Colorado Basin Trip - June 10-11, 1998

A couple of days at loose ends allowed a repeat of this annual trip that I normally take during runoff, since some of the waters in this area are less effected by high water than are those closer to home.

Headed out towards Silverthorne, then north past Green Mountain Reservoir, and turned right at Kremmling up along the Colorado. Remembering last year's success at the town of Hot Springs, I drove through Byer's Canyon and parked just inside that town.

The Colorado was running quite high and somewhat off color, but as I was rigging up, a three inch long pteronarcys landed on my door frame. So much for wondering about a pattern! Put on a double stone nymph rig and headed to the water. Very tough casting in 30+ mph winds, but when the rig landed in the proper location, strikes came with regularity right along the bank. Had a successful couple of hours in town, landing a half dozen mixed rainbows and browns and missed twice that many strikes.

Leaving town I stopped at the head of Byers Canyon and landed a handful of fat browns on the same rig. Saw some splashy rises as well and resolved to tie some large surface stones at camp that night. Then drove back to Parshall and turned off towards the Williams Fork Reservoir. Stopped at the Breeze Unit access point on the river and hiked a couple of miles into the stream. Talk about a change of pace from the 2,000 cfs Colorado - the Williams Fork was running at 24 feet and was gin clear. Spliced some lighter tippet material and tied on a #20 comparadun with a trailing #22 chocolate midge. The first run brought a quick pair of strikes which I completely missed, but in the next couple of casts, landed a double of 10-12 inch rainbows. Fun!

The fishing was very delicate and tough, but did manage to connect on a few more fish including a nice 16 inch brown before the darkness started to settle in. Hiked back to the car and drove to the campground at the inlet to the reservoir. Caught a couple of small browns in the inlet stream before quitting for the night. The following morning, I tied up a handful of large surface stones before grabbing breakfast and rigging the big rod for pike. This impoundment is way to low to be fishable - probably 15 feet down or so and my hour of casting produced absolutely nothing, so that was the only disappointment of the trip.

Drove back to Hot Springs and used the surface stones with modest success, repeating that success in the upper part of Byers Canyon again.

Heading back to Silverthorne after lunch, turned off at the Green Mountain dam site and located a road that leads to the tailwater at the base of that reservoir. Checked the flow rate and saw it was running at 204 cfs. Had never worked this river before (at this point), and in all honesty, it didn't look particularly fishy as I hiked the trail downstream a half mile or so. There's not a lot of decent holding water at this flow rate, but when I found a couple of deeper runs, had immediate success with several nice browns on a combo nymph rig of small stone and trailing midge emerger. Fished the area for a couple of hours and had a reasonable number of strikes. The fish were all strong and healthy - two sixteen inchers were the best landed.

While it appears that this two mile stretch of public water gets a lot of traffic, some day soon I'll walk to the downstream boundary and fish it in its entirety as it has some good possibilities.

So with the exception of the poor water level at W.F. Reservoir, this was a very productive fishing experience - particularly given the time of year.

Back to Vail OnLine , the Main Fishing Page, the 1998 Diary, or check on stream flows.