Bailey Creek

I just stumbled across this picture from summer '11 on Bailey Creek, southwest of Denver, CO.  Its a beautiful and continuous class V kayak run through a remote canyon. Towards the end of the run, the canyon flows through a granitic wonderland, with huge (200' wide) boulders scattered in the river channel to create small rapids. While the beginning of the run is definitely all Colorado boating, with tight, steep canyons and quick moves to be made, the granites at the end of the run inspire thoughts of Cali boating.

I'm in the white Jefe in the front center of the picture. My cousin, Ricky Hoberg is performing the move that I had just failed to do, and as a result, am facing upstream. The desired move is to slide off the dry side of the rock back into the current. Otherwise, you get pushed against the rock sticking out of the water just to the left of my bow, which can cause problems.

Just out of view in the bottom of the picture is a large hole, which by the time I had gotten my boat turned back around was right below my feet. The plunge was considerable, probably 6', and I had rolled into it without any forward speed. As my boat slipped over the edge and into the white foam below, I knew I was in trouble. I plunged vertically into the hole below, going so deep that almost my entire boat was submerged before returning to the surface upside-down. After waiting to be flushed from the hole, which didn't take long, I had to try and roll my boat back right-side up, which took about three or four exhausting and breathless attempts.

 On the edge of the river below, when you look upstream to what you have just run, that is the sweetest part. The steepness is apparent when looking back upstream. The adrenaline was flowing and the sun was shining. I don't think that I will ever forget that run.

Barbour Ponds Ice Fishing

On a pleasant friday afternoon, my friend Hamric and I headed to St. Vrain State Park, where the Barbour ponds are located. There are lots of ponds here that hold good fish and good ice for a portion of the year. This was my first time using my own ice fishing gear, including a homemade ice fishing pole, and also using my old auger with new blades.

I pulled my Dad's old hand auger from out of a pile of junk in the shed. My Mom, sister, and myself had probably given it to him as a Christmas gift some years ago. It had been well used until its replacement, the two stroke auger came along. The blades on it were so rusty that they would hardly even scratch the ice. It would have taken hours of effort to bore a hole with those blades that you probably would have had better luck with a pocketknife.

It is tough to recall which ones are old and which ones are new

But for $35 they sell the replacement blades, which can bore a hole like a squirrel on crack going after a peanut butter jar.  While I was buying the blades, I spent a few more dollars on the ice ladle that pulls out all of the chunks remaining from the auger, which is worth it in the long run.

After paying the $7 entrance fee, the attendant informed us that "sandpiper" was fished out, but there were people catching fish on "coot", "mallard", and "bald eagle". The ice was about 4-6", and generally safe.  We drove to mallard and got our gear/beer out on the ice.

Typical Ice Fishing jigs, with quarter for scale.

After being very impressed with the augers first drilling performance, I set up with a small jig with a 1/2 mealworm and splitshot, the typical ice fishing set up. I found the pond to only be around 5' deep. At its deepest we could estimate that it was only around 10' deep.

About 30 seconds after I had dropped my line in, and while I was helping Hamric set up his line, I saw my line run sideways out of the corner of my eye.  When your line moves in the hole, you know that a fish is playing with it down below. I cautiously picked up my rod, and gave it a small tug back. BAM! The fish set, and I pulled it out of the hole. Altogether, I'd had about three feet of line out.

It was a 12" stocked rainbow trout, not more than a minute after having put a lure in the water.

We fished Coot lake and Mallard lake catching lots of fish at each lake. The stocked trout there are hungry. The park ranger who checked our licenses told us that earlier in the year some ice fishers were pulling out 2-300 of these trout per day. Now that would be fun!

Hamric anticipating the next bite.

We caught 8 fish in the few short hours that we were there, and kept seven for a fish fry.

Even thought they were stockers, they still tasted good in trout tacos! The largest we caught was around 15" long.

My next investment into ice fishing will be some cleats. While it isn't too bad slipping around on the ice at first, after just a few hours it becomes annoying. Falling on the ice is painful as I have experienced. Right when you walk away from your pole, which could be after a half hour of sitting with no bites, you look back and the tip of your pole is wiggling. The line is swinging from side to side but you are five feet away. It is impossible to walk, you must dash headlong toward the pole before the fish gets away with your mealworm. But always your feet travel faster than your body without friction against the ice, and you come crashing down on your back knocked windless to lie and watch your line lie still in the water, the fish leaving the hook empty. Long story short, I think i'll make the small investment for some cleats.

