Colorado River Monsters (fishing)

We floated the Upper C from Pumphouse to Radium yesterday. It was absolutely dead...the trout were just watching flies drift past them. Out of five people fishing on two different rafts we had 3 skunks, I legit fish, and one butt hooked fish.

 

a double? like 2 fish on 2 flys with one cast?

 

Yes sir

 

no monster here, but thinking I caught my first greenback (I'm pretty new to colorado) .. can anyone confirm? Fern Lake RMNP, black ant. Surface feeding like crazy on something very small my old eyes couldn't tell what - guessing mosquitos? they looked and passed on everything I threw but eventually I caught 5 on black ant. Walking in through the fire scar was a bit depressing although it made for great wildflower display and made surrounding peaks more visible...... but lake was beautiful, sight fishing at its best, many trout - all surface feeding, great fun.

 

Yep, you got a golden ticket there!

 

anyone have an idea where last line of defense's last weekenderlander video is from? he wont say in the video, which i totally understand, but man i wanna drive to an alpine lake and fly fish.

pretty sure he lives somewhere near evergreen or conifer. since its a weekend trip i don't think he would drive more than 3ish hours away. the one shot of the road makes me think he drove down 285, so it would be south of i70.

i spent about an hour looking through my trail book, google maps, and gaia last night. im thinking its somewhere near salida or st elmo.

pomeroy lakes looks similar enough, but the trail description in the fun treks book is a bit different than the video parts they showed and there doesn't seem to be water crossings.

maybe its ptarmigan lake, but i dont see a road up there so you can't drive to it.

everything between jefferson and keystone/breck looks more developed, so i dont think its around there.

if nothing else, i can spend a few weekends driving around hoping to find something similar.

 

My dad's visiting from out of state and has never used a fly rod. He grabbed the Cortland offering from the 'Mart and after I gave him some pointers and put on a fly I tied last night (just a parachute dry), he proceeded to figure it out and landed a couple stocker rainbows and a brook. My kids had some too, so we kept a few and cooked them up a few hours later. I definitely need to keep more to eat!

 

Definitely not pomeroy. At first I thought it was the lakes off mosquito pass but I don't think it is anymore. Ptarmigan is hike only so that ain't it. There's a ton of alpine lakes throughout Colorado. Hell I was on Taylor pass this weekend and Taylor lake is up there full of weird looking brookies and cutthroat.

 

Mosquito has been on my list of places to go for awhile. Maybe I'll take my fly stuff when I make it down there just in case

 

I was finally able to grab a couple passes for RMNP in August. Hoping to spend a few days hiking in and catching these before school gets back in session and I'm too busy with work to get away

 

Definitely do the first lake has good cutthroats.

 

Looks like a female cutbow to me

 

anyone use a sling pack or a hip pack? thoughts? experience? pros? cons?

I have a hand me down fish pond chest pack, but would like something different that makes hiking a few miles easier.

 

I'm on my 2nd sling pack, almost everyone I fish with uses the hip/ chest pack.

Both you need to "slide" to front to use and back to get out of way, I'm used to it now. Chest pack is always there.

 

If it's waterproof I'd recommend the hip pack. I've been experimenting the last few years with all the configurations...I started with a sling pack and it's my least favorite. If you're carrying a super light setup, they're good, but with snacks, rain jacket, a few beers, etc, my shoulder was killing me by the end of the day. If you have a bunch of tippet, forceps, floatant, etc, clipped to the strap it's a pain to flip all that stuff around every time you want to get into your bag.

Hip packs carry better and will be much easier on your back. The main drawback is accessing your stuff in waist deep water. It all depends on how aggressive a wader you are.

I finally came full circle and went back to a vest. I use the Patagonia sweet pack/vest combo. For long hikes in it carries everything I need comfortably. When I'm fishing close to the truck I disconnect it from the pack.

 

sounds like i should make the conversion to a hip pack rather than a sling.

i run a hip pack when i mountain bike so it wouldn't be completely unfamiliar.

 

I too hated the sling bag after more than a couple hours wearing it. Im also rocking a vest with a backpack combo now. I got the Umpqua zero sweep. Keep an eye out for Cabela's bargain cave as I saw a lot of packs with one trip returned and discounted when I was looking for something to replace the sling I was using.

 

Yeah, Key to Sling is weight. Overload it and it's a pain to wear and use.



This goes a long ways to keeping weight down, Trout can't handle much pollutants and your wading in the stuff.

 

Haven't you heard about the trout getting jacked/high on meth???? Is that a chance your willing to take on lifestraw filtering out the meth in the rivers?

 

Well I pee in Clear Creek and Doesn't seem to bother the coors beer folks.