Mission: Token Trout Grip

People frequently ask me if I fly fish for trout at all.  The query is usually a little wide-eyed and scandalous so I give the answer people are looking for which is "Hell no".  Of course I am lying.  Mostly lying.

I don't often go out of my way to target trout anymore but when I am up at our family cabin and the opportunity presents itself I am all over it.  Now this is not the trout fishing you may picture.  We are not talking big rivers and big fish.  Give me anything wider than about 10 feet and I am clueless but drop me on a 5 foot wide willow creek at 10,000 feet and I am living deadly.  Significantly more so than for carp actually because this is where it all started for me.

This week we were up at our cabin for a fourth of July family vacation.  It was probably one of our best vacations ever and for the most part fishing was the last thing on my mind.

Of course everywhere you look there are awe inspiring vistas.  I have too many pictures of those.  Except you can never have too many pictures of those.

We took four wheel drive trips and hikes to historic sites.  After looking at a bunch of the miner cabins I can tell you one thing for sure.  My wuss ass would have lasted 10 minutes in the gold-rush!

Everywhere we went the valleys were virtually covered in wildflowers and butterflies.

We went rafting right down the stretch of the Taylor River that filthy rich bastards would like to claim as their own to the exclusion of all others.  Class three may have been a little over the top for our first rafting trip but after the first half hour we settled in and had a blast.  It was one of the funnest things we have ever done as a family and I sincerely hope to do it again.  We will see, these particular land-owners are ridiculously obnoxiously wealthy.   

Most cities in Colorado cancelled their fireworks but Gunnison held to the notion that if the professionals did not put on a show the amateurs would put on hundreds.  I am sure that infusion of cash the show brings to this small mountain economy had nothing to do with the decision.  Ignore me, I am jaded and either way they ended up having several hours of rain right before the fireworks and everything went off with a harmless bang.

At one point I did happen to look up and realize that I was irrelevant and unnecessary for an hour.  Just enough time to throw on my waders, walk down to the creek and initiate "Token Trout Grip".  This post will self destruct in 20 seconds.

When your time on your heritage waters is limited to an hour or three a year you don't mess around.  You head straight for the home-run hole.  The sure thing.  The 3 cast tomato sauce hole that is always good for getting off the skunk stench.  You know the one.

It's the one holding Fly-Carpin's annual trout.

After that it was a little slow.  It took me a good 10 minutes to get back in the groove and sink into my youth.  To remember how to bounce a dry fly off the bank into a pocket the size of a tin-cup.  To remember how to cast so that my fly and only my fly hits the water.  To find the places in-between.  In between current and still.  Between deep and shallow.  Between eddy and main.  Between 2 feet of fly line out of the end and way too much.  Lets call it an even dozen in half an hour and call it good.