Colorado-pic heavy

[natureboy]

The first night was spent in a cabin on the banks of the Big Thompson River, just outside of Estes Park, Colorado I fished there that evening and caught several nice browns and one bow on a red quill emerger, sorry no pics from that portion of the voyage.  The following day we picked up the backcountry permit and started out at the Bear Lake trailhead, this portion of the voyage ended two days later at the Fern Lake trailhead.




Coming in from the top, Odessa Lake.

In the same area there is Fern Lake



and Spruce Lake



They're all in the neighborhood of 10,000' and all have native greenback cutthroats in them.

The sky was angry that day my friends and we had to wait out a thunderstorm, complete with dime-size hail under the rainfly for my tent, on the hike in.



I didn't take a tremendous amount of fish pics, but it was 'on' for about the next day and a half as we camped at Fern Lake for two nights, then hiked out the third morning.  It was very cool casting to cruising cutts, caught most of them on ants, some on an rs2 dropper.  Dapping and roll casting from shore was the most productive method for me.  Here are but a few of the fishes.

























As we found our way out the scenery wasn't bad either...






















Mileage for this portion of the trip was around 12 miles.  To be continued...

[natureboy]

Well the second half of the trip wasn't as good as the first half.  Did a lot of driving, hoteled it two nights and camped two nights.  Stayed in Grand Lake one night (good brewery) and in Keystone one night (good margaritas in the Mexican joint) because I forgot to book a hotel near fishing and they were all sold out...  The sights were good and the wildlife was cool, the weather didn't cooperate so well either...  Drove back to estes park one day because of rain and drove back up fall river road which is a one lane dirt road that takes you to the top of the world basically.  I did fish Arapaho Creek a for a few minutes and picked up a few bows and brookies.  The last full day I got to fish the Colorado below the Williams Fork and it took me a couple hours to figure it out, but once I did it was on and it was awesome, till the sistainlaw complained enough that we had to leave   :(  Here are the photos.

From the Visitor Center.




Upper Colorado


Arapaho Creek


Monarch Lake




Upper Arapaho Creek


Fall River/Horseshoe Park


Driving up Fall River Road in the evening after a rainstorm.






Finishing up on the Colorado.

[natureboy]

And for the critters.  Though there were tales of bears and mt lions in the area, we saw none, also didn't come across any bighorn sheep.

There were squirrels


munks


Birds


Elk (though we didn't see many of them...sob's like the inhospitable terrain)


Phenomenal photography skills on display here...

Couple of muleys



A bunch of moose











A mangy looking fox


And for Al, whistle's western cousin

[Woolly Bugger]

Looks like a most excellent adventure!

I've got to get out there, wify gave me a guide day on the Platte!

Makes me want to book the flight!

[peter p]

And why did I think moving from CO to NC was a good idea?  Somebody please remind me?

[troutphisher]

Dam fine Pic's NB!

[calebB]

Nice looking streams.   Wish I was there.

[jscagline]

...man, I can't wait to go!

Most excellent post and pics, thanks for sharing!

Jim

[waffo56]

Never fished Colorado, just Montana. But the pics you took were beautiful.
Those mountains never fail to make my heart start thumpin'. Glad you
had a great time and caught such beautiful fish.
Waffo56

[AlaskaBill]

Great Post. Thanks