Colorful Colorado

April 9, 2018 By Tom Burnett

When we mapped out our River Ramble route, we knew we’d be hitting some locations at their “ideal” times for fishing and others not so much. When we worked on Colorado, we’d planned on fishing the South Platte and Arkansas in October 2017. In 2018, our plan was to fish the remaining 7 trout streams from the book, “Trout Unlimited’s Guide to Americas Greatest 100 Trout Streams”. As it turned out, we hit the Colorado fly fishing jackpot. We hit 8 of the 9 streams under ideal conditions (Big Thompson was way high) and were able to fish dries almost exclusively on most of the streams. At each location we visited, the water had recently come down, and the fish were hungry. We were definitely on a “Rocky Mountain High” in Colorado…. just on fly fishing…. winks!

We know you’ll enjoy this highlight video, “Colorful Colorado”. Below is some brief information about each stream (in order with the video above) and links to our individual posts, “Guide Talks” and more.

Animas

What’s not to like about Durango…. live music, incredible craft beer and incredible fly fishing. We floated the river with “Crazy Mike” Sulkosky (Duranglers Flies & Supplies), caught fish….. took a swim, had a blast and did our “Animas Antics” guide talk. Our Durango area adventure then took us on the Durango & Silverton Railroad toward Silverton along the Animas River , but we got off at Cascade Creek and fished. Talk about an adventure…. we wrote a blog post, “Cascade Canyon Caper” just on this daylong journey.

Arkansas

When we met our float guide, Billy Hicks (“ArkAngler Billy“), for our Arkansas River trip in Salida at the ArkAnglers Fly Shop, we found out he was originally from a small town in Missouri nearby where Barb and I grew up. Billy put us on fish all day as we floated the section right through town. We were joined by our good fishing buddies, James Kelley and Dan McCormack for more fishing, along with another ArkAnglers guide, Preston Larimer. We waded in several different sections of the river and found fish in each one. You’ll notice the epitome of “high sticking” done by Dan in the video.

South Platte

Just up (or down) the road from Salida, we fished the South Platte River with Vinnie Renda (“VSP“) of South Platte Fly Shop in Woodland Park. We found a few of those fabled browns in the “Dream Stream” and chased them in Eleven Mile Canyon as well. Several evenings we found ourselves in a local cafe, eating, drinking and watching the Cubs win the National League pennant on their way to becoming World Series Champs.

Big Thompson / Rocky Mountain National Park

We pulled the SaraLinda into Estes Park and headed to Kirk’s Fly Shop to meet up with Jeffrey “Mohawk” Curren (“MO“), our guide for the Big Thompson. The river was flowing high and fast, but “Mo” found spots for us to wet a line and hook into a few fish. Our youngest daughter Kelly joined us for some hiking to alpine lakes and viewing wildlife… really wildlife when you see the pic of Barb and Kelly at one of the trailheads. We found some beautiful fish along our hikes as well.

Upper Colorado

We fished the Upper Colorado both inside Rocky Mountain NP, as well as at several local access points such as Hot Sulphur Springs State Wildlife Area…. small fish in the park, larger fish downstream at the access points. I even found a nice rock in the middle of the river to enjoy!

Frying Pan

We met our guides for the two rivers near Basalt at Frying Pan Anglers. Eric (“in the Frying Pan“) Way, our guide for the “Pan” as it’s known, took us to several spots that were more remote from the horde of anglers that flock to this stream in the summer. Right off the bat, he put me onto a big rainbow that set the stage for our day.

Roaring Fork

July 4th on the Roaring Fork (“Fireworks“) was a trip to be remembered forever. We put in with Ed Deison, in a drift boat, along with what seemed all of Aspen, Basalt and Carbondale. There were rafts, tubes and drift boats galore working their way downstream. However, the “bite” was on…. dry flies, nymphs…. everything worked! In one of the pictures in the video, you’ll see me holding a big fish, with Ed taking a picture of it…. supposedly because each day the FPA guides see who catches the biggest fish. Ed thought this was a candidate until as he was taking this picture, Dylan Mendoza pulled up next to us and his client had just caught one a couple of inches longer. We went back out a couple of days later with Dylan and had a “double”. We had some tasty BBQ as well at an out of the way joint, Slow Groovin’ BBQ in Marble.

