A Slice of Heaven

All you bloggers located in the Rockies know how fortunate you are to live there.  Those of us who only get out there occasionally are constantly stunned by its beauty.  Although I've been going out to RMNP for over 25 years it continues to captivate me.   I got a chance to do a little fishing with my brother a few weeks ago, and the following are some of the pictures.

And, in an interesting quirk of fate, the final evening we were out there, we stayed with teh aunt and uncle of my brother's wife.  Drove there  via GPS instructions, so I had some idea of where we were on the Front Range, but not really.  As we were getting ready to call it a night, with an early AM flight, I asked our hosts  "Are we anywhere near Superior?"  Ken looked at me with a surprised look and said "yeah - about 2 miles that way", pointing west.  Our hosts live on what used to be Coal Creek Golf Course in Louisville.

Sorry Howard - next time I'll know better!!!

Brook Trout and Bears in Maine

While I haven't gotten out to fish very much at all this year, I'm at least getting out to the places I like to go, or the ones I've wanted to go to for quite some time.  This trip - the week before Labor Day - took me to Maine.  I would be working for the majority of the week, but had a few periods of down-time.  The guys told me that the creek on the property where I stayed used to have brook trout in it, but no one had fished it for a while.  (That IMMEDIATELY sounded like my kind of creek!!)  They also asked if I wanted to go bear hunting.  While I am a hunter, I have no desire to shoot a bear. But I'm always intrigued by different ways to hunt, so I agreed to go out on stand with the property owner for a couple of evenings to see if anything came into the baits.  First up - the fishing report.

The stream on the property could not have been nicer.  Beautiful, clear water, cascading waterfalls - it just looked fishy.  But  - there weren't many trout.  I consider myself to be a pretty good small water trout fisherman and I struggled mightily.  I really don't think there were many fish in the creek.  I purposely walked up to a couple of the deeper pool to see what I spooked, and - NOTHING.  No little trout darting around the bottom, nothing shooting up toward the undercuts at the head of the pool.  The water was cool but not uncomfortably cold - I almost think that may have been a problem, that it got too warm for good brookie fishing.  Also, there were precious few deep pools to have fish survive the long, very cold Maine winters.  Possible winter kill?  Or maybe its just the obvious - that I'm a crappy trout fisherman.  Regardless, measuring the net worth of a day spent walking the woods and fly fishing for wild trout is never measured by the shear numbers of fish caught - at least not by me.  I had a ball even though I only brought 6 or 7 little brookies to hand.  I did, however, nearly have a heart attack when a grouse decided to explode out of a small patch of cover about 3 feet from my head while I was walking in the creek.

                                         I expected more of these parr-marked youngsters

 

 

                                             Beautiful water, high expectations

                             There were SOME Brookies there, and at least this one stupid one!

I went out with the owner of the property 2 nights in a row to sit on baits.  Bear baiting is the accepted way to hunt bear in Maine, but I had never hunted over bait.  Like I said - I wasn't actually hunting, but I wanted to experience it and see what it was like.  Growing up hunting in a state where baiting of any kind for anything was illegal, I admit to having some preconceived notions about hunting over bait.  Well, the folks up in Maine take their bear hunting seriously, and there is definitely a science to doing it successfully.  The real science, though, lies in the use of trail cams.  Before game cams, the only thing you would know about an area was whether or not the bait had been hit since the last time you were there.  Now you can see the number of bears, the size of the bears, and the times they hit the baits.  Very cool!  Speaking of size, the owner paints a orange stripe around the tree and the barrel where the baits are placed.  The stripe is 38" off the ground and, according to the DNR, that is a BIG bear if its shoulder is as high as the stripes.  This guide helps you from shooting a small bear - they're tough to judge unless there are a few of them at the bait. 

Evening 1 ended with a total of 1 red squirrel sited.  Still, the anticipation that, at any moment a 400# plus bear could step into the clearing made it a great experience.  Actually, anytime you are in the woods for daybreak or nightfall, it's pretty special.

