Backcountry recon!!!

 

Fat sow and her twins!

With the water still being as high as it is, I decided to do a little exploratory trip on my own to see if I could locate some fishable waters in the high country. Usually we are back on the ranch and floating the rivers with great success at this point in the season. But not just yet. Our rivers are on their way down and the water is clearing up, but we have a ways to go!

Even with the rivers on their way down, I still like to have a little something special tucked up my sleeve just in case I need to get my clients away from the water everyone else is trying to fish!  I’m not big on “combat fishing” and I don’t imagine my clients came all the way to Colorado to stand next to 20 other yahoo’s trying to hook the same fish!  So with the afternoon off I headed to a spot usually overlooked by the local crowds and found a little piece of heaven that most haven’t thought of.  I’m not gonna spill the beans just yet!  But I will share my encounter with the local wildlife on the recon!

I ran into this family enjoying a picnic in the grass on the way down!  They didn’t seem to mind me much but momma kept an eye on me!

I spent about fifteen minutes photographing the fat and happy family before deciding it was time to let them enjoy their salads and sunshine and move on!  It’s not every day that you run across a scene like this but I always feel privileged when it does happen!

 

 

Moab

A few weeks ago we set out with a group of friends and headed towards the dessert for a little camping adventure. There’s nothing like a dessert camping trip in the early spring when the mountain temps are still a little chilly at night. Our weather was perfect and thanks to Jake and Jill who arrived early, we had the best camping spot on the river! Next time, we are for sure bringing our mountain bikes! Enjoy the photos!

Perfect spot for a tent!

Great views all around us! If you have never been to Moab, you gotta check it out!

Sunrise in the canyon!

Some of the coolest sunrises I’ve ever seen!

Awsome rock formations!

Good times with great friends!

Yep, you've seen it!

 

 

 

Breakfast on the Patio!

Woke up to the sound of the river this AM.  Made a fresh pot of coffee, put on my running shoes and took the dogs for a trail run!  It’s still cool enough in the mornings that you can see your breath, but once you get warmed up, it doesn’t take long to forget about the cold and soon your thinking about the cramp in your side!

We made our way up the river for a couple miles and decided to call it quits when Vic found a fresh dead something and had a roll in it!  The smell was pretty intense to say the least, but she did make her way down to the water and found a nice little eddie pool to swim in.  With the water this big I’d usually call her back but today I threw caution to the wind and let her soak in the calm eddie!

As soon as we got back I poured another cup of joe and we got straight to cooking!

The hookup!

 

 

 

The presentation!

Didn’t take long as this is our usual weekend southwestern style breakfast masterpeice!  All it needs is a little love and some super hot homemade salsa!

The delivery!

 

 

Things to do during runoff!

I’ve been pretty antsy here lately about the river!  I get this way when the river is up and I can’t fish or float.  Yea, I could head to a lake or put my raft down Brush Creek, but I’m more concerned with when I’ll be able to float the ranch and chase some big brownies in clear water!  There are however, a lot of locals that wait patiently all year-long for this brief period of time when the rivers are swollen and raging.  Whitewater enthusiasts are in heaven right now!

Hang ten!!!

 

We drove over to Basalt the other day to check things out and stopped in Glenwood Springs for lunch and to watch the kayakers and surfers enjoy the wave!  I love rafting but just don’t get into the big stuff since my own personal swim!  There are two kinds of rafters, ones that have flipped, and ones that haven’t flipped yet!!!

 

 

 

 

 

The hiking is pretty good right now too.  There is still snow on the higher trails, but the trails that start right out of town are pretty dry.  Just hope you don’t have to cross a creek!

Mountain biking and road biking is in full swing too!  All I ask is that if your going to ride on Hwy 6, keep it single file!

 

 The good news is that the river looks to have peaked and the rivers are on their way down.  Like always, I’ll keep my eye on the weather and hope that the Eagle River is floatable soon and clears up.  Then I’ll be praying to the god’s that the water doesn’t go down “TOO” fast and we have a long float fishing season and the fish are healthy and hungry!

 

Until then, I’ll be getting my gear in order, placing my fly orders, going through all my guide crap, 86ing old dirty hats,  and drinking lots of adult beverages!  On a side note, Kaycee has become the Iron Chef of Eagle and is ready to take it outside to the grill.  Word is that if this blog thing goes good, we’ll be developing a joint effort blog about her cooking adventures!  More to come!!!

"Let's put another shrimp on the Barbie!'

 

Be kind to your friends!

You can’t have just one!!!

     So, spring time in the Rockies!  For a fly fishing guide this means organizing your fly boxes, your guide vehicle, and cleaning the raft among other things!  Lots of things to do during runoff to prepare for another season.  In the last few years I have developed a very particular list of flies that I will need throughout the season and DO NOT want to run out of them.  So I’ve been planning orders from all the companies that have the flies just the way I like them tied, and also taking inventory of what I have already.  A guide has a lot of things to keep organized, boat bags, dry bags, chest packs, waist packs, backpacks, and various other bags of “stuff” that roll around in the back of your Jeep all year, not to mention that the contents of these bags gets shifted around all the time.  I’ll use completely different packs for a full day float that I use on a half day wade.  And I don’t want to forget my fishing license or permits!  What pack are they in?