Gunnison

We didn’t float just any section of the Gunnison, we floated the Black Canyon section. Another one of those “bucket list” trips that involved meeting at 6am…. riding to the Gunnision Gorge…. then 7 miles down a road that no one in their right mind would go down without a SERIOUS 4WD, high clearance vehicle. Then, after 7 miles driving, we walked Chukar Trail down to our waiting rafts on the Colorado. The fishing was great, but you have to watch “Our Day in the Gunnison Gorge”, which details in video what this trip feels like, including the 19 named rapids. We visited the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and descending down a 16% grade to the water, found some good fishing holes. We also took time to visit a very cool mountain town, Ouray, and also found some beer…. of course!

Rio Grande

We laughed as we pulled into the RV park in South Fork (CO) seeing about a dozen RVs, all from Texas. Seems South Fork is a “home away from home” for many Texans. We’d met the owner of Wolf Creek Angler at a GRTU TroutFest a year before and were set to fish with them. We set off with our guide, Aaron Horrocks, and fished assorted dry flies all day with nary a need for a nymph or streamer. We coined it “Dry Fly Daze“.

We couldn’t resist putting the last picture in. We’d driven up to Creede to see the small town and eat at a restaurant Aaron had highly recommended. We stumbled across the Ramble House fly shop…. seemed appropriate along our way.

Note: The opening video clip is from the Frying Pan and the closing video clip is from a bridge overlooking the Roaring Fork.

Lagniappe

487 x 34,585 x 95 x 149

December 31, 2017 By TB

For much of the past two years, we’ve been on our River Ramble, exploring trout streams across the USA. All total, we’ve been on this journey for 487 days and have visited TU Greatest 100 trout streams in 26 different states. In fact, we’ve now fished 95 of the Top 100 streams and 149 different trout streams in all. I know what you’re thinking, you’re still 5 short, and indeed we are. There is one more state we’ve yet to visit, Alaska. While we are looking forward and already deep into planning our Alaska adventure to fish the final 5 (and a few more of course) of the TU 100, we wanted to take a moment to look back on this past two years.

As we’ve continued to discover, Its Not About the Fish…. its about the people we continue to meet along our Ramble. We’ve been blessed to have fished with some of the best guides in the world on the best trout streams in the world. In small villages and communities, we’ve met some great local fly shop owners and staff who’ve sent us to some off the beaten path fisheries that, while not TU Top 100 streams, easily could have been. What we’ve enjoyed most have been guides, shop owners and community members who’ve befriended us, shared their stories with us and allowed us to see the rivers through their eyes and experiences. We feel so lucky to have met each and every one.

Our tagline for our blog, “Fly fishing, food, friends and fun” has been just that. We’ve sampled more than a few local brews, pubs, diners and dives along the way. We’ve also had a great time visiting family and friends in Arizona, Indiana, Missouri and Montana…. rafting, zip lining, pickle ball, baseball, hiking and of course, fishing too.

Our “mothership”, the SaraLinda, has performed like a champ, taking us nearly 35,000 miles along this journey. We’ve camped in state forests, state parks, national parks, Corps of Engineers campgrounds and even dry camped in amazing, remote locations. The 180 sq. ft. we’ve been living in is dwarfed by the incredible outdoor expanse we’ve called home these two years. Our backyards have been the Tetons, Yellowstone, Great Smoky Mountains, Appalachian Trail, Maine wilderness and stream side campgrounds in most every state we visited.

2016 was a great year and we posted up a “Year in Review” video for it last December. We’ll be fishing numerous streams across the country in 2018 as well as the streams we’ll fish in Alaska, but for now, we wanted to share a look back at 2017. We hope you enjoy this short music video and a few highlights from our 2017 River Ramble.