The second evening found us at a different bait  -  one that had been being hit in the afternoon.  It didn't take long to see we made the right choice - we watched 3 separate bears from 5:20 - 7:20PM.  All were about the same size - the first maybe a bit smaller at an estimated 104-150 pounds.  The next 2 were close in size and probably 175 each.  At the very end, one of the bigger bears was at the bait and ran like hell.  We saw another bear in the very dark background but it was way too dark to see how big it was.  So - 4 bears in one evening.  We certainly could have shot any of the 3, and a 175 pound bear , while not a trophy of a lifetime, isn't one to be embarrassed about, either.  But the owner has shot a few before and would only take a really big one now, and I just liked watching the show, although I could feel my "hunter instinct" kick in when the bear would show up.  On the way out from the stand, we drove up on a cow moose in a clearing.  A great ending to a great evening.  Oh yeah - the steak dinner that followed didn't suck, either.

                                                            The first, smaller bear

                                                     The second bear - a little bigger

     
                                                            Cow Moose





All in all, a terrific couple of days in Maine.

Flyfishing Colorado's RMNP

(PLEASE click on these photos - some of them are actually quite nice!)


RMNP and the Colorado River, looking up from Bowen Baker trailhead

For those of who who do not know what RMNP is, it stands for Rocky Mountain National Park. This magnificent park is heavily traveled, hosts millions of tourists each year, and offers lots of opportunities for fly fishermen, especially those willing to walk into areas a bit removed from the road.



Looking back on the east side of the Park, from Old Fall River Rd


Before I go any further, I want to bring up a sometimes sensitive subject, particularly, it seems, within the fly fishing world. Fly fishermen in general tend to be very closed-mouthed about the places they fish. Some of this is inherent to the sport itself - it tends to be a solo-oriented, introspective sport. Some of the hesitancy stems from experience - people have seen their favorite spots overrun with other fishermen, and the aura, and eventually the fishing quality, are gone. The usual term for identifying a spot in print is "Hotspotting". If I identify a piece of water by its name, it is because I don't consider it susceptible to Hotspotting. Many waters are on this list. If I write about going fly fishing on the Madison River in Montana, who cares? EVERYONE fly fishes on the Madison if they're in SW Montana! Most small streams, however, remain nameless. These streams, however, I will name, and there is a reason for it.

RMNP is visited by 3 million people annually. With all those people, it can pretty crowded in the peak times - summer, and mid-September to mid-October, when the elk are bugling. Wit only one road going from from the east to west side - Trail Ridge Rd - traffic jams are common (especially right now, when they are doing a major road resurfacing project on Trail Ridge.) Still, if you do some homework, and ask questions, you can escape the crowds and feel like you are the only person on earth in this stunningly beautiful place. The real reason I don't feel the park will ever be a destination is because, by and large, the fish are small. There are a few nice fish in these waters, but if you are looking for a trophy trout, this is not going to be on your radar. Unless, like me, you define a trophy as "any wild trout caught in a beautiful place". If that is your definition, I'll meet you there!

I had one day set aside to fly fish these waters. Due to the roadwork being done, I had to decide whether to fish the East side of the park or the west side - I didn't want to sit in traffic all day going back and forth. I decided on the west side. I love to fish the Colorado River in the park. The headwaters are full of trout, are just the right size, and there is just something about fishing a 15' wide stream for wild trout, and knowing that these very same waters are the ones that carved out the Grand Canyon. Pretty humbling. I always catch plenty of brook trout here, and usually a few browns. Colorado River cutthroat trout are native here, but not very common on the Colorado itself in this area. Some of the tributaries have been re-stocked with pure strain Col. River cuts, but I have never caught them.



The upper Colorado river

I parked at the Col. River trailhead, and walked upstream for about a mile along the trail. It is an easy walk, but for a middle aged guy in less than ideal shape (unless your ideal shape is a pear) who lives basically at sea level, the thin air at this elevation (9,040' at the parking area) makes you stop frequently to catch your breath. And drink LOTS of water. I started fishing below Shipler Park. I always plan to walk upstream further, but I just can't stand to be alongside a beautiful trout stream and not be wetting a line. I started with a #16 Royal Trude and soon had my first fish. While I was fighting it, it seemed to not be of the usual coloration. I brought it to hand, and saw that it was a Colorado River cutthroat! This made my whole day. Beautiful coloration on these fish. After a quick photo, back in the water. I proceeded to catch a bunch of brookies, and one more cut. The water was FRIGID on my feet while wet wading - had to be around 50 degrees. If you were in the water for more than about 30 seconds your feet went numb. But on a stream like this, you don't really wade - more like occasional stream crossing and rock hopping. So, I took a lot of pictures and had a great time.



