same 20" buck as shown above

Gunnison River (East Portal)

We decided to try some new water this weekend and I am sure glad we did! We decided to hit a tailwater on the Gunnison river under Crystal Dam. This is in Black Canyon National Park. This section of river is about a mile above the famous Black Canyon which we've fished years before.

We got to the river just after daylight. The road down into the canyon is about a 17% grade! Makes for some great views while driving in. You can see the road in this picture that I took while driving out. They close this road in the winter which is about 5 miles long. This sounds like a great way to get familiar with a snow mobile. You'd have the whole place to yourself.

Anyway, once we got down to the river we drove up to the dam and back down to scout out the best water. This is a big river and has long sections of flat deep water. We saw a few nice runs and decided to start upstream and work our way down. The first run we fished was a long, fairly slow run that had a nice gradual drop off into the main channel of the river. The further you cast out, the deeper the water. This is always nice because you can adjust your cast, instead of your rig, to get at the right depth.

I hooked a small rainbow on my first cast but he spit the hook. We each hooked a few fish in this run but nothing huge. My Dad worked his way upstream and found a nice section of white water behind a huge boulder. He took one cast with one of the flies I tied for him for Father's Day and he hit the slab shown at the top of the page. A 20" pig of a rainbow! Unfortunately my Mom and I were down stream when he pulled this guy in and we didn't get to see it. When my Dad came back downstream he asked how we were doing. I said not bad we caught a few small ones. He said, just before I stopped talking,  "oh that's nice, I caught a fat 20" bow". LOL - The following 4 pictures are of some small trout we pulled out of the first run we fished. Even thought they were small they were still a lot of fun and STRONG. These fish are as strong as the fish in the Arkansas below Pueblo. Almost all of the rainbows we caught were bright red and in really good shape. Catching a lot of nice bright red trout rainbows reminded me of the Frying Pan river in the mid 90s.

We fished this area for a few hours and decided to make our way down stream. We saw a really nice hole below a small damn when we were scouting the river earlier in the morning and we decided to give that a shot. This was REALLY nice water as you can see from this picture. You had to wade across a pretty fast section of water but then you came to a small island where I was standing when I took this picture. The flow was mid 600s and if it were any higher it would be really tough getting out to this section. You could wade out just far enough, toward the damn, to cast up just below the spill way. You would get a really nice drift coming back toward you. I started on the near side and worked my way across the damn. I caught a few nice rainbows on the near side of the damn but had no idea what was in store for me on the far side. The picture to the left was one of the nice rainbows I landed on the near side of the damn. All of these rainbows were bright red and really healthy. It's a good thing to see since the Gunnison was hit so hard by whirling disease in the late 90s. It seems like the rainbows have come back strong! I made my way to the far side of the damn where the river butted up against a rock face. It was a VERY fishing looking spot as you can see here. There were two really nice currents and a deep white water plunge hole between them as you can make out in this picture. You could wade up just far enough to cast into the white water but it was NOT easy wading here. There were a ton of big mossy rocks to step over while you were in waist deep current. Getting over to this spot required that you cross a fast waist deep section over more medium sized mossy rocks. In other words it wasn't easy getting over here and  

once you did get over to the far side it wasn't easy navigating. I started hooking fish right away in this section. I soon realized that the fish knew how to handle being hooked in this run. They stayed up towards the spill way for a few minutes and if that didn't work they headed downstream into very fast white water. I actually had to chase a 16" rainbow downstream about 60 yards! I knew if I hooked a big fish it would be a very big job getting him in the net. 

After catching a few fish things died down a bit and I decided to adjust my weight. I added a bunch of Mojo Mud around my split shot to try and get the fly down as close to the white water as possible. First cast produced a hit and a fat bow over 20" rolled up on the surface and spit the hook. Ah! Tough when the nice ones get away but I hadn't seen anything at that point. Almost every cast after that was a hit. I was dialed in! Deep Tungstones! On about my 10th cast I had a HARD hit and knew immediately that I had a big fish on. I knew I had to wait for my Dad to make his way over to my side of the river so I just held him up towards the spill way without applying too much pressure because I didn't want him to run down into the fast water. I hadn't seen him yet but I could feel the head shakes and I knew he was big. Just as my Dad was making his way across the hardest section of water I saw a HUGE tail come up and break the surface. This thing was a MONSTER! Huge brick red tail! I said "Oh Man that is a HUGE Bow!" My Dad had only seen the tail too but couldn't make out that it was just the tail and he said, "I don't think it's that big". I said, "It's HUGE!". He was heading downstream at this point! Nooooooooo!!! My Dad made it over to my side of the  river just in time to have to duck in order to avoid my line. He turned around just to see this monster roll on the top of the surface as it was entering the fast water. My hook pulled out and he was off!!! Ahhhhhh ***** I yelled! Oh the pain!!!!!!!!!! My Dad said, "That was a huge bow"!  I had missed a true trophy of a trout. Probably mid 20"s and 8 pounds. A football of brick red! I've played this over in my mind several hundred times and there were several things I could have done better to land this bow. One was to start wading across the river towards the near side as soon as he was hooked to bring him above the island instead of above the white water channel. The other was to let him run through the white water and chase him like I had earlier for the smaller bow. But with a net so close to the fish it's hard not to put pressure to hold him above the fast water for a chance at the net. 

There are BIG trout in this river. I fished half heartedly for a little while after that without much luck so we decided to take a break and eat lunch. There are nice facilities at this location and we had a nice picnic lunch on a covered picnic table. After lunch we decided to head downstream further to see what it looked like. It was nice water but the bubbas had started filling in and I couldn't get the image of that trout out of my head. I was heading back to the spill way! 

Releasing a nice little brown 

I started walking up stream and noticed a guy on the far side of the river walking up stream. I knew as soon as he turned the bend he would see the spot where I missed that big bow and park himself there for several years. Just as I was figuring this out my Dad said you better hurry up. I about broke my neck getting down to the water and had to power my way through the fast current. I must have looked like Richard Simmons in waders lifting my legs to get across the river. My legs were on FIRE as I just nudged him out to beat him to my spot! He was not pleased....... He started to turn to walk away and I took one step and fell in the river.... I stood up soaking wet only to see the look of a very satisfied bubba shake his head and walk away.... Karma...... I deserved it. Should have shared that spot. Lesson learned. Oh yeah and I didn't hook another big fish in that hole.....

My Mom stayed on the near side of the river and had found a nice run to fish and was hooking up pretty regularly. I didn't get a picture of a nice bow she caught but I was able to zoom in on this nice little brownie. I decided to head back over and join my folks for the last hour or so of fishing. It was a nice way to end the day. My Mom and I were both  hooking fish and it had been a great day of fishing. I starting fishing a nice pocket just upstream and hooked a fish that slowly and steadily swam upstream in very heavy current without stopping. I never saw him and he hung me up on a rock. More bad Karma pay off! I took a few more casts and actually wound up landing the nicest fish I had caught that trip. Karma bank even! 

It's nice to have some new water to fish. I really like this river and will be fishing in more in the future. Great weekend with the folks! Always a good time fishing with them and we all caught nice fish. Can't beat living in Colorado!