3 streams, 1 day

This past weekend a friend and I went out fishing together for the first time, we met at the Zen Winter Series this past March when I gave a presentation and we've kept in touch and finally made a full day trip and I must say that it was very enjoyable even though I'm  usually solo when fishing.

I had hoped to get us up to a local greenback stream but unfortunately the road was blown out and I haven't been feeling well so the 3 mile uphill walk was out so we did something I've never done before and fished the lower reaches of the same stream that the GB's are in and we got into some really nice Browns. Steve was the first one to land a fish and what a fish, 14" long and butterball thick had his Badger UNC singing in this little stream. No pictures of that one but I was able to land a few nice fish also, not 14" nice but still respectable for a 4' wide trickle.

After an hour or so we decided to head for wider pastures and descended to a bigger stream with much more open terrain.

Normally this stream is an easy 20-30 fish water with 3 species the norm and 5 species a possibility but today all we could scratch up were some small Browns, Steve catching the only non brown with a decent Cutbow. Typically I can walk down a couple miles and have this water pretty much all to myself but on this day the people were everywhere, I'm hoping it was just a one time thing due to the super nice weather we had and not a sign of things to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we were done here we went to a tiny brookie stream and had fun catching brook trout for a couple hours, this stream, at least where we fished it is really tight and a 9' rod with 9 feet of line and a couple feet of tippet is just about perfect for it. On this day the fish were tearing up dries, didn't matter which ones just as long as it floated they were eating it, most of them were caught on a EHC or  a parachute adams, I tried kebaris but they weren't having it so dries it was.

 

 

 

 

 

Brook trout may be invaders to the Rocky Mountains but I still love to catch them, their colors are unbelievable and what they lack in size they definitely make up for in their willingness to hit a fly and the places they live tend to be pretty amazing also.

 

 

 

Thanks for looking!

A Wild Canyon

I do not know, but I think it is something buried within us, something that makes
us long for the far places

Louis L'Amour "Jubal Sackett"

Recently I went in search of a settlement that was built around 1900 and abandoned some 65 years later due to a flood, it supplied electricity to several towns on the west side of Pikes Peak and when it was abandoned nearly everything was left in place as it was deemed cheaper to leave it than try to haul it out.

The trail starts at a very popular lake and heads down over the spillway, making this stream a tailwater of sorts. The lake doesn't hold much interest for me as it's always busy although I do take my family there from time to time and hike away from the crowds, they love it and once away from the masses it is actually pretty peaceful.

The first water crossing, above this spot the walking is easy, a nice wide valley and a road make it easily accessible, below this crossing and it gets tight, scree slopes and thick forest make it a challenge to find the "trail" at times, the odd ribbon or cairn marking the way

The stream was high due to runoff and not safe to wade in most places, this high water would come back to bite me later on in the day. As I journeyed farther downstream the wilder the scenery became, cliffs soared above and the canyon floor dropped precipitously

 

There were several scree slopes to traverse, the trail nonexistent

The first 2 miles took 25 minutes to hike, the second 2 miles took three times that long due to the terrain and extremely vague trail, plus there was a short break thrown in also. I'd talked briefly with a guy and his two sons on my way down and they hadn't been able to reach the village due to the high water and the second bridge being washed away, unfortunately I did not make it either.

I came to this "bridge" and with 6" of fast water pouring over the top, the logs slickened to the point of grease and a chasm of whitewater 15 feet below the logs I chose to turn around and fish my way back upstream, I'll wait for the water to drop and try it again.

 

It may not look like much in the picture but the water was pouring over the logs and they were slick as snot, not something I wanted to attempt solo

 

 

No big deal really, I had a couple Tenkara rods with me and the fish were in the slack water and eddies formed by the runoff

The pool above had some nice fish in it and I pulled several browns out of it plus this sad looking rainbow

I had to head way back upstream to find fishable waters as the canyon was rushing way to fast to even think about fishing it

When I finally got to calmer waters the fishing was awesome, every pool and every soft edge that a fish could hide from the raging river had a fish or 5 in it. This flat rock below the waterfall was a great place to reach across the fast current to reach the slower pool on the other side and numerous fish came from it, including one acrobatic rainbow that smashed a pink Kebari the second it hit the water and then proceeded to spit the hook with his jumping

