Coming Down With The Pike

With my friends Mitchell, Kevin, and Peter in town, we headed over the pass toward South Fork to fish the Rio Grande and chase pike.  The word from fly shops in the area was that the Rio Grande was fishing really well despite murky water coming down from the burned mountains around South Fork and Creede.  The fires had chased off almost all fishermen, and the dirty water meant that the few remaining anglers could throw huge flies.  Unfortunately, the night before our trip to the Rio Grande, a storm bypassed Lake City and hit South Fork and Creede.  We had no idea that heavy rain had fallen all night on the burned mountains, and we were devastated to find the brownest water we had ever seen.  We tried fishing it in a few spots with no luck.  It was so murky that you couldn't see the top of your own boots if they were further than an inch under water, so we kept moving further and further downstream in hopes of finding fishable water.

Despite covering about 50 miles, the water never cleared up, so we spent the afternoon targeting pike in a pond.  When we pulled up, we could see pike tailing in the shallows, and we pretty much sprinted over to cast to them.  But, again, no luck.

The four of us tried a bunch of flies before Kevin hooked into one.  He didn't have him on very long because he had borrowed Peter's rod, which was rigged up with extremely light tippet that stood no chance against the razor-sharp teeth of a pike.

After another hour or so, we gathered on the bank near a woodpile and decided that we had thrown pretty much every fly we had at these fish, so we started talking fly rods and which ones we liked the best.  That's when Kevin shouted over his screaming reel to grab the net: he had another one on!  Before we could get to the net, the fish was off.  We started to walk dejectedly back to our own spots when Peter started chuckling.

"Kevin," Peter laughed.  "Were you using my fly rod?  The one with the broken hook tied on?"

Kevin looked down at his fly; there was only a shard of a hook left.  "Dang it, Peter!  Quit sabotaging me!" Kevin shouted before he too broke down laughing.  "That fish really wanted that fly!  He wasn't hooked, he was just fighting me for it!"

Well, with that we figured out what at least one Pike was willing to eat, and before long Peter landed a nice 27-inch pike.  "That's probably my fish," Kevin pointed out.  "Nah, that's definitely my fish, you sabotaging jerk."

Pike pond with a storm coming in from the mountains

After the storm blew through, it turned into a pretty afternoon

Peter with his Pike

Check out those teeth!

Views from the Cabin

Becca, my parents, and Becca's huskies came to visit, so we did some hiking around the cabin above Lake San Cristobal.  I always keep my phone on me because you can't travel very far before you run into some breathtaking vistas.

Dakota poses above Lake San Cristobal

The pinnacles above the north end of Lake San Cristobal

Lake San Cristobal at sunset

Lake Fork of the Gunnison flowing into Lake San Cristobal

Searching for New Water

There is a lot of great water to fish around Lake City, and when the fishing is good, you can hit the same spots day after day and still get into good fishing.  But on this day, my friend Mitchell and I went exploring for some new, hard-to-access water that, if we could find it, would be even better than what we normally fish.

Trailblazing

Found the water, and some nice fish!

The afternoon rain stopped for our trek back

Another Beautiful Day on the Lake Fork

After several days of rain and clouds, things cleared up for a beautiful day of fishing.

Pretty wild rainbow

Cutthroat.  He splashed water on my phone to blur the picture.

Finally cooked up some trout from a pond.  Delicious, but a lot of work.  I'll probably stick to my staples: PB&J and pasta.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

After several great days of fishing in a row, I had to drop Scott off at the Montrose airport for his flight back to Texas.  On my way back to Lake City, I stopped by Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

All visitor centers should have marmots on display

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

The Gunnison River descends 34 feet per mile through the Black Canyon.  The Colorado River, by comparison, only drops 7.5 feet per mile through the Grand Canyon.

The Gunnison River churning through the bottom of the canyon, approximately 2,000 feet below.

The Black Canyon is only 40 feet wide in places, meaning little sunlight reaches the base of the canyon walls.  In that darkness, the canyon walls can appear black--thus the name "Black Canyon."

Another speck of the river showing at the base of the canyon

Straight down to the river bed

The "Painted Wall" (right side of the river).  Towering 2,300 feet above the river below, the Painted Wall is the tallest cliff in Colorado.

A lone juniper tree atop the canyon wall

You can see Uncompahgre in the distance on the left and the Sneffels Range (by Telluride and Ouray) on the  right.

The Gunnison River is dammed into a series of lakes, including Blue Mesa Reservoir (pictured)

 

Headed home