The Cool Air Goodness of the Colorado Rockies

Well, the fishing trip to Colorado was time and money well spent. Let me tell you, it was hard to see it come to an end. The place where we stayed was for sale and I almost had my wife convinced that I had made an offer and the present owners accepted. She hates cold weather and wasn’t happy at all about my supposed purchase. Common sense took over and I had to come clean. I’m sure the decision to not make an offer will be one of those “What if’s?” that seem to plague me every few years.

With a view like this, you can see how the anti-decision will come back to haunt me.

The Rio Grande was running low and wasn’t in the mood to give up many of her inhabitants. A few brownies this size decided that our offerings were close enough to the real thing though.

We fished hard every day but didn’t have a great average daily catch. My fishing buddy Doug told his wife one night that the fishing was great but, the catching was a different story. It was pretty tough sledding. Here’s Doug releasing a well deserved brown.

One morning we drove up the hill and fished this little slice of Heaven. It’s called Park Creek and I took this guy on a dry fly with my little Fenwick ff605. He only went about 12 inches but wild trout sure know how to put a bend in a fly rod.

You guys know from my earlier posts that I’m not a respecter of high priced fishing gear. Here’s a couple shots of the little Fenwick 5wt. I’ve got less than $150 in the entire rig, and that includes the fly line. All you quick stick guys just keep fishing graphite. I’ll stand pat with fiberglass. Thank you very much.

Most of my fishing was done with this outfit:

It’s the Kettle Creek Riffle Glass rod that I finished building just a few days before we took off. It’s rated as a 4/5 wt but I absolutely loved it with a WF6F. It took a couple outings but I finally figured out that even though this rod performed well at close range, it really craves line. I pushed it hard, I mean real hard, and never found it’s top end. The more I fished it, the more I fell in love with it. If you’re into building your own, give one of these a try. It’s a true powerhouse of a rod.

So there you have it. I waited a long hot summer to get up to the mountains I love. Once again, they kept their promise of cool air goodness.