All in all, Barbour Ponds in Longmont, CO has some good ice fishing. We were able to take home a nice stringer of fish for dinner and have fun doing it. For the price of $7 and some gas to make the drive from Boulder, it is some decent fishing!

Gross Reservoir Fishing

I headed out on the morning of the last weekend of October to Gross Reservoir with my friend Tate. Boulder's first storm had come through the region a few days earlier, dumping 6-8" all around. The shores were still a bit snowy that day, despite the 55 degree day following the snow. It was terribly windy as we got out of the truck, and we bundled up with all of our layers to stay warm. Heading around to the East side of an inlet to get on the leeward side of the wind, we fished the first inlet with everything we had, spoons, spinners and raps. Tate caught two little stockers there, to my none.

I was however more occupied with the quartz crystals I was finding along the shore. Pockets of quartz were visible in the granite, and they were lined with small milky quartz. Broken up pieces of pockets lay all around, some with crystals up to ~1.5 cm.  While most were heavily mineralized by either manganese or possibly a tungstate, some samples didn't have that typical black gunk.

As we moved down the shore, I had been getting a lot more "followers"chasing my lure back into shore, and soon enough caught a nice trout, eating size. The wind had calmed down to just a gusty breeze, and within the sunny areas was it quite pleasant. I thew the trout on a stringer and kept fishing.

Tate caught two more fish, but both were too small to keep. He was using a brown trout rapala and I was using a rainbow rapala when we caught those fish.

We fished around, exploring deeper waters and shallow coves and points, but found that most of the fish were centered around the windiest and widest point with a lot of rocks.

As it seems happen every time, the wind claimed a vast majority of my beer that I brought. Unattended cans somehow act like sails to the wind, ensuring that I only drink about 50% of what I pack in. Lesson learned: bring 2x as much beer as you think you need.

I took "Earl" home to grill. The fish deserved a name after accompanying me around the lake, being plopped in the water every time I stopped to fish and sometimes flung in the snow while I tripped over logs on the snowy shores. But as I gutted Earl, I found that it was a pregnant female fish, who hadn't been finding much to eat lately. Nonetheless, she tasted great.

Right before the snow came I harvested my basil from my garden and made some pesto. With a big glop of this into Earline's belly and some aluminum foil, I was set.

After it came off the grill, I peeled back the aluminum foil, and when the skin comes with it, you know it is done.

After dinner, I walked outside to cover the grill only to find a beautiful crescent moon, a great ending to my fishing experience.

Radium Hot Springs

 I love hot springs. Hot tubs are modeled after these, so are bath tubs, but neither of these are created naturally in remote places. Radium hot springs sit right on the edge of the Colorado river, a short ways away from Kremmling, CO.  Radium usually stays around 97 - 98 degrees, but I have soaked it both cooler and hotter. Fishing from the hot springs is phenomenal. I've witnessed fish be caught from someone sitting inside the hot springs (that would be Forrest, who can catch a trout out of a sand dune), and kicked myself whenever I forget my pole. Whatever the temperature, it never fails to please.

 

     Hot springs come from fissures (or cracks) in the earths crust which are filled with water. This water once was in close proximity to a hotspot or magma body, and it has boiled up through the fissure to create the hot spring. I'm guessing that because the pressure on the water is so high, when it reaches high temperatures within the crust it can't just become water vapor, and becomes super-heated. Hydrothermal action that makes hot springs also deposits some very interesting minerals, like pyrite and fluorite.

 To get to the spring, a short hike is required after parking at a forest service campground and hiking directly up the hill. My favorite time to go is right at sunset, because in the summer and fall the sun sets directly over the river, creating quite the pretty sight. During rafting season they sometimes bring loads of people by to come sit in the springs, so watch out during the day. The campground and parking for the springs is remote and has ample room, and can make a good takeout camp for Gore Canyon, a class IV+/V- whitewater run.

