Summer Colorado Trip Part 1 - Colorado River

Some might see it as desperation: driving 12 hours one-way, with the hope of doing some trout fishing. I think they’re right. But, I don’t mind being desperate—I’ve come to accept that disposition as a useful part of life. So, on Thursday of last week, I hopped in ‘ole Cindy (my beautiful green Mazda B3000), and drove from Iowa City to Denver. I had planned on spending Friday with my brother, testing the waters he had forsaken a few years back for the glory of Alaska, and then heading out to the wilderness with a few friends from Camp. And that’s just what I did.

On the drive down from Iowa, it was decided that I’d drive out and meet my brother past Vail and Beaver Creek, at a small dent in the mountains called Wolcott. It was about an hour-and-forty-five minutes from Morrison, where I was staying, to Wolcott. My green truck struggled over the passes between Denver and Vail while I prayed she’d hold together for just one more mile.

A few miles past Edwards, I exited 70 and found my brother waiting for me at the Wolcott Yacht Club. We hugged and made our seemingly perpetual plans for the “Yoder Brother’s Truck Pull-Off,” where it would truly be a David versus Goliath battle—my Mazda versus his diesel-fueled Dodge Ram. Once my few necessities were in the truck we headed for State Bridge. The goal: to float fish the Colorado River between State Bridge and Catamount.

It was interesting watching my brother adjust again to life in Colorado. You could see the frustration he had with the unfriendly guides, who wouldn’t notice you if you stuck a hundred dollar bill up their noses, and the alienating circumstances that he experienced as a result of such a long absence. He had earned quite a reputation as a guide before heading east, but his choice to leave Colorado a few years back for the Florida flats and the Alaskan wilderness was a good one. Now he’s well-rounded and experienced, but he, like I, has come to live a very dislocated life. Maybe it’s in the Yoder genes…

We dropped the boat in at State Bridge, and paid our fee ($3.50 per/person). After pushing past a few wade-fishermen and a drift boat, I started waving his Fat Albert fly in the air. I like to call it casting. Some would disagree. It wasn’t more then five minutes (in fact, right in front of state bridge) before I had hooked a tree. This one was a partially submerged trunk wedge up against the bridge-footer. It was Dave’s only Fat Albert—a fly tied with success in mind, so I dismounted his Clackacraft and waded up under the bridge for a daring retrieval. My hard work also netted two water bottles and a half-empty beer can. Always leave the river a better place than how you found it.

I still lost the fly. After a few bends in the river and a few hook-ups with brown trout, a fish broke of the grasshopper imitation. Oh well. The rest of the day was amazing. A bought of strong wind half-way through was the only interference between my brother, me, and the trout.

We drifted down the left and right banks, casting to fish holding under the cut banks, and when we came upon the large eddies created by the river’s water rushing over redden boulders, I was instructed to cast into the foam. It was a cast into the foam that coaxed the most violent take of the day. After missing and netting several brown between 14 and 18 inches, I made a quick cast into a little foamy eddy. BAM! A rainbow rushed over my grasshopper fly like a wave crashing at the beach. I let out a yell, and laughed out of joy. My brother… well, he missed the whole thing.

At one point we switched roles, and Dave became the fisher and I the rower. In a matter of minutes he had hooked three fish, with my job during that time being to row “away from danger.” I did it long enough to earn a spot back in the front of the boat.

By the time we arrived at the Catamount take-out, our stomachs were ready for dinner. We washed out the boat, loaded up the truck, and headed back to the Yacht Club for some fish tacos and beer. We spent most of the day goofing off and being brothers, and now it was time to relax and watch a bunch of twenty-year-old girls get drunk off of margaritas. The food was a good finish to a great day with my brother. And I’m already planning our next fishing trip. New Zealand? Argentina? Maybe I’ll have to find some way to spend time with him in Alaska.

And, I am pretty sure there needs to be a better job done with quality control in the world of leader manufacturing. Pretty poor word choice if you aske me!

Colorado Fly Fishing Adventure, Day 3

Sleeping next to Willow Creek was exponentially more restful. Granted, sleeping next to a well traveled road made me a bit more concerned about the possibility of some psycho chopping me up in the middle of the night, but nearness to a maintained campsite gave some relief.

