Acristickid
Well-known member
Took an unplanned, unexpected fishing trip to Colorado. My stepson is big into baseball and his season just concluded about 3 weeks ago which puts any other activities on hold. The world came to a screeching halt when baseball ended and was faced with sitting around for 3 weeks until school starts.
I figured let’s go fishing and as it happens I had some native Cutthroats in Colorado to pursue. So rapidly we made some plans to go out in about a few days time.
Colorado made quite a mistake years ago planting Cutthroat they thought was the Greenback. Turns out it was a Colorado Cutthroat. Several years ago I had fished for the “Greenback” in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park under the biologists suggesting fishing above the bridge on the Big Thompson River where the “wild” fish were.
Well, they became aware of the error and realized that only one stream “Bear Creek” had the only pure Greenback. This would not be the only Cutthroat that still persists because someone moved them to a fish less stream. You can read up on Greenbacks as I won’t delve into the details of that.
We fished a small stream and after we settled in for a bit we’re able to catch a few Greenbacks. It was nice to clean that up and get it right.
We then took a drive south on 550 - if you haven’t been on that road it’s a twisty scenic road.
We were into another somewhat recently discovered “San Juan Colorado Cutthroat”. We were able to fish a stream that had been rehabilitated and had native San Juan’s. It was a beautiful meadow area that had good numbers of fish. We got into them quickly. Great!
The next day we fished a Wilderness rainbow-brown river to get our wilderness experience. We hiked 3 miles above private property and began to fish the Los Pinos river. Very scenic and peaceful. I thought we would catch more fish but maybe we started too early as the water was cold. We did see an increase in hookups as the heat of the day was on. My stepson was in a zone and I did more sitting not trying to wear myself out. Good experience.
The next day we took more of a leisure trip by floating the San Juan tailwater in New Mexico. It’s maybe an hour south of Durango. We float with Brian from Duranglers. He was excellent. It was a water loaded with fish. The only negative was it was all nymphs really. We fished very small 20-22 midge pupa and emergers. They were very effective. It was hot and sunny for us anglers but the water is freezing. You certainly do not need to float this river to be very successful- my tip is fish the take outs in morning and puts late in the day. There were lots of boats but didn’t not effect the fishing. Great experience and nice not have to hike around.
Now the move was to check and see if there would be an opportunity to fish for the most recently discovered Cutthroat- the Hayden Creek Cutthroat. Thankfully, the biologist pickup the phone and after a few minutes was able to suggest a stream.
Hayden Creek suffered a fire and biologists went in and electro shocked the stream and removed as many of the Cutthroat as possible. They did this for what they expect after forest fires which is rains and runoff filling in and chocking the stream with ash and mud. They were successful in capturing some and were able to breed some at a hatchery while biologists looked for fish less suitable streams to plant them. We were able to find stream with these newly planted pure Hayden Creek Cutthroat. We earned it!! 5 hour drive. 1 hour hike , rough bushwhack fishing for 2 hours , 1 hour hike out , hour and half drive and day almost concluded in Pueblo CO.
We ended up in the San Isabel Nat Forest chasing a newly discovered cutthroat. Ladies and gentlemen may I present to you the Hayden Creek Cutthroat!! I highly doubt many anglers have caught one of these.
Then there were 3!
3!
Eagle lake rainbow- CA
Little Kern River Rainbow-CA
Pink Salmon- Pacific Northwest
Whoa!!! Hopefully next year it will be a wrap.
I figured let’s go fishing and as it happens I had some native Cutthroats in Colorado to pursue. So rapidly we made some plans to go out in about a few days time.
Colorado made quite a mistake years ago planting Cutthroat they thought was the Greenback. Turns out it was a Colorado Cutthroat. Several years ago I had fished for the “Greenback” in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park under the biologists suggesting fishing above the bridge on the Big Thompson River where the “wild” fish were.
Well, they became aware of the error and realized that only one stream “Bear Creek” had the only pure Greenback. This would not be the only Cutthroat that still persists because someone moved them to a fish less stream. You can read up on Greenbacks as I won’t delve into the details of that.
We fished a small stream and after we settled in for a bit we’re able to catch a few Greenbacks. It was nice to clean that up and get it right.
We then took a drive south on 550 - if you haven’t been on that road it’s a twisty scenic road.
We were into another somewhat recently discovered “San Juan Colorado Cutthroat”. We were able to fish a stream that had been rehabilitated and had native San Juan’s. It was a beautiful meadow area that had good numbers of fish. We got into them quickly. Great!
The next day we fished a Wilderness rainbow-brown river to get our wilderness experience. We hiked 3 miles above private property and began to fish the Los Pinos river. Very scenic and peaceful. I thought we would catch more fish but maybe we started too early as the water was cold. We did see an increase in hookups as the heat of the day was on. My stepson was in a zone and I did more sitting not trying to wear myself out. Good experience.
The next day we took more of a leisure trip by floating the San Juan tailwater in New Mexico. It’s maybe an hour south of Durango. We float with Brian from Duranglers. He was excellent. It was a water loaded with fish. The only negative was it was all nymphs really. We fished very small 20-22 midge pupa and emergers. They were very effective. It was hot and sunny for us anglers but the water is freezing. You certainly do not need to float this river to be very successful- my tip is fish the take outs in morning and puts late in the day. There were lots of boats but didn’t not effect the fishing. Great experience and nice not have to hike around.
Now the move was to check and see if there would be an opportunity to fish for the most recently discovered Cutthroat- the Hayden Creek Cutthroat. Thankfully, the biologist pickup the phone and after a few minutes was able to suggest a stream.
Hayden Creek suffered a fire and biologists went in and electro shocked the stream and removed as many of the Cutthroat as possible. They did this for what they expect after forest fires which is rains and runoff filling in and chocking the stream with ash and mud. They were successful in capturing some and were able to breed some at a hatchery while biologists looked for fish less suitable streams to plant them. We were able to find stream with these newly planted pure Hayden Creek Cutthroat. We earned it!! 5 hour drive. 1 hour hike , rough bushwhack fishing for 2 hours , 1 hour hike out , hour and half drive and day almost concluded in Pueblo CO.
We ended up in the San Isabel Nat Forest chasing a newly discovered cutthroat. Ladies and gentlemen may I present to you the Hayden Creek Cutthroat!! I highly doubt many anglers have caught one of these.
Then there were 3!
3!
Eagle lake rainbow- CA
Little Kern River Rainbow-CA
Pink Salmon- Pacific Northwest
Whoa!!! Hopefully next year it will be a wrap.
