Author: TB

Lagniappe, Roaring Fork

Roaring Fork Fireworks

By TB

When we were planning our 2017 “Ramble” dates, we purposefully wanted to be in the Roaring Fork valley for the 4th of July. We’d heard of incredible fishing in both the Roaring Fork and Frying Pan rivers, as well as incredible fireworks in towns all along the valley.

We arrived in the valley on July 3rd and setup the SaraLinda at the Gateway RV Park in Carbondale (CO).   The RV park is set right on the Roaring Fork and the Rio Grande “hike and bike” trail that connects Glenwood Springs with Aspen.  We learned that there was a “fire ban” in effect for the area and all fireworks displays were cancelled except for Glenwood Springs.

About a month before arriving in the valley, we’d contacted Frying Pan Anglers (FPA), a fly shop in Basalt (CO), and asked about booking a guide trip on the Roaring Fork for July 4th.  I’d asked, “do you have guides who go out on the 4th”, to which the shop guy said “the fish don’t care it’s the 4th of July”.  DUH!   We laughed and booked the trip.

At 8am on the 4th of July, we met our guide, Ed Deison, at the shop and headed off to fish the Roaring Fork.  When we got to the boat ramp, it was clear this was going to be a VERY busy day on the river.  There were already 3 drift boats in the water at the dock waiting to start their trip and another 4 rafts ready to enjoy a pleasure float down the river.  In the parking lot, the boats and rafts just kept coming, lining up, awaiting their turn to put in.   It was going to be a bit crowded on the river it seemed.

Undaunted, Ed pushed us off and floated down a bit to rig up our rods, away from the craziness of the boat ramp at Carbondale.   We met another FPA guide, Dillon, who turned out to be from Austin (TX) and had gone to Lake Travis HS and Texas A&M on a baseball scholarship.  Small world!

After we’d rigged up, we started down the river and began what would become an “epic” day of hooking and landing really big, beautiful brown and rainbow trout.   We started by throwing dry flies toward the banks, bringing these  hungry trout to the surface to hit our flies.  When that slowed a bit, we went to nymphing for them and things heated up even more.

We always like to take at least one picture of a fish we’ve caught on a particular river, so when we caught a nice brownie early on, Ed wanted to make sure we got that one pic, so he pulled the boat over for the photo op.  While we don’t count the number of fish we catch on days like this, it was a lot.  When we’d catch an even bigger fish, Ed would pull over and get another pic for us.  While we were landing what was our biggest fish of the day, Ed took a pic with his phone for the shop blog.  When Dillon pulled up, his client had landed an even bigger brown trout.  It was that kind of day.  Lots and lots of big fish.

When we finally arrived at our take out spot in Glenwood Springs, it was insanity.  The boat ramp was so busy with everyone  either taking out, or putting in, or getting ready for the fireworks that were happening that night at the park.  For us, our fireworks had already happened on an “epic” fishing day on the Roaring Fork.

Read more
Frying Pan, Guide Talk

Eric in the Frying Pan

By TB

The Frying Pan River flows into the Roaring Fork River near the town of Basalt, CO, the home of Frying Pan Anglers (FPA).  We had an epic float fishing trip down the Roaring Fork with Ed Deison, senior guide at FPA, but, more on that in another post.  The prime fishing on the “Pan” as its known in the area, is the tailwater section below Ruedi Reservoir.

We had the pleasure of fishing the “Pan” with Eric Way, a guide with FPA who specializes in wade trips on the river.  We met Eric at the fly shop and headed up river to fish.  We grabbed a pullout along the river that was empty and made our way down to the water.  Almost immediately, Eric saw a big rainbow hiding behind a large rock submerged below the water.  The rainbow would slide out into the current to feed before sliding back in behind the rock.  He rigged up a two fly nymph rig and told me to “go for it”.  In about 4 drifts by the rock, it was “FISH ON”!  What an incredible start to a great day fishing on the Frying Pan.

We had a chance to sit down with Eric during a lunch break along the river and interview him.

Eric is a very fun guy and is a great guide as well.  We talked fishing, fly tying (he’s an expert in an English form of tying), beer, food and more.  We know you’ll enjoy his “guide talk” with us.