I slept in a bit later than the previous morning, packed up the campsite, and headed for Buchanan Creek, which feeds Monarch Lake. The fellow at the sporting shop in Granby assured me this was a “secret” spot with the occasional large fish. Wrong. Once driving into the Monarch Lake region, I hiked around the lake to the creek. (I’ve failed to mention my amazement at the mass amounts of dead pine trees in the region. The park service blames beetles, but I’ve heard that the beetles are thriving due to the lack of a cleansing forest fire—ironic…. but that is just hearsay.)

The creek was beautiful. It reminded me at moments of New Zealand’s rivers—extremely clear, extremely cold. But, alas, no fish. I suppose my fishing advisor in Granby was referring to spawning season. I am sure when the trout are running up out of Monarch the fishing can be amazing. So, I walked and fished about a quarter mile of the creek before turning around and heading back to the car—my sporty-sports car.

I had decided earlier that I’d fish the section of the Colorado River between Shadow Mountain Lake and Lake Granby. Thankfully, the parking permit I used for Monarch Lake was also good for parking in the Green Ridge area. When I arrived at the parking lot there was a large moose chowing down on some nearby vegetation. He presence drew a crowd—and I joined in at the gawking for a moment or two, but my mind was elsewhere. This was my last day on a Colorado river, and I needed to catch some fishies!

What a way to end the trip! It seemed like every section of pocket water had a hungry fish waiting, in front of a boulder or at the end of a run. The royal wulff I tied on coaxed fish after fish from their underwater shelter. The fishing lasted until the thunderstorms chased me back into my car, and eventually back into Denver.

While fishing down the river, I noticed a gentleman taking pictures of me. (Talk about pressure! All I could think was, “Oh great! Right when the camera’s on me, I can’t hook anything!”) Fortunately, I got into a nice brown while he was shooting. After landing and releasing the trout, I yelled across the river as to whether they had email. When I heard a faint “yes,” I made my way across the river and laid out my situation to the budding photographer. I had destroyed my camera and relegated to a measely camera phone, and I’d love pictures from this trip. No problem, they said, and a few days later these pictures found their way into my gmail inbox.

(Thanks Mike and Pat Cotton. Enjoy your retirement! …but remember you can’t retire from life with others—that’s the beauty of the Gospel.)

Colorado Fly Fishing Adventure, Day 2

On the docket for Tuesday: fishing the upper section of the Big Thompson and the headwaters of the Colorado. The early bird catches the worm. Right? Right! Awaking before dawn allowed me to get into the park by seven in the morning (before the rangers were posted at the gate collecting money), and by nine I was pulling brook trout out of the Big Thompson. I drove into Moraine Park and parked at the end of the dirt road. About a quarter of a mile into the trail I jumped onto the river and fished a really deep hole. I pulled a large brown out of the back end of the pool but destroyed my camera while trying to take a picture. As I was stepping away with the fish, I failed to notice the fly-line wrapped around one leg of the tripod, and in a split second the camera was underwater. The Sony Cybershot had lasted a while, but this plunge was to be its undoing. Zapped by the water, the poor camera never recovered Even after a week of drying, the camera only took black shots. So, I was to spend the rest of the day mourning my loss and looking ahead to the next riffle.

In the Park, the Big Thompson is a great pocket water stream. I don’t think I made a cast over ten feet, and in front of and behind every rock there seemed to be a fish. What I appreciated most about these little guys, was that every fish fought more than any creature I might get into in the Midwest. There is something to be said about the tenacity of a Colorado brook trout mentality: too many flies in the future to give up the ghost now.

After walking back around midday, and passing a Russian on his cell phone and a baby dressed in only a diaper, I slipped into my temporary sports car and drove Trail Ridge Road to the Colorado. I decided to fish down near Green Mountain Trail only to find that the trail marked on the map leading to the Colorado River didn’t really exist. So, I stepped into the river near the bridge at route 491. I was surprised to find absolutely no action in this area, aside from the Moose and her child. I couldn’t even spook a trout.

With a bit of the evening left I made my way to Granby and stopped at Budget Tackle. The man there gave me some tips as to camping (for free!) the next day’s fishing, pointing me up route 125 to Willow Creek in Arapaho National Forest. There I set up camp and fished. I was able to coax a few browns and rainbows out of the stream before heading back to camp. Right above an official National Forrest campsite was a great car pull-off beside next to the creek. I made a fire, cooked hotdogs, and smoked a cigar—a good finish to a successful day. But, this would only be a precursor to what lie ahead.

