At the end of the Rainbow

This is probably my favorite time of the year. The Aspens change. The air starts to get cooler. The Elk rut and bugle. The Brown trout spawn. We've had snow in the surrounding hills for weeks now and it looks amazing. I'm not doing much riding right now at all. I'm not sure what's going on with that whole area.

I have been back on the water a lot again and that feels good. Things are coming back really quickly. Yesterday I fished back up at Spinney Ranch. That's one of the more technical spots in Colorado. There are no gifts and many people get skunked there. Yesterday I caught all Rainbows. I worked this one for a solid 20 minutes with a 2 fly nymph rig. I changed the bottom fly 4 times and then this one decided, for whatever reason, to smash the lead fly which it had already seen a hundred times and probably been hit in the head with a dozen times. Trout always amaze me. If you look closely, you can see a tiny little midge fly on the upper left side of the mouth. I noticed it right after this pic and decided to remove the piercing.

I probably caught 10 of these guys today. Eager little beavers they are. It's always nice to catch any trout but these boogers would rush in and take the fly right before it got to the bigger fish that I was actually targeting, and thus, ruining the hole.

This fish was hungry. It inhaled a Black Beauty on the first drift.

Most of the bigger fish I landed today were 14 with one flirting with 16. I did see several fish in the 18-20 range and one was laid right up on the bank. As soon as I saw it I dropped to my knees behind the tall grass and watched for 5 minutes to make sure it was feeding. It was. Then I decided to take a crack at it. I had to raise the rod up a bit to unhook the flies and I got busted. Truly amazing.

As much as I love catching big fish, I need to start to getting some flies lined up for a little trip I'm taking here real soon. The fish will be smaller but they are stunning. Almost like holding a wet painting in your hand.

Cars

Heather has just finished up her first three days of training at her new job. Things sound like they are going to be really cool for her. I'm almost a bit jealous. We initially thought she was going to be getting a Toyota Prius but yesterday her boss told her they were trying to get her a Jeep Liberty so travel on the Pass would be less dangerous. We're not sure what we will do with her Jeep now. This has opened the door to some preliminary discussions centering on vehicles for the kid. I love the green Subaru but we don't ever want to have 2 vehicle payments and this may be the time we get one newer vehicle.

I've always had car ADHD. There's lots of cars that I look at and think are cool but very few that I would actually ever want to own. The Subaru is sporty, roomy for gear, super on gas, it's a hoot to drive in the snow, and I have a thing for wagons. The one vehicle that I would like to get is a Toyota Tacoma but I know I can't afford one. The resale on those things is ridiculous. I cringe at the thought of a truck that has 100,000 miles on it and sells for $16 grand.

I also would love to have a VW Eurovan but, again, the resale on those is high. The other issue with that one is the inevitable transmission repair which could be 3 grand and it's only a matter of time with that.

A Jeep Wrangler would be fun but they don't seem very practical.

I'm more of a foreign car enthusiast but I sure do likes me a big fat Dodge Magnum. The HEMI would rock but I wouldn't want to fill it up at the pump. The SXT is the 250 horse motor and they make that one in AWD but I worry about that system for no other reason than I have no experience with it.

This brings me back to the Subarus and...my green one. It's different with all of the WRX and STI goodies we threw on it. It's fun to romp on it on the forest roads and I don't really care if it gets dinged. I also kinda want to see how many miles I can get the odometer to show.

It's hard being me.

My job....

is nuthin' but work so far this year!! I decided to reward myself with a trip to the river tonight. I'm so glad I went. It was stunningly beautiful. It's hard to tell in this picture but you can see where the water flows together more towards the right bank. This is a deeper pool that was really nice. The rest of that water is 6-8". Things are starting to pick up and some bigger fish are moving up from the reservoir below and gearing up for the fall spawn.

Those that have ever fished with me out here know that I DO NOT stay in one place long. I cover lot's of ground and I move quickly. I am constantly scanning and looking for fish that are feeding. If I see something and it's not feeding, I don't waste time casting. A lot of guys will fish holes that simply look "fishy" but I normally don't do that. Tonight I came across a nice spot and decided to give it a go. I pulled this beauty out on the second drift through. This is a cross between a Cutthroat and a Rainbow Trout. It's a Cutt Bow. They still have the red and purple colors that a Rainbow has but the background is real dark versus the silver and green you see on Bows. The tell tale sign of the Cutt is just below the jaw. You can see a noticeable orange slash on both sides. Looks exactly like someone slit it's throat.

