August 2023

7/31 - 8 /1:  This trip started out as a whump and ended with a thump.  It's our annual Almont Triangle trip that's generally a two night, three day trip covering some streams that we don't fish more than on this single trip.  We fueled up in Buena Vista on our way down the Arkansas River to the turnoff to Cottonwood Pass and then headed uphill to make the over the pass transition downhill to the headwaters of the Taylor River.

Fishing was very good on the headwater stretch above the reservoir.  Below the dam the crowds scared us off.  Down by Almont we ran into more fisher people and had quite limited success.  The campsite was fine as always, and we spent a quiet night up there.

Didn't try to fish Lost Lake when we drove over Kebler Pass but did stop at Erickson Springs on Anthracite Creek.  As has been the case so often this summer, the flows were too high on this creek too.  Ditto on the Crystal up by Marble where our favorite stretch has now been closed to the public.  With storm warnings coming on our phones we passed on any other parts of the Crystal including another overnight camp out near the Raggeds.  Drove home hydroplaning through Glenwood Canyon that afternoon.

A short video:

8/7-8::  In theory this was going to be a three day trip to my (ex) favorite stream in Colorado - the White River.  But if a trip could ever be called a "dud", this was the one.  Bad weather reports sold me to do the drive up North.  Big mistake.  No sun either day except for a couple of peeks now and then.  Lots of wind.  Ugh.  Undergrowth that made accessing the water impossible in many places.

All forks and the main stem of the stream running way too high due to a late snow runoff and recent thunderstorms.  No hatches.  Enough.

I tried several spots that always were productive, and none worked.  Surface attractors with a trailing nymph or deep nymph combos of all kinds were useless.  Yes, I did have a few strikes and did release a few fish, but it was a wasted trip.  The only fun was getting to sleep in and eat out on the tailgate of the beloved Honda Element that's still going strong after roughly 136,000 miles.  If I could, I'd have my ashes spread in this car and then be buried with it as my best friend.

We hope the streams calm down a bit before the season is over in late September.

8/15-16:  As the lack of a video about this report will indicate, there was not much worth "shooting" during our trip these two days on the Crystal River.  Yup, there were a few fish hooked & released, but for the most part, despite the weather being as good as we've had all summer, it just wasn't decent fishing.  I found one pool where the trout were visibly feeding on something just under the surface and did have a few tentative strikes and a handful of small fish releases.  The best pupa was a #22 buckskin.  Probably should have gone down to 6X tippet and some even thinner bodied RS2s, but I lacked the interest to do so. However the camping turned out fine and the dogs had a great time.  So it was mixed bag trip.

Last Logbook Entry  � for previous day

8/21-23:  This was a more fun trip to what has regularly been our favorite fishing river in Colorado.  Happily the weather also cooperated.  We got to our camping spot above Lake Avery at 7 PM the first day so simply had time for a quick dinner and then off to sleep.  Next morning our walk around that lake was as futile as we knew it would be by noting the lack of dimples on the water around the shoreline.  So Sue took me to the bottom part of the Sleepy Cat easement and dropped me off for about three hours of casting.

Working my way finally to the river through the nasty shore side willows, I streamer fished downstream for about a half mile with zero success.  Neither a black leech, nor a baby rainbow fly had any sense of a strike.  Changed to a deeper nymph rig of leading golden stone and trailing bead head caddis pupa and started picking up fish.  They were split between the local neer-do-well whiteys and some decent rainbows.  Not a cutthroat was released either day.  Despite the fact that the river is still running well over its normal flows for this time of year, the fish seemed to be more concentrated in faster, shallower riffle water.

After getting picked up around noon by Sue, we drove to Bel-Aire SWA and had a nice lunch.  I took off downstream there with the dogs this time for some actually better results than I'd had on the main stem.  The South Fork of the White is nice fishing but difficult wading - simply too much flow because of the good winter we'd had this season.  So I was actually only able to access the water in about a handful of sections through the brush.  Darn good fishing for rainbows in the 12-17 inch range.  Better yet was that I could use a dry/dropper combo and get strikes from both types of fly.

After that I tried a short section of the main river in the "catch and eat" section with limited success.  Another nice night was spent atop Lake Avery.  Next morning I opted out of trying the wade across the main river again.  It was a bitch the day before even with good cleats on my wet wading shoes and the use of good piece of wood for a wading staff I found by the shore.  So did some modest casting into the early morning sun and gave up early that day.  We headed back home after grabbing lunch in Rifle.  Here's the standard clunky video:

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