 

This pool/run had so many fish in it that it wasn't even funny, it seemed like every cast for 10 solid minutes brought a fish in, all browns, all hungry

 

 

This was a 4 species day with many Browns, several Rainbows, a Cutbow and surprisingly a Snake River Cutt being caught, the Snake was a first for me on Tenkara which was even more cool

                                                               

 

                                                                 

All in all it was a great time even though I didn't reach my intended goal, that just mans that I'll have to go back again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Local action

"In moments such as these, heart, mind, body, and spirit become complete
Within the arms of nature my grounded soul can release my wings.''

Unknown

Finding time to get away for full/multiday trips has proven to be rather challenging this year so shorter trips of a few hours have had to suffice and it's been a fun challenge to find decent water close to home. This trip is to the same little Local as last week but I went several miles higher than before, not headwaters high but about halfway up to an area I'd fished several years ago.

 A buddy and I went to fish a lake in the area but we got chased off by thunderstorms that weren't supposed to happen, the lightning cracking over our heads convinced us that standing next to a lake with 13' Tenkara rods wouldn't be all that smart so we descended into a canyon where we were sheltered from the storm, deciding that scouting the stream out was better than sitting under a tree.

We'd gone about as far up the canyon as we could, rain slickened cliffs blocked any forward progress and this beautiful little pool was literally under our feet, the stream actually running under the boulders we were standing on and I could see a brook trout swimming inside the cave the stream ran through, he was holding in a little sunlit opening and stood out against the lighter streambed floor. This was one of the most tricky spots I've ever fished, several different channels created crosscurrents that made drifting the fly over his head impossible and the only way to get the fly in there was a bow & arrow cast, the only problem was the window to get the fly in was 6" wide, a shot to low dropped it into the water to soon and any higher the fly hit the boulder. Finally after 20 minutes of trying different things I was able to put the Parachute Adams perfectly over his head and the take was near instantaneous.

Here my buddy is fishing the downstream side of the rocks where I caught the above fish but there was nothing happening so we headed back downstream.

As we headed down I snapped this picture of where we were at, boulder hopping and tight quarters was the name of the game.

For such a small stream there was a remarkable mayfly hatch, they were everywhere which was good to see. Hard to see it in the picture, but they were there.

This was a pretty typical approach for this stream, kneel in the water and slingshot the fly upstream because the cover was just to thick to cast.

The last fish of the day and also the largest, it came from that little plunge above my right hand, a gentle bow & arrow cast put the fly on top of his nose and the hit was picture perfect.

On the way out we were greeted with a beautiful sunset, it's moments like these that I live for, that my heart aches to see and experience and I'm thankful for every moment I get to spend in the hills, regardless if I'm fishing, hunting, going on a picnic with my family, I cherish them all.

Exploring a Local

"In the beauty of a river, I find happiness
In the smell of a river, I find joy
In the abundance of a river, I find life."

Unknown

There is a little creek nearby, a ''Local'' if you will, that I've started to investigate. It's small, tight, overgrown and it has a decent population of Brook Trout. It's not much to look at, the fish are small and fishable spots are at a premium but there's not a single sign of other anglers going there, the only tracks are from hikers and kids playing in the water.

As you can see most of it is a tangled mess, tiny pockets that I was throwing tung head KB's into to get the fly down quick to the fish before the pool ended. There is one nice little run that is maybe 20 yards long but all the other pools are tangled up, debris ridden holes. Beautiful Tenkara water.

In an hours time I was able to bring 4 beautiful gems to hand, I missed another 5-6, mostly due to not being able to set the hook because of low hanging branches but for a stream this close to home and frequented by kids throwing rocks, people lounging in the water on hot days and dogs splashing I think that's a pretty respectable amount and much better than I honestly expected.

The largest fish pictured was a real surprise and I was thankful to land it as it went straight into a tangle and I was barely able to pry it out with my little Soyokaze 270 and 6x tippet. All in all a productive trip out, now to keep exploring...