See Flash Fotos

“Hey buddy,” I said to my friend Aron over the phone, “want to go toColorado for a week? Tomorrow! ” I thought the chances were slim that hewould be able to go, but I was wrong and we were off for 5 full days ofwild brown, rainbow, cutthroat, and cutbow trout fishing. Our plan wassimple, fly to Denver, rent a truck, and head to my favorite place onearth, Steamboat Springs, test the waters, and decide if we wanted to goanywhere else.We arrived in Steamboat late the next afternoon, geared up, and hooked upwith my good friend graffiti Pete, for a few libations. For those whoknow me, I actually had 1 beer! (that’s like binge drinking for me) Wehad made arrangements to spend our first day on some of StraightlineOutfitters private water on the Yampa River 15 miles west of town. Ifished this piece of water last year and all I can remember is huge wildangry cutbows feeding aggressively on the surface. My experiences fishingthis area all included some hiking in and out of spots, so we figured weshould rest up. So off to our room we went at 2:00 am, for a 5:30 am wakeup call.Our guide Dylan picked us up at sunrise, and we were off. Nymphing wasthe order, unless we saw fish feeding on the surface, which of course wedid not. The water level was perfect, but the air temperature was up andit limited the bug activity during the day. We worked hard, hooked a fewfish, but got nothing to hand. Dylan seemed a little disappointed andencouraged us to come out with him again for an evening trip a couple dayslater, as he guaranteed us a phenomenal evening hatch under a full moon. That being said, we were excited to see what the evening had in store,grabbed a bite to eat, and headed to a stretch of public water that Dylanhad recommended we check out. Thirty minutes before sunset, it happened. A cloud of size 14 caddis had come off and the fish responded, and we eachlanded our first few fish of the trip.Day two began a little later, when I brought Aron to my favorite spot onthe Yampa. I call it my ten o’clock spot, because every trip I have madeout to it, I always land the fish of the trip at ten o’clock in themorning. This day was no exception when I hooked and landed a fat 22 inchbrown, two 18 inch rainbows, and lost a couple more nice ones. It wasAron’s turn for a nice fish so we alternated drifts. Wham! His indicatorwent down and his line screamed off the reel. I saw the flash of a nicefish as it ran from one end of the pool to the other. But it wasn’t meantto be, Aron would have to wait to land his monster. An afternoon nap,some dinner, and we were positioned for the evening hatch. Hold on asecond, where were the caddis? On the menu for this evening was a greendrake special. I gave Aron a size 12 green drake parachute and let himget to work. I was impressed when he tangled with and landed a pair ofbeautiful native rainbows that came out of the fast water to mangle hisdry fly.The third day of our adventure started with a round of golf. What thehell were we doing playing golf you ask. The thin air and firm turfbrought out my golf professional side, as I really wanted to pound some ofthose drives that fly 30% further then they do down here in south Florida. I got my fix and we were off to redeem ourselves with that evening tripwith our guide friend Dylan. What an evening, numerous large fish lostand landed, dries under the moonlight, and a mile long hike through thewoods in the pitch black using our cameras as flashlights. A great end toour visit to ski country. We had decided that we would head back east forthe last two days and fish the Blue river in Silverthorne, and theColorado river outside of Kremmling.Aron’s friend Eric used to guide out of Silverthorne, and had tipped usoff on a few must fish spots on the Blue river. We spent the good part ofour fourth day scouting the river, and even got into a few fish. Ericalso gave us the name of a guide named Shane who works for CutthroatAnglers, and we scheduled a trip to the Colorado river for our last day onthe water.Cross a hippie with a world class angler, put him behind the wheel of aSubaru and you have just described 60% of the population of Colorado, aswell as our guide for our last day, Shane. He took us to a public stretchof the Colorado that was surrounded by private areas known for large fishnot large numbers. Small nymphs, size 22 and smaller, were rigged up andAron proceeded to hook almost every nice fish in the area. At least hesaved me one at the end of the day that ended up being a beautiful henrainbow that was estimated at 5 or 6 pounds.Our last minute trip ended up being one of my most memorable anglingadventures ever. Thanks for tagging along Aron.