Animas, Guide Talk

Animas Antics

July 19, 2017 By TB

When we checked into the Duranglers fly shop in Durango (CO), we asked about our guide, the kind of boat we’d be floating and what section of the river we’d likely float. We also asked if our guide was “fun”. We’ve discovered that we really enjoy having the “fun” guides on our trips. Sure we love to catch fish… a lot of fish when we can… but it’s about so much more than that.

We were a bit surprised and excited when we were told our guide’s nickname was “Crazy Mike”. “Crazy” can have so many meanings….. crazy fun…. crazy river running…. crazy insane…. etc…. The next morning, we met “Crazy Mike” Sulkosky at the shop and immediately started appreciating his brand of “crazy”.

We had a blast! Mike navigated all the boulder fields we encountered and made it look easy, although we know it’s not. We also caught some good fish along the way. But most importantly, we had an incredibly fun day on the water with Mike.

We’ll definitely be back to fish with Mike again, but until then, we hope you enjoy our “Guide Talk” with this incredible, thoughtful, talented and “FUN” guide, “Crazy Mike”.

PS You’ll also hear why he’s called “Crazy Mike”… priceless!

Lagniappe, Roaring Fork

Roaring Fork Fireworks

July 10, 2017 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.

Frying Pan, Guide Talk

Eric in the Frying Pan

July 10, 2017 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

Gunnison, Lagniappe

Our Day in the Gunnison Gorge

July 9, 2017 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

Guide Talk, Rio Grande

Dry Fly Daze

June 29, 2017 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.

Big Thompson, Guide Talk

Mo

June 26, 2017 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.

Guide Talk, South Platte

VSP

November 21, 2016 By TB

The South Platte River is a blue ribbon trout stream famous for its most productive sections like Cheesman Canyon, 11 Mile Canyon, Dream Stream and Deckers. We had the pleasure of fishing the Dream Stream section with Vinnie Renda of the South Platte Fly Shop in Woodland Park, CO.

We met Vinnie at our campground at 7:00am on another COLD October morning. Lucky for us the campground didn’t have good cell service because a message from Vinnie came through from days earlier asking us if we could meet at 6:00am. What we soon realized, as we arrived at the river just below Spinney Mountain Reservoir, was that it wasn’t because of good fishing early, but because so many anglers wanted to get the “prime” spots first! When we arrived, there were already at least 10 cars in the parking lot. However, we found there was plenty of water to be found.

As we fished different spots along the Dream Stream section, the winds kept howling with increasing intensity. 30-40mph gusts were common with a constant 20mph wind. This didn’t deter us at all as we chucked our nymph rigs into likely spots and watched for the slightest movement in our strike indicators. When it happened, BOOM… the water would explode as large brown trout would fight to expel the tiny #18 zebra midge fly that fooled them.

We really enjoyed our day fishing with Vinnie and appreciated his desire to keep people off the “redds”. Vinnie explains this and more in his “Guide Talk” as we conducted it inside the SaraLinda due to the gale force winds outside. Enjoy!

Arkansas, Guide Talk

ArkAngler Billy

November 21, 2016 By TB

The Arkansas River starts high in the Rocky Mountains north of Buena Vista, CO. While many come here to whitewater raft through Royal Gorge, it’s also a blue ribbon trout stream. We took on the Arkansas, via raft, with Billy Hicks of ArkAngler Fly Shop in Salida, CO.

As we met Billy at the fly shop and discussed the trip, we found out that he is from Chillicothe, MO, not too far from where Barb and I grew up. We shared great stories about growing up in Missouri and when we got ready to do our “guide talk” interview with Billy, he excused himself to put on another ball cap he was carrying, as you’ll see in the video. We also did the video BEFORE we took off on the trip, because we found a great spot for the interview as we were gearing up to put in. We had a couple of “friends” who “video-bombed” the interview as well.

We had a great day floating and fishing the Arkansas with Billy. We actually floated the section that runs right through Salida, stopping right downtown for a quick break around lunchtime. This is such a beautiful river and the fish were willing along the way. Not huge fish, usually in the 12″ range, but beautiful, hard fighting trout. We know you’ll enjoy ArkAngler Billy’s views on fishing the Arkansas.

RIVER RAMBLE

Tag: CO