Fishing the Blue River

I took a little drive up to the Blue River with my buddy Dave yesterday. It was a great time on the water and I was able to pull in a few decent size rainbow trout. The main thing that I learned was that it is possible to be a really great fisherman. I would fish a spot for 30 minutes or so with no luck and Dave would walk up and pull a fish out within a few casts. I'm still working on that.

I can't wait for Dad, Matt and Anthony to get out here with me in September.

Matt and Dyladihno in Colorado

Matt and Dylan flew in to visit me on Friday. We had a great weekend going to ball games and touring RMNP. I'll let Matt put together most of the Pics for his video but here are a few from the weekend.

Old Friends, New Places - Backcountry RMNP

My old friends Brandon and Kodiak were in Colorado this weekend and we had a full weekend planned!

We got a late start hitting the trail so we ended up walking about 2 of the 6 miles to our destination in the dark. If you've ever backpacked with 50lbs on your back, you know the only way to make it worse would be to have the steepest part of the trail be done in the complete dark. That's pretty much what happened to us. As our bodies were beginning to shut down, I decided that the next camp site we rolled by would become ours, even if someone was in it. Luckily my main man JC was keeping an eye out for us and we stumbled across an empty site located right on the banks of Pear Creek. We set up camp for the first night soaking wet and freezing cold. After warming up and eating some space food, we had a few great laughs at some of the delusional motivational conversations that we had along the trail. I was keeping a rolling time on my watch so we could find our pace and have somewhat of an idea of how far we've gone. We kept a pretty rapid pace of about 2 miles per hour according to my calculations. I don't think my buddies thought it was too clever when they found out that I had been lying about our time to keep everyone motivated to keep moving. But I guess somebody's gotta do it.

Here is our first camp site.

The next morning we were woken up by Brandon around 5:30 AM. I guess he was still on Georgia time.

We hit the trail to climb the quarter of a mile up to our official base camp.

We set up the fishing gear and hit the water as soon as we could.

Here is Brandon trying his luck for the first time on a fly rod.....and possibly even his first time on any fishing rod. You be the judge.....

Much to my disappointment, Kojak was the first to get one. He hooked a nice Greenback Cutthroat, the state fish of Colorado and a fish that was believed to be extinct only a few years ago.

After seeing him catch a fish, and having no luck of my own, I knew we had to move fishing holes fast before he whooped me. We made another climb for about a half mile and got up to a little spot that shall remain name-less, in case some fly fishing spy is reading this (not very likely, but I'm learning that this is the way of the true fisherman, never giving up his good holes)

I caught a fish from the top of this rock face and from that point, it was on!

We were pulling trout out left and right for the rest of the day! Kodi and I ended up catching 8 a piece. Brandon got skunked on the day, but at least he tried.

The next day we packed it up and headed back home!

Sunday we had big plans of hitting Wash Park and then going out to Red Rocks. We decided to sleep all day and be fresh for Red Rocks.

The opener was Rebelution followed by one of our old school favorites from college, O.A.R.

I'm pretty sure the fellas loved being at Red Rocks!

First Fish

I woke up Saturday morning with the ich to get out on the water and try my skillz fly fishing. Well, I think that was what that ich was. Anyways, I headed up to Clear Creek in Golden, CO, home of the Coors factory. Much to my surprise, I caught my first trout using a fly rod. It was a beatiful little rainbow trout. I was hooping and hollering all by myself in the creek. As "they" say out here in CO regarding fly fishing, "the tug is the drug" (save your jokes). It may be true, because now I can't wait to get back out there and keep fishing.

Here are a few pics from my fishing spot.

 I was waist deep in that little hole when I caught my first rainbow trout.

 Oh, this picture here is the reason that I don't have a picture of the fish. By the time I scrambled to the bank to grab my phone and take a picture, the fish had slipped away. If I hadn't set up my camera to take this gooberish self photo, I would've been able to snap a photo of the rainbow before he jumped out of my hand. But I had no plans of catching a fish so I thought the only proof of me being out there would be this photo of myself. Yes, I am ashamed............

 And one more thing.............I ended my weekend out on the golf course. Pretty sure I'm going to whoop up on Matt and Anthony next time we play.

The new spot I stay at

Sorry to take a break from the great outdoors but I had to move this past weekend. Below is the new house. I'll post more pics once we get all set-up. Also, I've got a little landscaping project going on in the back yard. I'll keep you posted on that too.

 The place has a great cottage feel to the inside

 The kitchen could use some updating but I'll survive

 This is where "the magic happens" - MTV Cribs style

 The King's Throne....where the real magic happens

 Oh, I might have slipped out to play 18 at Overland on Sunday. Ooops

The lucky turn

This Saturday Kristie and I decided to head up to the Leadville area to do some exploring. When we rolled into town there was a storm brewing so we decided just to drive and enjoy the scenery.

It's a beautiful drive along the headwaters of the Arkansas River.

About 10 miles outside of town we decided to turn up Independence Pass and explore. After passing Twin Lakes and Mt. Elbert, we cruised several more miles up the pass where we saw a few cars pulled over on the side of the road. The bird dog inside of me knew something good must be up this way so we swirved in and hit the trail. Here are a few photos of the hike.

At this point (2 minutes into the hike) Kristie really had to use the bathroom. Unfortunately, I had to point out the sign that informed her that this was a "No P" area and she would have to hold it.

This is a great little waterfall that we just stumbled upon

That's Kristie up on the bridge. My guess is that she was peeing in the water as she is a convicted pool pee'er

Here's one of the bridges we had to take to get up the mountain. Looks like Matt built it if you ask me

After our hike we got back in the car and decided to drive up the service road just to see what was up ahead. Much to our surprise we discovered one of the coolest areas of the state that I've seen.

The road carried on along this river up into the valley and into the mountains

This is the campsite I've been dreaming about (below)

Can't ask for much better

The road continued up the valley into an aspen grove

Where we finally came to this old mining cabin that looks like its being used as a ski hut in the winter

Overall it was a great day with great views that we would have missed if it weren't for one lucky turn.