Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Lower River Browns

The home team had the chance to go float the Green last week from the dam down to Swallow Canyon. The water was clear and cool between 1600 and 3000. We camped at Red Creek on river right. This is a beautiful camp spot in a big left hand bend with great views upstream and downstream. Get this: every fish in the net from Red Creek down was a Brown trout! The river below Jarvie fished like a private spring creek. We were the only boat for eight miles. Jimbo got busy eating two tone tan cheynoybil ants, stimmies, and tan elk hair caddis. There was the thickest Yellow Sallie hatch I've ever seen most of the afternoon, and a small creamy mayfly mixed in with the caddis all day. Up at Little Hole Steve-O had told us to try pulling caddis under water, and that worked whenever the gink gave out. The lower Green is such an elusive water to try to fish consistently. This is the first time in over a year and three separate trips that I have seen her clear. One of the cooler aspects of this stretch, besides the remoteness and awe inspiring scenery is that the trout are truly lower river Browns. Lower river alot of times means less crowds. The over achieving Rainbows like pushing up to the top in "Upper B", and "A" and fin against riffles. Rainbows in the Green don't have a gut like a Brown. They probably don't eat bbq. Don't misunderstand I like the Rainbow just fine, even though he is a bit of a show off... big pink stripe look at me type of fish jumping out of the water. The Browns in the Green have a good thing going down in their stretch of river. Their diet is unique to the rest of troutdom. The bio-diversity is stunning. Rumor has it the Lobo is afoot down there.










Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Springtime in the Rockies



It's spitting snow this morning. The snow flakes are globbed together and coming down erratically at sharp angles. Old Man Winter is named Billy Bob, and he's not going off stage easily. Ten miles from Hog Island is Buff (Buffalo) Pass last week the snow depth measuring site up there set an all time state record. That's any month anywhere ever since records were kept. Heck yeah! This is quality ammunition to tell the Grandkids on their way to the school bus. The Yampa hit a little 5 day window in there when the temps stayed low, and it snowed, and the run-off slowed down to where fishing looked up. Here's a cool picture of Carlos floating and holding a fat Rainbow on May 1 with the ski hill in the background. Springtime in the Rockies!