Colorado Adventures 2010: Part I

Corey and I met up in Denver two weeks ago for our annual fishing trip. All Summer I'd been looking forward to 7 days of rivers, mountains, and canyons. Due to severe rains in the southern part of the state, we made a last minute change to our plans and headed north for the first day...


I'd never fished North Park before 2008, but during my last year in Colorado it was one of my favorite areas. There are so many miles of public access, relatively little fishing pressure, and although you may not catch a lot of fish, you have a shot at catching a big one. We arrived mid-afternoon and fished for several hours with no luck. We made a quick run to a gas station for some sandwiches, set up our tent at the nearby Delaney Butte Lakes, and returned to the river for the "power hour". This is the time between sunset and complete darkness, and is the prime time to get into big fish. Our weapon on this evening was a mouse pattern.

Some people are surprised to hear that trout will eat mice. But when the conditions are just right, they will attack these critters with abandon. The stream we were on flows through a large meadow, which is prime mouse habitat. This time of year the farmers begin baling their hay, and a lot of those mice end up in the water. A mouse is an easy target and a significant meal for any trout big enough to eat it. We caught 3 trout in a period of 20 minutes, after an entire afternoon without a bite.

Corey started us off with the first big trout of the trip, an 18" brown that sipped the mouse off the surface like a mayfly.











Less than 30 feet upstream, I cast my mouse tight to the opposite bank and gave it a little swimming action before it disappeared in a satisfying "plop". I was very excited to see the largest fish I've ever caught in Colorado come to net. Look at the mouth on that thing!





I really couldn't have asked for more on the first day of our trip. We had the skunk out of the bag in a big way, we had great weather, and Corey got to fish a new area. I got up the next morning to fish the "other" power hour, from first light until sunrise. The first 15 minutes were great, with 2 more big fish on the mouse, but by 5:30am there was too much light on the water for these trout. I returned to the tent, grabbed a few more hours of sleep, and we broke camp to head to our next goal: climbing Pyramid Peak.