Ramble On

Read more
Gunnison, Lagniappe

Our Day in the Gunnison Gorge

By TB

We’d been looking forward to our trip down the Gunnison Gorge for some time.  We knew that the trip would be part whitewater running, part fishing trip and part sightseeing.  We were blessed to have Ben Magtutu, with Black Canyon Anglers, as our guide.  He was an expert in running the rapids, having floated the river through the Gorge more than any other guide in a raft.  He knew where fish held between the rapids and knew what they were eating.  What was really impressive was his knowledge of the river’s history and geology.

Rather than a guide talk with Ben, we decided to create a video;  “Our Day in the Gunnison Gorge”.  We hope you’ll watch and enjoy our narrated journey to and down the gorge. It was a day we’ll always remember.

Ramble On

Read more
Guide Talk, Rio Grande

Dry Fly Daze

By TB

We’ve been nymphing and throwing streamers most of this year and really didn’t expect anything different when we made it to South Fork, CO and the Rio Grande River.  We met our guide, Aaron Horrocks, at Wolf Creek Anglers, talked about which section of the river we’d be floating and headed out.

As usual, the guide gets the boat ready, backs it down into the water, drives their truck/trailer up to await the shuttle, and comes back down and we all get in.  The next step is to rig up our fly rods.  As Aaron started this process, he said “double dries” today.  We were both VERY pleasantly surprised by this, but were still a bit skeptical given other guides had talked about fishing dries during our floats but it never panned out.  However, that skepticism disappeared in about 5 minutes when we hooked up with our first fish of the day;  it hit a small, black caddis and the fishing was on.

Throughout the day we fished caddis, stimulators (a bit of everything fly), drakes, yellow sallies, stoneflies, mayflies and a few I’d never seen before.  When one “hatch” stopped, another was already starting.  We lost track of the number of fish we caught because we were all laughing and having so much fun watching these amazing trout come up and sip or devour our dry flies.  It was truly a “Dry Fly Daze” we were in and it was awesome!

We took time out for lunch to interview Aaron in his boat on the Rio Grande.  We found out that Aaron was a middle school math teacher, but had taken a job as Assistant Principal of the K-8 school in the area.  Furthermore, we found out his school was going 1-1 iPads this fall.  While we shared a few Apple stories and jokes, we still kept our focus on fishing and fun, as you will see in Aaron’s “Guide Talk” on the Rio Grande.

Read more
Big Thompson, Guide Talk

Mo

By TB

Don’t get confused by the title of this post.  It’s NOT about the Missouri River at all, but our guide on the Big Thompson, Jeff “Mohawk” Curran of Kirk’s Fly Shop.  When you watch the video, it will become apparent why the nickname.

We’ve really enjoyed all the “characters” we’ve met along our Ramble and Mo is no exception.   When we asked him about his perfect day guiding on a trip, he summarized it in one word, FUN!  We had a blast fishing with Mo, sharing stories, and seeing this beautiful landscape that surrounds the Big Thompson River through his lens.

Mo took us to really cool places to fish, IF the river had not been raging as it was.  I’m sure you’re seeing a theme of our western adventures, lots and lots of water.  However, seeing them with Mo, you could easily imagine when the flows are normal, how special fishing these locations would be.  Needless to say, we’ll be coming back to the Big Thompson and to the streams of Rocky Mountain National Park again to fish with Mo.  For now, please enjoy our “Guide Talk” with Mo, on the banks of the Big Thompson River near Estes Park, CO.

Read more
Big Hole, Guide Talk

Big (fast) Hole

By TB

We’ve heard the stories about the Big Hole, especially at this time of year… “Sammietime”… Salmon Flies.  Everything was setting up nicely for our June 14th trip on the Big Hole, except for one thing; the Big Hole was nearing flood stage and flowing at over 7000 cfs.  In other words, yet another western river flowing very fast and very high.  Add to that, there was more rain in the forecast.

We did see evidence of these huge flies that trout love to gorge on in the trees and bushes along the river.  However, because of the strange weather, the big bugs weren’t landing in the water and more importantly, no fish were rising.  So, as we took off in our drift boat, traveling over 10mph on the water (aka. fast) with our dry/dropper rigs, we were hoping to lure them up, or if not, have them eat the rubber legs we were nymphing about 3 feet below the surface.  When that didn’t work, we realized the fish were down, and we switched to dredging nymph rigs, which proved successful.