Organization is a key attribute of a guide, so a couple of years back I got a nifty hat rack that fits on the back of a door.  I figured I could neatly store my excess of trucker caps out of the way of Mrs. Newellsy’s closet space!  Good idea at the time but I’ve since then compiled a vast array of fishing caps, probably too many!  Every year when I start to get new hats for the season and try to pile them on top of one another only to fall and look like a complete mess, I am reminded that I really don’t need all these caps and I should 86 the ones I don’t wear or are just “too broke in”!  So I begin the arduous task of culling through the ones I am “retiring” and pulling the flies out of the brims.  It’s amazing how many flies you go through in a season!  The great thing is that you remember a lot of the flies that caught fish or didn’t work and have an interesting templet to follow in case you forget to order a particular pattern.  Updating the lists for my fly orders just got a lot easier!

So I guess the point of this post is to find out what everyone else does with old hats and old flies.  Do you continue to wear a hat year after year if it’s a good one, sweaty salt rings and all?  Do you try and recycle your old flies if they are still sharp?  Do you have spot in your office that you immortalize the good ones that tell a great story?  Or do you just grab a garbage sack and throw ‘em out?  What say you?

High water in the mountains!

     One of my daily routines every morning after I prepare my trout mug with steaming coffee and turn on the news is to fire up my computer and check the fishing conditions, whether I’m fishing or not!  I’ve been guiding long enough that it is somehow important to me to know what’s happening on the local rivers just in cast someone ask’s me, I’ll know the answers.  “What are the flows?”  “What’s the water temp?”  “What’s hatching?”  ”Where should I fish?”  I’m not one to give away all my secrets but I feel compelled to help people along on their fly fishing journey if I can.  It’s just who I am!  So every day I check the USGS and take a mental note of the flows of our local rivers, just in case. 

See, this time of year in the mountains, we are dealing with runoff, and not fishing.  Every year when the temps raise and the snow starts to melt, our rivers swell to incredible size as the melted H2O seeps through the rock and funnels into the valley bottom.  This annual occurrence is healthy for the rivers as it cleans the rivers of debris and sediment, but hard on a troubum because fishing is out of the question.  On a “normal year”, the Eagle bumps up to around 3,000 cubic feet per second over a few short weeks and then gradually settles down to around 200 cfps for the remainder of the summer.  Last year we saw near record flows and flooding because of the late spring snowstorms and high temps, but it was short-lived and we were soon pounding the water with streamers and nymph rigs from the raft for what I felt was an incredible fishing season!

This year looks to be a little different!  We had an incredible winter with record-breaking snowfall this valley hasn’t seen in over 30 years.  Vail hit the 500 inch mark and surpassed it easily, and every day I hear someone mention the snowpack stats that are still present in the high country; 150%, 180%, 145%!  Who really knows?  All I know is that looking out my window across the valley, I can still see an abundance of snow even on the lower peaks and that’s not normal for this time of year given the daily temps reaching into the 80′s and evening temps hovering around 40!  And the river itself is already raging!  Last year I took photos at the tressel bridge at the peak of runoff, June 7th and a little above 4000 cfps, and thought I would never see this river this high again.  But as I logged onto the USGS site this AM and saw that the flow was above 4,000 cfps, I now see that this year will be interesting to say the least!  Snow still on the mountains and the rivers a rising!!!

Eagle river flows

Wanted to show an update of the Eagle River flows. Runoff just started and it’s gonna be a BIG one!!!

Teva Mountain Games 2011

Headed up to the Teva Games tomorrow! Should be fun. I’ve got a couple buddies entered in the fly fishing competition. I’ll let you know how they do!

Welcome to Troutcast!

Thanks for checking in! I’ve been planning on doing this for a long time now but never got around to actually “doing it”! I just had to too many excuses not to start-up a blog. Too busy, not sure about content, who’s gonna read it??? Well, I bit the bullet and here we go! I’ll try to keep content and the site up to date and post often. It’s going to be a very busy year on the rivers around here, and I should have plenty to blog about! We had an “epic” snow year and the runoff has just begun. There’s no telling how long it will last or how high our rivers will get. Last report I got was that we are still over 150% of annual snowpack in the high country! We also just opened a new fly shop in Vail! Officially, it opens tomorrow morning for the Teva Mountain Games, but we posted pictures this AM so I can let the cat out of the bag, if anyone sees this! The new shop should bring in a lot of new clients and I have a feeling that this new shop will have a huge impact on the local fly fishing scene! Wish us luck, it should be interesting!