I like fish slime

The fall Brown Trout spawn is pretty much in full effect right now and there are plenty of big Browns, Bows and Cutts in the South Platte looking for a meal. I've been getting out a lot but it' mostly been at night. I think last weekend was the first time I had fished in the daylight in months. It's different. At night only the hammer heads come out to fish but in the day there is no shortage of folks that have no business holding a fly rod in their hands. Oh well...we all learned at some point. I just hate to see anyone mis-handling a fish. 

Friday I had the day off work and it was a bit of an odd day. Heather and I decided to take some old jewelry down to a coin shop that buys that kind of stuff. Some of the stuff was hers but a lot of it was her fathers. Once they were done looking at it all they started bagging it up. I got choked up and started to cry. I still miss that man and would give anything to smoke a cigar with him. 

A friend of mines father has been in ill for a bit now and he finally made the difficult decision to take him off life support earlier in the day. He passed away at about 2. I got to the river at about 5 and started walking in. At 6:10 I got a text alert. I never get texts up there but it was from my friend telling me that his dad had passed. I stopped fishing and sat on a rock by the bank. This is what the sky looked like. Although I was baptized Catholic, I don't really believe in God. I have my reasons but I've not been real happy with him or whatever exists out there for years. Years ago I studied Buddhism and I'd like to learn more about it because I felt like I identified with it. Maybe my father in-law and/or my friends dad had something to do with this light show. Either way it was beautiful. 

I saw some huge fish that night. Most of them spooked from my headlamp but this guy was camped out with several others. I didn't shine my lamp directly on them but kept looking at them out of the corner of my eye. I knew they were not on a spawning bed and was pretty sure the other 2 were both Bows (and they were). I wasn't out far enough and my fly kept swinging in front and then past them. I switched to my non-casting hand so I could get out a bit more and finally was able to get it to stall out right in front of them. It took about five minutes of teasing and this Buck took it. He was close to 24 inches and gorgeous. He took about 10 minutes to catch his breath but I love watching over the trout until I feel comfortable leaving them.

On Saturday I fished some still water with my belly boat but didn't do too much. My waders have so many holes in them that I was freezing after an hour. I got out and hiked for 3 hours. Tonight I tied up some eggs because I think I'm gonna get out in the daylight soon here. Here's a peach colored one.  

I also got some new boots and waders today. My current waders are made by Simms and they are about 10 years old and have done me really well. I won't use any other brand of waders. My boots were Chota because I have issues with laces. I hate them for fishing. In winter they always get frozen and they end up coming untied a lot of the time. I saw these Simms boots a while ago and was intrigued. They use the Boda lace system. We'll see how I like them. I also bought the Headwaters waders. I was stunned to find they were on closeout at a local shop for 60 bones off. I am not going to mention the name of the shop because I was very hesitant to give them my money because they were assholes. I dropped almost 500 clams and they wouldn't help much at all. One guy was way too interested in talking to a set of boobs. It was like he had never seen a set before. If I had not known how waders should fit, the differences between each model and how boots should fit I would have been clueless. Ironically, twice I've been in there in the last year and gotten shitty service, the same dipshit has been working. I'll see the owner on the water soon and maybe talk over a beer.

I also tied up some pink eggs, some clown eggs, and a few with milk casing.

That's it for now. It's incredible in the mountains right now. If you live in here get your ass outside and enjoy it. I can't remember when we've had a fall this nice. Hell I might even take off work tomorrow and go stalking. Supposed to be in the 60's!!!

Big fish

These pics are from Friday night. I got up there early enough to make sure that I could fish the upper section just below the spillway and get the hell to the fence line an hourish after the sun set. It had been about a week since I had been up there and I was stoked. As I dropped into the valley, I thought I was going to have a super calm night but when I parked the wind was howling. 

I never get cell reception up there but I always bring my phone with me because I listen to music and sometimes have to use the camera on it too. At 6:10 my text alert went off. That never happens. I checked it. It was a dear friend from work that wanted me to know that her father in-law had just passed away after they made the difficult decision to take him off life support. Immediately I was bummed for her family. I still think about my wife's father every day. I stopped fishing and sat on a rock on the shore and looked at the sky. I do not quite know what I believe in terms of higher powers or after life. For a few years I studied Buddhism but haven't in a while although it was something that I really connected with. I took this picture of the sky not long after while listening to the water run over the rocks. Maybe he had something to do with it? It was beautiful and he was certainly a ball of fire and a good man.

I fished for a bit longer after that picture and was couple bends above the safe zone. Eventually I was on the right side of the fence and I could see headlamps hiking in. I started hiking downstream and immediately started seeing big fish but they kept spooking. They might have taken a fly on a blind cast but that's just not my style. I kept covering ground. Eventually I came to boulder that I've seen a thousand times. With just a tiny bit of light, and using my peripheral, I could see about 3 big fish holding in front of the boulder. I swung a fat streamer in front of it. I wasn't able to get it to stall out where I needed it to without leaning way out and putting the rod in my non-casting hand. After about 5 minutes of teasing, I got him to take it. After I hooked him I moved down and looked by the boulder and saw 2 big Rainbows in there and felt good because I did not think he was getting freaky.

I like to think that I have pretty good eyes but even at night, it's hard for me. I'm not wearing polarized glasses, I'm not wearing my prescription glasses, I'm looking at a beam of concentrated light, and it's usually windy as shit. Again, I thought this fish was a maybe a husky 18 but it was pushing 24. It wasn't real fat but long and lit up. It took forever to revive this fish and the water was COLD but that's my favorite part because that's when they need you the most. I stayed with him for 10 minutes until he slid out and then I headed for the car.

Lights

With my wagon, I am always opening up the hatch to either put stuff in or take stuff out. I practically sit in the back when I'm getting ready to fish. I have always hated the stupid light back there because I can never find anything and it's frustrating when I night fish which I'm doing a lot lately. So I decided to take care of that tonight. This picture does not do justice to how useless the stock light is. 

I started by removing the headliner trim at the top of the hatch. Laying just above the trim piece in this picture is a 2 foot stretch of LED lights and they are super flat.

Once I got everything measured twice and lined up, I started drilling holes.

This was a pain in the ass. I did not feel comfortable just measuring once and drilling all of these holes so I did one and then taped the strip down and measured where the next hole should go and on and on. After all the holes were drilled I had to clean everything up.

I then hot glued the strip of LED's down and then checked to make sure I had the wiring correct before putting it all back together.

This is so much better than the stock light and it looks factory.

Next up I'll do LED's in the dome and map lights.