We had a great day on the Big Hole fishing with Cory Calkins.  While it was difficult fishing, Cory kept swapping out our rigs to find the right combination of flies that ultimately brought fish to the net.  We can’t wait to come back and actually hit the famous Big Hole salmon fly hatch with Cory.  For now, please enjoy his “guide talk” on the banks of the Big Hole.

Ramble On

Read more
California, Lagniappe

#californiaadventure

By TB

When we looked for hashtags for some of our Instagram posts, we encountered #californiaadventure.  This hashtag made sense given that our time in California turned more adventure than just fishing.  Why?  Water…. and more water…. and more water…. and not just any water…. raging, dangerous whitewater that was much more suited to thrill seeking kayakers than anglers.  At any moment, if you had a slip, a flip or a misstep you could find yourself in real danger.

So what could have been a normal fishing trip to seven different California rivers became an adventure finding safe, fishy water.  We had to hike deep into forests in search of small tributaries to fish the Kern.  We sloshed through marshes thick with mosquitos to fish the waters of the Owens.  We bushwacked along the Truckee to find waters that looked fishy.   We carefully navigated the banks of the McCloud, flowing at over 5 times normal, and hiked along the Pacific Crest Trail to catch the McCloud Rainbow.  We event took the “Road from Hell” to fish near the McCloud River Preserve.  We had a lucky encounter at a fly shop in historic Dunsmuir that led us to a spot on the Upper Sacramento where, after we traversed several railroad tracks, we caught a couple of bows.  We hiked over 7 miles along Hat Creek in search of trout.  About the only spot where we fished in what might be a “normal” way was on the Fall River, and even then, we had to lay down in the boat to get under one bridge to get to the hole where we ultimately had success.   All in all, the California rivers on the TU Top 100 trout streams list were challenging, exciting, and definitely provided us a #californiaadventure.

We always try to fish other waters than just the TU Top 100.  While in California, we wetting lines in Hot Creek, the Little Truckee and the Lower Sacramento.  We hiked down into the Hot Creek Canyon where Barb hooked a beautiful little brown that was hiding along the far bank.  The Little Truckee was flowing wild but we found time and a little spot to fish right next to a bridge.  As for the Lower Sac, we actually took a float trip with Matt Dahl and hooked into some big, beautiful California rainbows.

Speaking of rainbows, two strains of these gorgeous fish are local to California waters, the McCloud and the Kern river rainbows.  In fact, most all of the rainbows in trout streams around the world come from these two strains.  No matter if you’re fishing trout streams in Montana, New Mexico, New York, Argentina or New Zealand, when you hook a rainbow, chances are it came from the McCloud or Kern lineage.

As always, our trip isn’t just about fishing and we constantly remind people, “Its Not About the Fish”.  Our trip is as much about the people we meet and the places we visit along our Ramble.  California did not disappoint on both counts;  we were blessed with great guides at each stop.  Matt Dahl took us on a “Sac Attack” down the lower Sacramento when the Upper was dangerously high.  Matt also took us on our “Matt in the Hat (Creek)” adventure.  The venerable Ernie Dennison took us on the “Majestic McCloud”, even though it was flowing at the highest levels he’d ever seen and guided anyone on.  Matt Mitchell navigated the Fall River with us, even under the bridge, to experience the “Fall River Spring”.  As we headed down further south in California, “Stonefly Guy” Jeans showed us several Kern River tributaries which will go unnamed, but provided an awesome day of fishing small streams with 7’-3wt rods.  And finally, our man Gilligan showed us his backyard, “Gilligan’s Truckee”.   We’re already planning a trip back to California to fish all these rivers and hopefully fish for the Heritage Trout Challenge.   Our guides were awesome, and made our time on the water productive, interesting, educational and safe.