Colorado Fly Fishing Adventure, Day 1

After driving without breaks from Annapolis, Maryland to Denver, Colorado, I crashed on the couch in my host family’s basement. There's nothing better than 27 hours in a car to remind you of the benefit of a good shower and daily stretching exercises. But, a day after the long car ride I was again driving up US25 to Rocky Mountain National Park where my Colorado fishing trip would begin.

Now, getting to the point where I was back in the car driving was an event in itself. My whole reason for coming to Colorado was the wedding of my friends, Rob and Rachel. They asked me to be a groomsman and perform a song in the ceremony, and with the early thought of a fishing tripping in the back of my mind, the answer was an easy “yes.” …and I guess I would have said yes anyways… I mean, they are my friends.

Before jumping into my Pontiac G5 rental that Monday (a car which made me feel like I was going through an early mid-life crisis), I had to step inside the walls of Bath and Body Works to help Rob pick out a birthday present for his fiancé.

Now, I have a hierarchical theory about male “uncomfortability.” It goes something like this: The most uncomfortable store for a man is Victoria’s Secret. I mean, that’s one of those stores (though, like the Law, necessary and good) from which I have to turn my head away when strolling by. All the storefront imagery provided includes a lot of bosom and a little of clothing. Not good for a Christian man trying his best to keep a pure mind. I’ve yet to step foot in one, and I dread the day my wife asks me to go and buy a bra. Yuck. But the next closest tier of uncomfortability is occupied by Bath and Body Works. All men can do is walk into that store and stare. Scents? What the heck do we as human beings need scents for… unless we’re hunting deer. Now, I need to preface this by saying, I’m looking forward to the day I lose all my hair and resort to using only a bar of soap for a full-body cleansing. But when you walk into Bath and Body Works, we men come to find out these creatures called women are adding soap upon lotion, scent upon smell. (You mean their skin doesn’t naturally smell like fields of roses?!!?)

So, like the majority of men in the world, I walked in with Rob and stared at the walls of bath soap and other miscellaneous scented products. The lady helping us, wearing the store-wide color of choice—light blue (another indicator men are not welcome), pointed us to several different choices, and Rob ended up choosing some Japanese Cherry scent over a fruity-almost-candy-store scent. And with that trial endured, I was in my car driving.

Estes Park at two o’clock was bustling. No. Bustling is an understatement. The amount of foot and tire traffic was absurd. It took me what felt like hours to make left-hand turns, park, and cross streets. But, I kept reminding myself: soon I’ll be knee-deep in cold clear river water. I stepped into Kirk’s Fly Shop for some friendly advice, and made sure to buy a few flies as an act of gratitude. (Take note fly fisherman of the world! Buying a few courtesy flies is like leaving a tip…. do it!) My original plans were to fish the Big Thompson, Cache la Poudre, and Colorado rivers inside the park. But, it was late in the day and all the campsites in the park were occupied. So, Michael at Kirks directed me to the Big Thompson River below the dam, where I might hook into a nice sized brown or rainbow.

I drove down Route 34 a few miles, and pulled off the side of the road in a spot I felt was distant enough from the surrounding private property. As the I’m-about-to-fly-fish excitement built, I threw on my boots, harnessed my chest pack and jumped into the river.

The whole evening I saw only a few flies coming off the river—a caddis here, a stonefly there. Working with Michael’s advice, I started with a blue winged olive, and caught a brown within the first few minutes of fishing. Shortly afterward I switched between a royal wulff and caddis, hooking a handful of trout before the mountains encroached upon the Sun’s course.

What I’ve failed to mention is that during my Estes Park adventure I came to realize I had no place to rest my weary head. Both the visitor center in town and the ranger at Beaver Meadows informed me that the campsites were all full. So, I was in a bit of a pinch. Where would I sleep the night? I contemplated renting a room, but then I remembered I’m a poor graduate student. So, following the advice of the park ranger (lesson learned: always ask advice from a park ranger), I found a spot off of route Devil’s Gulch Road on the other side of Glen Haven and camped. Left sleepless by the worries of getting chased away by the police or eaten by a bear, I awoke the next morning at 5:45 to begin again, but this time I was heading into the Park.