My first Colorado river cutthroat from the upper Colorado! Beautiful colors.




Col. river brookie


It seems that every time I go fishing there is something non-fish related that happens to make the trip memorable. Earlier this year it was the butterflies on the deer carcass in PA. On this day, another butterfly event occurred. I was re-tying, and looked down to see a butterfly on the cork handle of my fly rod. I started snapping pictures, and the butterfly eventually crawled up the handle and onto my thumb! Never had that happen before, but it was pretty cool! You never know when a photo op will present itself.






And, as usual, there is always the story-within-the-story. This time, I stuck a fly hook in my thumb. Buried it completely up to the bend of the hook - way past the barb. "How?", you might ask. It's easy - just follow these instructions: 1) hang up your fly in a willow on the backcast, just below a beautiful pool. 2) Wade over to the willow, grab onto the branch. 3) Slip on a rock in the water and, as you are sliding/falling, feel the previously unmovable fly slide out of the branch and impale deeply into your thumb.



A dual purpose photo - showing the fly I was using - #18 Goddard Caddis - while proving that I stuck the fly in my thumb!


It was DEEP in my thumb, but didn't really hurt. I grabbed ahold of it with a set of pliers and tried to work it out, but to no avail. (THAT did hurt, btw) Decision time - I'm over a mile into the river, fishing alone, with a hook impaled in my casting thumb. My thumb doesn't hurt much at all. What to do??? Easy - cut the fly off the tippet, and keep fishing. Even though I usually use the thumb on my right hand as the primary "power stroke" part of the cast, with a light rod (I was fishing an 8' 3 wt. rod) I sometimes use my index finger instead. So - I retied (not easy to do w/o using your thumb) and kept fishing. I got about 6 more trout before I decided it would be best to go back to the car to rip the damn thing out. I found the trail and started back.





A small Col. River cut




On the walk back, I ran into a really nice couple from Missouri. We chatted the whole way back to the parking area, and they decided they would help me get the hook out. I had decided to try the method I had used before - wrap the bend of the hook with heavy line, press down on the hook shank, and have someone do a quick POP to pull the hook out. We went down to the river so I could numb the finger in the icy water first. On the way down, I lost the heavy mono loop to use in the hook pull. I numbed the finger in the water and was pushing / pulling on the hook when I noticed that the hook point was just under the skin on my thumb, but couldn't push through the callous. Just then, I remembered that I had done something right for a change!

On Wed., I realized that I had forgotten a folding knife. I always like to have one when I'm solo fishing, so I called up one of the reps working with me. They represent Cold Steel, so I got a new folder from him. I had a brand new, razor sharp Cold Steel knife in my pocket! I pushed the hook through as hard as I could and my new friend from MO gently slit the thumb right at the hook point. No pain at all! The hook poked through, I pushed it through a little more, cut off the shank of the hook, and pulled the whole thing through and out. Stuck the thumb back in the water, and I was good to go. A big THANKS to the folks from MO - you never know when you might need someone to slice open your thumb for you!

I still had a few hours left so I moved down to a tiny stream I knew was full of brookies - Onahu Creek. This is a tiny stream, but is absolutely loaded with beautiful little brookies. I fished this stream for about an hour and lost track of how many brook trout I got. I also did 2 things I've never done before - caught a brown trout on Onahu, and took a video of trout. I hope the video works on here. the tiny brown trout really surprised me - I was at least a mile from the junction of the Colorado River, and the stream is TINY. Oh well - I guess they can go anywhere in high water times!



Onahu Ck




Brook trout from Onahu




There are a few trout in this photo




Closeup from above




Spawn colored brookie from Onahu





Onahu brown trout Hope you enjoy the pictures and video (if it works)(IT DIDN'T). I plan to do another post in a couple of days about the Park and its wildlife. On this short trip - 1 day - I saw: a big black bear, 2 bull moose, a bunch of elk, 6 mule deer, a Merriam turkey with 2 young ones, squirrels, birds, ducks. I LOVE this park!

Trout fishing - Finally

It's been way too long since my last post. I've actually done a little fishing in that time, but also had a LOT of work, and just haven't been able to carve out the time to do a post.