Directions: From Kremmling, head South and cross the Colorado River. At the top of the hill, take a right (west) turn where a wooden sign says "Radium". It is a decent ways on this road, somewhere around 15-20 miles, but a notable feature that your aren't there yet is a paved pass, that means your close! Take a right (north) turn onto CO Hwy 11, at the bottom of a small but steep gulch, and go straight until you arrive at the campsite. Look for the pictured cliffs, the trail splits up, but head to where there are some trees along the bank of the river.

The Flattops; good backpacking and great fishing

   Objective: Spend four days in the Flattop Wilderness of Colorado, and to pack out every pound of food that we packed in.

The skillet is cast iron and about 12" in diameter.
Cast iron works best for fish because it evenly
 distributes the heat.

   In the second week of August, in the year 2010, we did almost that. From Boulder, my friend Henry and I drove to Steamboat, picked up Aaron, and headed to the east side of the wilderness boundary. Parking just below Stillwater reservoir at just about noon, we hiked to the north side of the reservoir and dipped our lines. After about 5 casts, I had caught a fish, a decent 13" brown trout. Henry soon followed with his fish, as I continued to work my way down the shore. As I reeled in another, and Aaron had yet to catch one, he gave up his pole and went to get the stove and cast iron pan out, and begin to gut the three we had already caught. We were all hungry, and had been imaging eating nothing but trout for the next 3 days, which appeared to be a very real possibility. By the time the first two had cooked, we got another two small ones, bringing our total to five fish for lunch. Only about an hour into the trip, and we all had our bellies full of fresh-caught and fresh-cooked (out of the water and into the pan) trout.

Looking back down on Stillwater Reservoir from the top of the Flattops

                        
                                                             


                                              
                                                                



                                       The three of us bushwhacked right into the thick of it coming across mushrooms (including edible boletus, which we picked), small ponds and cricks and tall grass. We found a small lake to make camp at, and fished with great success for dinner. The forest there, despite it making a comeback from a disease which resulted in a large fire in the 1940's, is very healthy consists mostly of trees of only one age. The dead trees from long ago can make going tough though, as they all blow down in different directions, and were quite large trees. There are no trees above the top, as the basalt that makes up these tops is hard, and the winds must be ferocious at times. We hiked across the flattops to a lake situated on a shelf of basalt, right below the top lip. It was called "Suprise Lake". Right before our descent into the suprise, we saw some sheepherders, whose dogs barked ferociously at us. It made me realize that I had left my ice axe (more for protection and utility than ice) about a mile and a half back. Oops. We continued for camp, and a large white sheephearder's dog kept following us.

Our view from the small lake the night before we hiked to "Suprise Lake". It was about 1800 vertical feet, and steep!

 











                  










                        It was really nice, actually, this dog. It wasn't one of those that had been barking at us, and it just kept wandering around, keeping an eye on us. Once we had a fire, it came by and sat with us and allowed us to pet it. Henry decided to call her "Marisol". She left, though, dinnertime we had supposed. We fished the lake after setting up camp, and of caught dinner within the last hour of sunlight. It turned out the dog slept right by where we were camping, and it was a good thing. That night we all woke up when we heard crashing and the breaking of branches. The smell of our dinner had brought in a bear, just like we had expected. Our bear bag was tied between two spruces, about 25 feet up, but our clothes, which smelled like delicious fish and in our tents, that is what scared us. Right after we made sure we were all awake and had in fact heard a bear, Marisol started barking close by. She barked for about an hour, making sure that bear didn't come back.

   On the second day, it rained. The morning was cloudy and before noon it was pouring. We napped and tried to keep the fire going, but there wasn't much we could do but stay under the tarp and stay warm. The tarp, by the way, was mine and had my sleeping bag and pad in it, but neither Aaron's or Henry's tents were large enough for all three of us, and so my tarp was the place to be. This whole hanging out under my tarp thing was really a drying off from tending to the fire kind of thing, and my bag and gear all got soaked as a result. But it turned out to be o.k., because right as the sun set, the rain stopped and we were rewarded with and awesome sunset, and a few minutes to dry our clothes in sunlight and by the fire. The fish that night and next morning didn't bite, so the last morning we all took turns swimming in the lake. There's not too much nicer than skinny dipping in a cold fresh lake of mountain water, with the sun shining and a warm fire to return to. We didn't quite pack out all of our food like we had hoped, but we were all tired of eating fish, so I deem it a success.