Gunnison and Taylor

Gunnison/Taylor Weekend

Fall Colors!

I managed to get out and fish the Gunnison and Taylor river last weekend with a Jason and Eric. We left Denver about 5:30pm on Thursday night and made our way to Cottonwood Pass. We we arrived to me Eric at the Camp site, we found his truck and camper in pretty rough shape. LOL. Sorry Eric, but this story is too great not to tell. Eric ended up following his GPS device against his own better judgement, hoping to cut his trip in half by going over Aspen to Taylor pass to drop down in Taylor Park. He was driving his Tundra while pulling his camper and raft on top of the camper(see the set up below). The Taylor creek pass is not for the non 4 wheeler, we have heard stories of this pass eating up Jeep 4wheelers, it is more tailored to 4 wheelers then all terrain vehicles. (check out a few videos on 4 wheeling Taylor Pass on Youtube. you will get the idea of what he did, lol. ) He went and made it over the pass after two hours of white knuckled driving and smashing his truck and camper up pretty good. He basically played pinball off boulders with the truck n camper in tow. He managed to crush his water tank below the camper, bend an axial, smash the steel stairs and completely tore apart his wheel wells on the truck. It was a good one.

The pinballed truck.

As for the fishing. We floated the Gunnison from Almont to North Bridge. Got a later start but was good, because we had the river pretty much to ourselves for the day. Only saw a few other fisherman on the water in a few pockets up near Almont. We caught fish through out the day. We hooked a few Salmon, but none were landed. All in all it was a good day, not a large amount of fish caught, but fish were caught.

Before Fridays Launch.

Saturday we power waded the middle and upper Taylor. It was a different story today. Fishing was good, caught a ton of fish today, small, medium sized and few bigger browns. We fished until just before the sun went down, and as the sun was setting, we made our way up to the dam to fish for a few hours. We fished the dam from 7-9:30 or so. As soon as we got the dam, I started hooking fish immediately. Caught a few bigger browns and lost a few bigger fish on the 6x tippet I was using. Eric caught several nice browns as well.

Got off the river and headed back to the campsite to make dinner and do some maintenance work on the trailer so Eric could drive it back to Eagle. The major thing was removing the stairs from the trailer that was crushed up against the tire. As soon as Eric got that off he was hopefully good to go. Sat around the fire drinking some whiskey and just relaxing, before turning in for the night.

Sunday we were up early and got camp broken down and the trailer down, raft on top of the camper and headed up to the dam for a few hours of fishing before heading home. Got up to the dam and all hooked fish. I found the right fly right of the bat. A size 22 chartreuse and grey jujubee. I started hooking fish pretty consistently and got the Jason and Eric set up with some flies. Then it kinda of died down for me. Still hooking big fish, but not landing any. Breaking me off pretty quickly straiten out the hook. Jason how ever landed a pretty nice bow, with a ripped lip most likely from a treble hook of sorts. Just before noon we packed it up went up to the vehicles broke down, had a beer and headed home. Great trip, fun times and good story

provided by Eric.

Jason with ripped Lip

Rod Bush new species of plant?

The smashed up Tundra pulling the rig.

A nice brown I caught on the Taylor

Jason with his bow

Dam Brown by Eric, great expression.

I caught one!

Fall Colors

More fall colors.