Even with all this fishing, we still had time for more adventures.  We took sightseeing trips to Lake Tahoe, the Trail of 100 Giants, Sequoia National Forest, Dunsmuir and Mt. Shasta.  We’d have gone into Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks, but, the roads into the parks from the Eastern Sierras were all still snow covered and closed.  Speaking of snow cover, we watched skiers and boarders STILL skiing at Mammoth Mountain, which is planning to stay open for skiing until August/September and Squaw Valley was also still open and planning operations until at least July.  Did we mention the BIG winter/spring snowfall CA experienced and the amount of water in the rivers? ?

We also enjoyed some great food and music along the way.   We want to give a big shoutout to Crumbs in McArthur, CA.  When we were fishing the Fall River with Matt Mitchell, he recommended Crumbs to us and wow, what an amazing meal we had there.  This is a MUST VISIT place if you are in the area.  In historic Dunsmuir, you should definitely visit Yaks, a burger joint that made Yelp’s Top 100 list.  It had a great selection of local beers as well. Speaking of local beers, Mammoth Brewing and its Golden Trout Kolsch is not to be missed.  We also want to highlight Professor Colombo, a Huntington Beach band that was playing at Moody’s in Truckee.   Great music and vibe.

Finally, we hope you enjoy this montage of pics we’ve put together to highlight our time in California.   We try to highlight local musicians when we put together our state highlight videos and we are so very lucky to have music by the Stoneflys, an alternative/ska/reggae/jazz group from Kernville, CA.  What’s extra special to us is that this is Guy Jeans’ band!   Guy is a renaissance kind of guy as we found out during our visit to the “Nunya” creeks of the Kern drainage.  He was kind enough to let us use one of his band’s tunes for our “#californiaadventure” post.  Enjoy!

Ramble On

Read more
Guide Talk, Truckee

Gilligan’s Truckee

By TB

We started our California “Ramble” in Truckee on our way to fish the Mt. Shasta area.  We went through the area again on our way down the Eastern Sierra’s, to fish the tributaries of the Kern and the Owens.  Finally, we came back to Truckee to actually fish the Truckee River.

We setup the SaraLinda in a campground a stone’s throw from the river.  This proximity to the river made meeting  our guide, Matt “Gilligan” Koles, the owner/head guide of Gilligan’s Guide Service, a breeze (and let us sleep later than usual before a guide trip!).  When we met Matt, we saw he had a buddy with him; Elliott, Matt’s dog.  We proceeded to drive down the right side of the river on a one lane gravel road,  to a pullout above the river’s edge.

After gearing up, Matt, Barb, Elliott and I headed down the hill to the river.  The river was flowing very fast, so we fished from the bank and also waded carefully out into the water a ways, so we could hit some seams and soft areas.  Within a few moments, we’d hit into a few fish, including a really nice rainbow for Barb… and a very large brown for me.

What we learned from Matt, is that the Truckee is more about “quality” than “quantity”.   The Truckee did not disappoint, as all the fish we hooked were of a good size… and much more.  Matt was great getting us to the right spots to experience success and he also rigged our rods with flies specially suited for Truckee River fishing.

When you come to Truckee to fish, you need to make sure to call Matt, well in advance, and take a trip with him.  Until then, we hope you’ll enjoy this “Guide Talk” we had with “Gilligan” on the hillside above the Truckee.

Ramble On

Read more
Guide Talk, Kern River, Tributaries

Stonefly Guy

By TB

When we called the Kern River Fly Shop about a week before our scheduled trip to fish the Kern, we talked to Guy and Kimberly and they forewarned us that the Kern was flowing high and fast and that we would likely have to fish some of its tributaries.  After we arrived in the area and hooked up the SaraLinda, we headed to Kernville  just to look around and grab some groceries.  As we crossed the Kern river in town, we looked down and saw just why they’d prepared us to fish the tributaries;  it churned wildly and looked like chocolate milk.

The next morning, when we arrived at the fly shop, we met Guy and Kimberly and talked about our day;  we’d be fishing several “nunya” creeks that are a part of the Kern drainage.  We left the shop in Guy’s 4×4 truck and headed up Mountain Highway 99, a road that parallels the Kern River.  As we climbed higher and higher, the Kern flowed even faster as it tumbled down the riverbed and in many spots, overflowed its banks.  The landscape changed as we crossed the Kern River bridge, becoming a beautiful forest on both sides of the road, and we climbed even higher  into the Sequoia National Forest.