(Make sure you click on the pictures to see them full sized)



The cabin - I LOVE IT here!




The view of the creek from the cabin




The big palamino trout just downstream from the cabin


This adventure took place on June 2nd. I got a chance to spend a day back in PA on some trout waters. It's a lot of travel for a day's worth of fishing, but I think it's worth it. When I get back to PA and have only a day, I really need to make a decision beforehand as to whether I'll fish the stocked, larger streams, or spend the day on the tiny, unstocked Class A Wild Trout waters. The stream where the cabin is located is a very popular stocked trout stream. I've had many happy days on this water, and basically learned to flyfish on it. As you can see from the picture, it is a beautiful stream, and has some pretty nice fish stocked in - at least occasionally. The palamino trout in the picture was at least 18", maybe 20" long. Even though there are trout literally a cast away from the cabin porch, inevitably I am drawn to the remote tributaries.



Windfall Creek


This was no different. I spent my one day there on a small feeder stream to a larger feeder of the main stream in the valley. This is SMALL, skinny water inhabited by wild native brook trout. The prevailing wisdom says that if you can get a dry fly over them without spooking them, they'll hit it. It's not about the right fly choice - I fished a red #16 Humpy all day. So, at face value, it really shouldn't be that hard.



Little native brookie

Well, it is. The grass/ tree limbs/ fallen trees limit EVERY cast. Most of your casts are roll casts. Nothing is longer than 30-35'. The best looking plunge pools - the ones with the longest deep water - are actually the toughest to catch anything in. Why? You inevitably spook a coupe of 5" brookies in the tail of the pool, and they madly dash into the heart of the pool and scare the hell out of every fish in the area. I found out years ago that the best, most productive water on these streams is the short stretches of pocket water. Might only be 2 feet long and a foot deep, but the current hides the fish (and you) and they don't spook as easily.



Love these natives!



Tough to be stealthy here

I've never been able to pinpoint the allure of these tiny trout . I've caught hundreds, if not thousands of them in PA and NY, and have caught a total of 2 over 10". My fishing partners all think I'm nuts for chasing with them, but I love 'em. They're beautiful, and they're SUPPOSED to be there. They just belong.


I caught a bunch of fish on this day, all small. My weapon of choice for these streams is a 5 pc., 6'9" Winston 3 wt. LT rod. A small box of flies, some dessicant and floatant, extra tippet material, and you're ready to go. And, of course a camera.



Fallen tree


I saw some interesting things on the roadless valley I fished. As I was walking out, I saw a female grouse ahead of me on a dirt road and, as I neared her, she put on a terrific "crippled bird" display. She would come out in the open, drag her wing in the dirt, call to me, and try to lure me away from where I was standing. I had heard about this, but never seen it personally. There was obviously a brood of chicks nearby. I saw the grass move, and smiled as I walked toward the hen. After she "lured me away", she flew back to her chicks. Very cool.



Grouse on a dirt road - sorry for the blurry image



I also saw something that I've never seen or heard of. I welcome ANY AND ALL comments as to this behavior. I was walking and noticed a bunch of butterflies ahead. That's not unusual - there are a ton of butterflies in these mountains, mostly along the creeks. But as I neared, I saw that they were on an old, not-quite-stripped deer carcass. Why would butterflies gather on a deer ribcage??? Did I miss the evolution chapter where they became carnivores?



Butterflies on a deer carcass




More "Carnivore Butterflies"


I stopped along the stream that this tributary feeds into as I left. It is a stocked stream with a fair amount of natural reproduction, too. A pile of stocked rainbows were stacked up under a small bridge. Even though they were very picky in the gin clear waters, it just wasn't the same as fishing for wild fish. I watched them for a while and left. On the way back to the cabin, I saw 2 Eastern Box turtles on the road, which I "assisted" on their journey across the road. Then I came upon a less gracious turtle crossing the road. He wasn't nearly as happy as the box turtles to let me help him along his way!



2 visible trout below the bridge on Cross Fork Ck.



A snapper crossing the road

Living in Illinois is OK, but when I return - even briefly - to the mountains, be they PA or COL, I remember how much I miss them. Short of moving, I really need ot figure out a way to spend more time in the mountains.