July, 2013

7/1-3:  Our first overnighter of the summer - and a big success it was!  We decided to take a short trip to the Green below Flaming Gorge just ahead of the 4th holiday, and it proved to be nice and quiet everywhere we fished and camped.

Arrived at Little Hole late the first day and walked down the upper part of the B section just a little ways.  Cicadas on top were immediately rejected so we changed to a WRS and a trailing scud, both of which worked reasonably well.  Sue landed a handful of fish here, and I hooked that many but couldn't get them close enough to unhook (read - long releases).

Next morning we got to Little Hole fairly early, rigged up, and hiked a mile or so before starting.  Right away the local caddis's were coming off the shrubs along the bank, and we were getting strikes and hookups fairly quickly.  As the morning moved along, a strong yellow sallie hatch began and continued until we left the river at around noon.

It really was a great day - maybe the most fun with specific hatches we've ever had on that river. 

Played and released lots of the local browns and several wonderful rainbows up to eighteen inches.

Drove to the bottom of the B section and tried the riffle at Bridgeport with no success so gave up trying the upper C section either.  Continued on back to Colorado, through Meeker, and camped on the South Fork of the White that evening.  Great fun there too with multiple hatches in the air.  A rubber leg WRS trailed by any color copper john worked great that night on rainbows, cutts, and the ever present whitefish.

Next morning was not nearly as good, and we guessed that the stream needed to warm up more - somewhat like the Crystal - before the trout became active again. 

Still we had decent success on the same species both in the South Fork and on the main river itself.  Just a very nice trip, the results of which we hope we'll duplicate elsewhere over the rest of the summer season.

Here's a video of the trip that is missing a lot of the shots (I thought I'd captured but did not):

7/6:  Took a chance that a somewhat isolated section of Gore Creek might not be overrun with fisher people on this busy holiday weekend.  Turned out to be vacant completely of people - but happily not of fish.

Caught a surprising number of brookies and cutts this day, and finally hooked & released a single brown and eventually a single rainbow to complete the slam - nice start to the season here.

This is a very short video of the action on the water:

7/8-9:  A short overnight trip this week brought somewhat mixed results.  Lots of success on the smaller rainbows that live in Anthracite Creek.  Fewer fish, but larger ones including an 18 inch rainbow on the main Gunnison just below Pleasure Park, and very modest catches on the Crystal River which is still running too strongly.  Here's a brief video of the activity those two days:

7/11 and 7/13:

Sue enjoyed a nice trip up Gore Creek this past Thursday.  We did very well, again catching & releasing all four species that live in our happy little local strem.  Sizes aren't great, although a couple of fish were in the sixteen inch range.  Water levels are perfect right now.

I went out again on Saturday to get away from the crowds in the village and again had a great day.  With the storms we've been having lately, stream temperatures and the flow is staying right where we'd like it to be (all the time).

Amazed that we're catching those four trout species almost every time we head out.  Usually this part of the creek is dominated by rainbows and brookies, but now cutts seem to be making up a big part of the hook ups.  As dumb as they are, I guess that's always going to be the case when they're present in numbers.  We sure do like the way they look though.

Here's the two days worth of video clips of the activity:

7/17-18:  This was our first foray to the Arkansas this season.  Storms and dam releases have elevated the flows on the lower river to the point we weren't sure if we should attempt the trip or not.  The upper stream around Leadville was spot on perfect and our results there were just outstanding.  Cannot imagine the fishing being any better.

Caddis were along the bank everywhere, and I suspect we had a few yellow sallies on the water as well.  Both Sue & I were rigged up with double flies, sometimes a dry and a nymph and other times two dries. 

Everything worked well.  I was especially pleased with a new rubber leg WRS with the addition of a small orange "spotlight" in front of the wing that made the fly much easier to see.  A new yellow sallie version of the WRS also worked extremely well, especially on larger, more spooky fish.

After leaving the upper stream we grabbed burgers in Buena Vista and then made our way through Salida to try the lower river.  It was as tough as we thought it might be.  Flows are very strong still, but they did drive the fish to the bank where they were hanging out in tight eddy water.  Still we caught a good bunch here and lost a few real lunkers (see the video).

Camped at the Wellsville area and fished there again in the morning with more modest results.  In Buena Vista on the way home, the same rough flows restricted where we could access the river at River Park, but again, we caught & released a nice bunch of somewhat smaller browns.  That pretty much ended the trip, but we hope to return to the river again in the next week or so as the fishing really was wonderful.  Here's the video:

7/22-23:  Another fun overnight trip through the middle of Colorado.  This time the fishing was only OK.  We may be starting the dog days of summer.

Here are a few quick comments on the streams we fished:

1.  Upper Arkansas.  Overrun with fishermen even early in the morning.  Flows are fine.  Results were less than the last session a week earlier.

2.  Taylor River above the dam.  Best fishing of the trip.  Everything taken on surface flies.  Browns to fourteen or so and a couple of rainbows the same size.

3.  Lower Taylor River near Almont could not be accessed due to road construction.  Below the dam it was way crowded - as always.  A few yellow sallies in the air

4.  East River running too warm.  Lots of small browns and tons of missed strikes.  Mosquitos were very active.

5.  Anthracite Creek.  Flows were OK, but we didn't release as many fish here as last trip.

6.  Crystal River.  Lots of muck on the bottom due to recent mud slides.  No good on nymphs.  Dries only made it a bit scary as it looks like there's nothing alive on the river floor.  Stream still off color due to the slides.

Here's the video confirmation of the trip:

Last logbook Entry  � for previous day

7/29 (and prior days):  Talked to my brother Rick yesterday & he commented that there weren't any recent updates.  A good reason for that was the poor fishing I've been having lately - which I'd rather ignore.  Anyway, here are the gory details (in video format).

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