Guy was really kind to us, taking us to some “secret” spots where we would be fishing in beautiful surroundings for Kern River trout and golden/rainbow hybrid trout.   Barb and I both love fishing tributaries to larger streams that hold beautiful smaller fish.  I was using my 4wt rod and Guy had Barb using a Reddington Trout Classic 3wt, which would ultimately cost us, as Barb loved the 3wt so much, we got one the next day.

We had an absolute blast fishing these small creeks with Guy, walking from hole to hole, eating lunch right on the banks of one creek and getting a double right after lunch…both Barb and I with a fish on at the same time.  FUN!!!

We interviewed Guy in a stand of huge pine trees after a great day on the water.  We know you’ll enjoy his “Guide Talk” interview as Guy is a great guide, and as we found out, a man of many talents.  Enjoy and as always….

Ramble On

Read more
Lagniappe, Upper Sacramento

Upper Sac Observations

By TB

The first thing we noticed as we explored the Upper Sacramento, or Upper Sac as it’s better known, was that most everywhere you looked at the water, if you looked up, you’d see Mt. Shasta.  The mountain dominates the landscape in this area, and was actually visible from three of the four rivers we fished.  I think the only reason we didn’t see it from the McCloud River was that the McCloud River Preservation trail was closed (aka. under water) so we couldn’t get to a vantage point.  Even as you drive up and down I-5, Shasta is either in your windshield or your rear view mirror.  The picture above was taken from a pedestrian bridge on the Upper Sac.

Fishing the Upper Sac was another story all together.  Our first attempt was with our guide, Matt Dahl.  We looked at the river in three different locations, gave up due to the VERY high flows and went to the Lower Sac.

The next day, Barb and I decided to go to the historic little town of Dunsmuir, to the Ted Fay Fly Shop. We talked with Bob in the shop about where we might try to fish and as he was giving us some suggestions, another patron, Andy, told us what had been working for him and that he’d caught fish the day before.  After getting some flies from Bob, off we went to the river where the first image was taken.  As we were walking out of a spot we tried to access the river, we ran into Andy.  Andy told us to follow him and he’d show us a good spot to fish.  We followed Andy, and actually went back to one of the access spots Matt had stopped at originally, but Andy walked upstream a bit and showed us an “easy” access spot to scramble down to the river from the railroad tracks.  While we didn’t fish there that day, even though Andy invited us to join him, we made note of the spot and would return later.

We decided to go back to Dunsmuir for lunch at Yaks, which was voted by Yelp as one of the “Top 100 Restaurants in America”, 2015 edition.  Yaks is very cool place with incredibly unique and awesome burgers.  They had a pretty good selection of local brews as well.   We left stuffed and happy as we went to try a couple of other spots, but to no avail; the river was just too high and fast.

The following day, after we’d fished the McCloud with Ernie Dennison, he took us over to a different spot on the Upper Sac near the town of Mt. Shasta.  The river was still raging as we tried one particular spot and still, no fish.

Back we went the next day, with the flies in hand Bob had sold us, and directly to the spot Andy had shared.  We crossed the railroad tracks, scrambled down the path to the river and set to fishing on the rocks above the river (see pic 3 above).  After getting the right amount of line out, setting up our nymph rigs deep, we started casting out toward some large rocks submerged under the water.  BOOM…. first one, then two fish hit our flies and we’d scored our Upper Sac rainbows….  no “Skunking” on the Upper Sac.

After catching our Upper Sacramento rainbows, it was back to Dunsmuir, only this time, for a picnic lunch at a park by the river.  The park had numerous plaques on rocks and picnic tables commemorating area anglers who’d made contributions to the community and river.  One of the most famous of those was Ted Fay, whose fly shop in Dunsmuir we’d visited.  All of the plaques had wonderful thoughts and sayings on them that reminded us of the beauty, tranquility and peace to be found in the art of fly fishing and the outdoors where these streams flow.

We’ll not ever forget our time here in the “North State” as locals call it.  After spending a couple of weeks here in the area, we’ll also always feel Shasta is watching over us as our River Ramble adventures continue.

Ramble On

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read more