I was a little worried about his one. She took a solid 5 minutes to revive and then I watched her for another 10 minutes to make sure she was gonna make it.

Horrible crowds.

Untitled from Chris Neumann on Vimeo.

Vehicles

I've had Cherokees longer than any other vehicle. It seems that every car manufacturer always has some repair specific to it. Every vehicle eventually needs brakes. I'm talking about odd ball kinda stuff. Eventually, every Cherokee has to have a new section of wiring spliced into the harness where it passes through the A Pillar because the door speakers and power windows stop working. They made the wires a tad short from the factory and the wire breaks at some point. Today I found out one of the repairs that is specific to the Subaru Impreza. God awful noisy swaybar bushings and end links. When loose, or dry or worn, they make a clunk sound that is EXACTLY like you'd hear on a VW, Audi, or Subie that had a bad upper strut bearing or top hat. The suspension on this car was bought brand new so I knew it wasn't that or a blown strut. So this morning I went to pull the entire sway bar off and go for a drive. As soon as I pulled out of the driveway I knew I found the culprit. The end links and bushing inside them looked fine. I pulled off the swaybar bushing themselves and they looked fine too. I lubed them liberally and threw em back on and torqued everything to spec. Done. Clunk gone. I hadn't realized how loud and often it did it until now. Supa quiet again. Worst part of the job was dropping the sub-frame but it was still a fun job.

The bears are HUNGRY right now!

It's a mad dash to put on some pounds before a long nap. We're seeing a lot of bears in town right now. On my way out this morning, I passed one of the Mexican restaurants by the house (not Casa Grande...the only time I've been there was when I promptly left after finding a hair in my beer). It's the other one. The name slips me right now. It doesn't look like much from the outside but they can burn it up in the kitchen. Anyways...one of their dumpsters has a wooden fence around it (more decorative really) but it was destroyed. It took me a second to realize that the dumpster was actually on it's side too so they weren't messing around last night. There's another restaurant in town that's got wonderful food. It's a bit pricey but it's a real treat to go there once in a while. It's the Swiss Chalet. I happen to know the owners and I ran into her the other day. She serves on the Chamber of Commerce and I wanted to ask her who I could contact to talk about trash containers and bears in our fair city. She happened to have a video camera with her and showed me footage from the day before of a big boar that was in the process of getting into their dumpster. I asked why the dumpster wasn't bear proof. She smiled and said, "It is". It's pretty impressive to see the damage even the small bears can cause. She said they've built the fence around their dumpster several times now and they just keep ripping it down. The metal rods that run across the top of the lids just don't hold up either. I watched the video as he bent that rod and flipped up the lid and slid on in as the lid closed behind him. I'd hate to open up that thing while taking the trash out after my shift and find him sitting in there.

A Tranquil Recon

I wanted to do a ride today and see some new stuff so I busted out the Gazeteer and Topofusion and threw something together. I headed out and started to make my way towards Divide via the back roads. Then I decided to ride into the Tranquil Acres area. Things pretty much dead end back that way. Not sure why but when we were looking at houses we were told to avoid looking in that general area. I figured I'd go back there on a bicycle and see what the fuss was all about. It's still pretty warm up here and this guy was on the move. I helped him expedite the process a bit.

I am horribly out of shape right now. It was a fun ride but there was no shortage of suffering and heavy breathing.

I saw this sign not long after making the turn into Tranquil Acres. Luckily, I fear no reprisal.

Way back where the road ends, there looked to be a trail connecting it to another subdivision further up in Divide. Some almost forgotten double track is what I found and that did the job.

Much of the early riding was this kind of stuff.

Eventually I popped out in Florissant. My plan was to grab lunch and a cold beer at this place called the Thunderbird Inn (hey...the sign says "Welcome bikers"). It's all I had been thinking about for the 10 miles prior. I get there and get off my bike only to see the sign on the door that reads, "Cash and local checks only...no credit cards". Who carries cash now days?? So I sat out front and ate some Gummi Bears, smoked almonds, and a Honey Stinger Waffle while I listened to folks inside hoot and holler and stared at a neon beer sign. Then I took off and started to make my way home.

On one particularly painful climb, I looked up and saw a big dog standing in the road 50 yards up and thought, "Really?" About a half second later he started barking and running straight at me. With no water bottles to spray him down with, I considered throwing some Sunkist fruit chews at him really hard but then I decided to talk like a jackass. It always seems to make Dharma and Bodhi happy. It worked and before long he was on his back letting me rub his belly. He paced me up the rest of the climb before I told him to go home. I ended up being out for a bit under 4 hours and covered 50 miles.