June 16-17, 2013
Sunday
I’m still very sore from my cowgirl adventure yesterday and I received some edits from my book author that I was waiting for, so I can finish up
one of the books I’m editing. Therefore, we decided to stay another night in
Kremmling and depart tomorrow. I end up working on my computer most of the day,
and so does Jack. A dramatic thunderstorm makes its appearance in the middle of
the afternoon, beginning with a hailstorm, but at least the hailstones are
small and don’t do any damage. Sure cools things down.
A quiet day, no photos. I got my book done and all the
files uploaded. One nice thing—in the evening we rented and downloaded the
movie Lincoln, which we’ve been
wanting to see, from Amazon and watched it on Jack’s computer. It worked great.
Helps to have good wifi, which this campground does.
My brain was pretty dead after the cattle drive and in
the last blog I forgot to mention all the beautiful wildflowers that were mixed
in with the sagebrush that we were riding over and through. Lupine looks like
lilacs growing on a stalk, and smells like lilacs too. There was also wild flox
that smelled great, and lovely little wild irises. It’s a gorgeous spring here
in Colorado.
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Beautiful spring flowers were everywhere. |
Monday
Today we depart for the Gunnison River, which means backtracking
to a certain extent, back down south, but then we turn west into some serious
wilderness. We cross two Continental Divide passes, one over 11,500 ft, our
highest elevation yet.
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Beautiful, but hard to breathe up here. |
The elevation has been getting to us a little—both of us
get short of breath when we exert ourselves the least little bit. We can
definitely feel it.
We drive through a cute mining town above 10,000 ft,
called Fairplay, and we stop for “second breakfast” at a little café. (Fairplay
advertises itself on a sign as “the highest incorporated town in Colorado.”)
Many of the buildings and homes are Victorian era, and they’ve preserved a
number of old buildings and mining/household artifacts from the 1880s and 1890s in a historic
park (tourist attraction). There’s a
beautiful little white church, that makes me homesick for King Memorial and
Oriskany.
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Beautiful old church in town of Fairplay |
The Gunnison River is the last of the Top 100 rivers on
Jack’s list for this trip. If he catches a trout in this one, he will have
checked off a total of 77 rivers on his list. Most of the remaining 23 are in Montana and Alaska, so we are
going to have to do another big trip at some point!
Jack will regale you with his Gunnison adventures.
The Gunnison River is the last of the six Trout Unlimited Top 100 streams in Colorado that I want to check off. Carol suggests we stop at a flyshop in the town of Gunnison to get a feel for how the stream is fishing and what the trout might be biting on. Naturally, I agree (makes for a happy marriage). Vince the flyshop manager fills me in on some of the best spots to wade and shows them to me on a map of the stream, which I buy. "No dry fly action, the stream is running too high," he says. I ask him to pick out a dozen flies he recommends. He gives me a "baker's dozen" (13) nymphs of various types and sizes. I ask him about the purple "Prince" imitation he includes. "Trout love them," he says.
Vince told us of a National Forest campsite upstream, which is not too far upstream, near the small town of Almont. That's where the East River and the Taylor River meet and form the Gunnison River. We pull into the National Forest campsite hoping there is space available. There are five spaces and only one is occupied by the camp host living in a tent, but is not here right now. We find a nice spot with easy access to the river, fill out the campsite form, and enclose the $5 charge (which is half price because I have a Golden Age Pass). I immediately suit up while Carol starts working on her next editing job.
The first thing that always faces a trout fisherman is what to tie on. The river is running high and it reminds me of the San Juan River and the Rio Grande. I'm tempted to tie on Big Gaudy, but Vince's "No dry fly action, the stream is running too high" comment makes me hesitate. I compromise: I tie on Big Gaudy and the purple prince nymph that he said trout love.
I fish for about 10 minutes without any hits while watching fishermen pass by in rafts. Some are with guides and some are alone. One lone rafter catches a trout in the deeper water across the stream from me. Caddis flies are everywhere and some are crawling on my arms. I decide to move downstream where there is deeper water.
On the first cast into the deeper and heavier running water, a very large fish comes up and takes Big Gaudy and then heads for the bottom. I have him on, but he wants off. Up out of the water he jumps and heads downstream running line off my reel so fast that I dare not touch the reel. Finally the drag on my reel slows him down and he tries heading toward the bank in hope of tangling my line. I guide him away from the bank so he decides to run at me. I reel in line madly so I can keep tension in my line. That doesn't work for him so he heads downstream, again running line off my reel. But he's slowing now and I finally get him to my net. He's a big fat 18-19 inch wild rainbow trout. I keep him in the water and remove my Big Gaudy from his mouth. I try to resuscitate him but he wants nothing to do with that. He slips out of my hand and heads for deep water.
As I try to gain my composure and slow my heart rate, I flip my line back into the water next to me getting ready for another cast. Just then another trout goes after Big Gaudy, but in my excitement, I pull the fly out of the trout's mouth. Many beginner flyfishermen do this, and I feel like I just rejoined their ranks.
I think to myself, "I've got my check-off fish, so I could stop now." But of course I can't stop. So I fish more spots for about 20 minutes. On one cast the Big Gaudy suddenly disappears from the surface. For a brief moment I forget that I have on my purple prince nymph, which is hanging about 3 feet under Big Gaudy. I quickly recover from my stupor, and quickly raise my rod. "Fish On!" as the guides like to say. This time it's a 16-inch brown trout who fights just about as hard as the rainbow did. He took the purple nymph, just like Vince said. So Vince was right, the purple prince nymph worked. On the other hand, had I listened to his "No dry fly action, the stream is running too high" advice, I would have missed catching the biggest trout of this trip.
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| Carol snapped this shot of me after I caught my trout. Gives you some idea of the size of the river. Over on the far bank the river runs deeper than where I'm standing. |
Bird species count: Vermilion flycatcher, turkey vulture,
Bell’s vireo, *golden-fronted woodpecker, Say’s phoebe, northern cardinal,
greater roadrunner, house finch, common raven, *northern rough-winged swallow, *summer
tanager, *prothonotary warbler, *yellow-breasted
chat, *yellow-rumped warbler, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, cliff
swallow, Mexican jay, black-headed grosbeak, black-chinned hummingbird, Wilson’s warbler, *Scott’s
oriole, chipping sparrow, house sparrow, lesser goldfinch, black-crested
titmouse, acorn woodpecker, scrub jay, *western kingbird, white-winged dove,
*canyon towhee, *Grace’s warbler, *zone-tailed hawk, *curve-billed thrasher,
Bullock’s oriole, Gambel’s quail, great horned owl, black-throated sparrow,
*cactus wren, ladder-backed woodpecker, white-crowned sparrow, brownheaded
cowbird, Brewer’s blackbird, *pyrrhuloxia, hooded oriole, verdin, American crow,
Anna’s hummingbird, dark-eyed junco, white-throated swift, Steller’s jay, mallard,
common egret, brown pelican, western bluebird, loggerhead shrike, Audubon’s
warbler, robin, Canada goose, black-billed magpie, red-winged blackbird,
redtailed hawk, American dipper, *yellow warbler, tree swallow, osprey
State count: 14 [Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona,
California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado]
Odometer count:
Surber, VA: 107,435
Gunnison, CO: 115,040
Accommodations avg cost: 71 nts, avg $13.53/night
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