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Glenwood Springs Trip Report October 2016


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I went to Glenwood Saturday to stay with family.  This is my 4th trip to that area and I love it.    The weather the whole 5 days was high 30's in the morning to mid 70's in the afternoon and sunny.  It was absolutely beautiful.

They actually live in New Castle 12 miles down the road so on the first day after flying and driving in from Denver I hit the Elk Creek in town.The water flow was around nothing 20 CFS and I caught a few dink cut throats right before dark.

Day two My daughter and I floated with Dustin Harcourt of Harcourt 3G Fly fishing.  It was awesome fishing too!!!  He said the hatches don't come off till around noon so he picked up at 11. We put in at Two Rivers Park in downtown Glenwood and floated to Dinosaur which is about 10 river miles.  We only saw two other boats the whole day.   He had excellent equipment and we fished 10' rods.  My daughter a 4 weight and me a 5.  It was a bubble rig with 3 flies and only 5' to the terminal fly.  You could sling that thing with no problem.  The other great thing is we used 3 and 4X tippets on size 12 flies!!!  Talk about easy compared to 12' leaders and 6 X.

We caught fish from the second cast to the boat ramp at Dinosaur!  Nice wild fish too.

 

 

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A nice lunch of fried chicken.

 

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We lost count of how many fish we caught and they were wild and strong.  It was just a great day.  We fished from 11 to 5 with a short lunch break.

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Excellent report. I'm taking notes for my next trip west. 

His father touches the Claw in spite of Kevin's warnings and breaks two legs just as a thunderstorm tears the house apart. Kevin runs away with the Claw. He becomes captain of the Greasy Bastard, a small ship carrying rubber goods between England and Burma. Michael Palin, Terry Jones, 1974

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Dustin was a great guide!  I've fished with him before.  I always do a guide trip at least one day then I head out on my own.  I like the challenge of trying to catch fish on my own.  I'll post up my next two days of fishing by myself in a while.  One thing for sure.  They have an awesome fishery around Glenwwod.

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Is there much wading access the the Roaring Fork? 

His father touches the Claw in spite of Kevin's warnings and breaks two legs just as a thunderstorm tears the house apart. Kevin runs away with the Claw. He becomes captain of the Greasy Bastard, a small ship carrying rubber goods between England and Burma. Michael Palin, Terry Jones, 1974

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The second day I walked into the Colorado River off the highway.   It's very good fishing but real tough wading.  The boulders are massive and it's difficult to get around some of them to get to the eddies.

To get to river I had to climb an elk fence which is about 8-9' tall.  Then I walked up stream about a mile or so.  I could just barely see my car down on the shoulder of Hwy 70.  
 I caught a bunch of real nice rainbows that were 16 top 18 inches.  And just like on the guide trip they fought hard and leaped out of the water and cart wheeled downstream.  They are a real handful and fun.  On the guide trip we used baetis nymphs and all the specialty flies.  I've fished all over the US and I just use what I use in MO and AR.  Egg and San Juan worm. And they just hammered it.  I eventually got tired of climbing around the boulders and headed out after about 3 hours of fishing.

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The second day after lunch I drove to the Frying Pan and I made my way all the way up to the dam.   I got stopped on the way up for speeding but the cop didn't give me a ticket.  I love that water up there and I've caught some absolute pigs up there. I usually fish the flats below the toilet bowl which is at the base of the dam.  I like to swing a bugger up there because most people use mysis shrimp and real small stuff.  I rolled a big fish on my second cast and then was hung with moss the whole time. Fish were rising everywhere and I took the woolly booger off because of the moss only to get hung up with moss every drift with the dry fly. So I left and headed back down river.   I thought the fish were taking blue wing olives up there and sure enough I found one in my hair on the way back down river.
 

By the time I got down river to about the 5 mile marker and a place I've fished before it clouded up and gotten cold.  I thought it might bring on some blue wings but I think it was just too cold.

I did not catch a fish on the frying pan.  I think that's my first skunk on that river.
So at the end of the day I caught a bunch of nice ones and two dinks on the Colorado and rolled one fish on the frying pan.  

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Beautiful pictures and some fine fish. Yes if you don't mind I'll touch base next year if I can figure out a way to get a trip to Colorado in. 

Mike,

His father touches the Claw in spite of Kevin's warnings and breaks two legs just as a thunderstorm tears the house apart. Kevin runs away with the Claw. He becomes captain of the Greasy Bastard, a small ship carrying rubber goods between England and Burma. Michael Palin, Terry Jones, 1974

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