1997 Upper Colorado Exploration (and other places)
A friend and I were interested in possibly participating in a land auction for some 35+ acre lots in a development known as Shadow Mountain over near Granby. So I headed off on a three day trip, hopefully to combine walking the land with a bunch of fishing in some areas where I'd never been before.
Some of these lots involved rights to a section of the Willow Creek that flows South out of Willow Creek Pass so naturally it made sense to check out the fishing potential. After going over the acreage's and wading the river bed, while the stream probably isn't sterile, it certainly doesn't look like it will be a caster's nirvana. A Check of the streambed entomology revealed a paucity of life clinging to the rocks - a few midge larva, a couple of small caddis cases, and some other type of unknown larva, so it was not a stream rich in insect life.
Suspect I'll pass on bidding on any of these lots. After finishing up the inspection I headed up over the pass with the intention of testing some of the waters in North Park. And after being devoured by unimaginable hordes of mosquitoes at both the North Platte River access and again at Grizzly Creek and again at Delaney Buttes, I left the area without wetting a line. Suppose I simply hit these spots at the peak of the infestation, but it was so little fun, I can hardly wait to return - in another lifetime.
The following day, after camping on a high ridge (with no mosquitoes), I began fishing the upper Colorado just downstream of Windy Gap Reservoir in the early morning. Saw a few fish rising but had no hookups and just a handful of tentative strikes. Heading downstream I stopped off in Hot Sulphur Springs for coffee and drove around looking for a possible lot for sale on the river. The local park was loaded with hoards of campers and many were casting bait, etc. into the Colorado. Saw a few fish rising for emergers across the river from the camp, so headed back to the highway, parked, rigged up, and went down to the stream.
Sure enough right away I was into brown after brown - smallish - but lively right across from the campground. They were taking the sunken emerger OS-1, rather than the comparadun indicator fly, so I changed to deep nymphing with a leading stone and a trailing emerger. Action picked up even more and I started catching rainbows as well as browns in the slack water by the bank - much to the amazement of the campers slinging lead into roughly the same area.
The whole experience reached a crescendo when I landed at least ten fish from one small riffle right in the town. Obviously a bunch of these fish were stockers, but all sized between 11-14 inches and quite lively.
Thereafter I chugged downstream and did an obligatory hike down into Byers Canyon - historically a wonderful rainbow section. Now it's a blah. Caught a few modest browns and left after an hour or so. Then grabbed a bite of lunch and dropped onto the Kemp/Breeze water just West of Parshall. Ran into some spin fishermen with creels on this section. They exited the area quickly as they obviously were taking fish from this catch and release section. I called the DOW later with their license number though imagine nothing will come of it.
This part of the Colorado produced a bunch of smallish browns that came to either a comparadun or an emerger and it was basically uninteresting fishing. What a disappointment from the kind of water this used to be prior to whirling disease. Leaving the public water to the madding crowds I headed over County Road 1 from Kremmling through Gore Canyon. Dropping down to the Pumphouse Recreation Area I hiked upstream and had wonderful fishing along the banks - again just for browns, but the action was exceptional on emergers and comparaduns and loop wings. Probably landed 25-30 fish over the next couple of hours. This even though the river was high and fairly murky. Streamers or deep nymphing I suspect would have produced much larger and probably more fish.
Then drove to the Radium area for dinner and a planned short after-meal hike to some bank water above Sheephorn Creek. All was well until a tremendous thunderstorm passed through, completely drenching me, clouding the water unmercifully, and driving me back to the comfort of the station wagon. The morning brought the suspected out of shape river and continuing drizzle left me without an interest in fishing a favorite stretch above Radium. That was the end of this trip.