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.

3M acquires Ross

Now that 3M has acquired Ross Worldwide, will 3M expand on the Scientific Angler brand with Ross or will Ross help expand the Scientific Angler Brand. A few things to watch. Is this a sign that once staple manufactures are getting gobbled up by bigger corporate brands for the better or for the worse. A few things to ponder. Will Rod makers start lowering their price of their high end rods to meet a financially strapped person or will you save all your pennies to get that higher end rod. With this acquisition of Ross, who will be next.

Cheesman Canyon Gill Trailhead Clousure

Just FYI out there to all you hikers that like to hike into Cheesy Canyon. The lower trail from the parking lot is closing here soon for some repairs, see details below.


The Trail Head Lot will be closed by the USFS (the big lot off of Rt 126 -- scheduled closure is from Tuesday, October 12th, for 6 -7 weeks - which brings it re-opening around November 23rd thru the 30th

The closure is to allow them to store construction equipment to repair the culvert under FSR 211, the road that runs up to the dam - they plan to dam up Wig Wam Creek, pump that water past the culvert & road back into the Creek, dig out all the sediment and drop the culvert down 10 feet, where it originally sat - it is currently just a foot below the road - an emergency repair after last summers nasty floods.

At some time during the project, FSR 211 will be closed for about 7 days - which means no access to the Canyon will be available - good news is that the program will not muddy up Wig Wam Creek - at least that is the theory - since they will pump clear water past the in-creek work.

These dates could be moved back, depending on the diving work schedule currently ongoing at the dam - can't close the road if the divers are not done.

While FSR 211 remains open, access to the Canyon will still be available from the dam trail - the one where I have to bring oxygen tanks and Sherpas to carry me out

We will keep updates on the weekly report as we are advised by the USFS - the old dirt parking lot (the good o'le one) will not be opened during the closure - so basically no one will be able to access the lower Gill Trail (by parking legally) for the duration of the project -- and I can assure you that cars not parked legally will be ticketed - and legal parking will not exist.

But - we are looking at setting up a shuttle service from the shop to the trail head - just depends on how much of the trail is closed off - as we learn more on the project (and what will be open or closed) we will keep you advised

The service, if implemented, will not be free, but as reasonable as we can make it - all depends on response from all of you - so spread the word to all your Canyon buddies - have them send a short e-mail to us if they might be interested in such a service - we will take it from their.

IFTD Show

Well, I got to go down to the International Fly Tackle Dealer Show last Thursday and got to meet some really good folks and talk to a few folks. Didn't have much time to see all the new gear and gadgets for the upcoming season. Got to talk to the Dusty at the Scott Booth for a few minutes and talked to John over at Hardy briefly and sat down with Mark with Partridge of Redditch for most of the time I was the show. The outcome of that meeting is that I am going to to be steep in tradition and aligned with a hook company willing to think outside the box and give some of the other hook makers a run for their money. I am now a proud member of the International Pro Team with Partridge. This is a truly a great honor and looking forward to many years with them. I am in good company too. The likes of Oliver Edwards, Marvin Nolte, Barry Ord Clarke, Ad Swier, Morten Oland, Jukka Taipo, Edward Muzeroll and myself. So at this year's demo's Ill be tying on Partridge hooks. Look for some really neat things from this company in the near future. Mark of Fishing Matters which also represents Varivas, Owner, American Fishing Wire, Marryat and others is getting deep in the Partridge tradition and working to restore the company back to its heydays. .

Partridge of Redditch has been under the wing of Mustad, Norway, for the past thirteen years, but recently has been returned to British hands.

Partridge has 130 years of heritage and can be credited with the invention of modern fly hook manufacture. Wet and dry fly classics are the benchmark hook for fly dressing and Partridge produce the preeminent salmon hook. Look for new hooks from this company in the near future.

Well now, gotta go get ready for some fall fishing on the Gunnison.

Tight Lines,

Platte River Apprentice

The Platte River Apprentice is an combination of my new designed Apprentice fly and Chris Schrantz's Platte River Spider. If you are not familiar with the Platte River Spider it has been a favorite streamer pattern of mine for years. You can check out the Tutorial over at www.charliesflybox.com. I found that the Platte River Spider fishes best in fall. So with fall looming in the air I found myself at the bench getting ready for an upcoming trip. With the Apprentice still fresh in my mind I thought way not take the color scheme of the Platte River Spider and make an Platte River Apprentice.

So I broke out a few various dubbings and got busy blending them to the color and shag I was looking for. As soon as the dubbing was complete it was tying on.

Started off by tying the stinger hook first.

Partridge CZ hook #12
Thread: Black
Tail: Peacock Angel Hair, Yellow Marabou, Brown Marabou and Root Beer Crystal Flash
Body: Sunset Mix
Collar: Wood Duck colored

Main Body
Hook: Grip 13812 Streamer #4
Tungsten Cone Large
.030 Lead 11-13 wraps
Tail: Peacock Angel Hair, Yellow Marabou, Brown Marabou and Root Beer Crystal Flash
Body: Sunset Dubbing
Legs: Pumpkin Sili Legs
Collar 1: Wood Duck Colored
Collar 2: Mottled Marabou
Collar3: Yellow Marabou
Optional Hot Spot: Siman Peacock Eye Dubbing (I have tied a few with and few with out this hotspot, this one is with out the hot spot,)

Stone Flies

Just finished up a few Golden and Black Stones for an order. Using the Partridge CZ hook.

Streamer Season

Is fall really in the air. The kids went back to school the other day, the night time cooler temps only mean one thing. Streamer Season is just around the corner. Those who fish with me know I use streamers all year long. The bigger flies produce bigger fish at times. So the last few weeks I have been thinking up some new streamers for fall. So this past week I tied up a bunch of articulated streamer patterns to give a shot. I tied up my first prototype with out the articulation to get my proportions and all the bells and whistles right, before moving on to the articulated one. After a few tinkerings here and there I was able to make the articulated Apprentice. The Apprentice is an off shoot of my original bunker torpedo and the circus peanut dressings, but tinkered into my own fly of pure trout evil. Why do I call it pure trout evil, because this thing is pure evil. I don't know if it was dumb luck, stupid fish, or whatever, but I managed to get out this past weekend and hiked into Cheesman Canyon. I got to the canyon for an early start. I managed to make it down to the water by 6:20 am. I got to a spot where I like to start fishing and work a section of the river before hiking further back. I had the new rod put together, and tied on my new streamer the Apprentice. At this point I didn't tie any droppers on, just wanted to give this bad boy a few cast and see it flow through the water. Okay, I got my line out and made my first cast and was getting ready for the drift, but the thing didn't have any time to drift, because as soon as it hit the water, I nice very thick, 18" rainbow slammed it. The line went tight and the rod was bent. Since this was the first fish with this rod, I wanted to get the feeling of the rod and loosened up the drag and let the fish take off. I don't know if that was a good thing or not, because it ended taking me a while to get the fish back in. After about 10 minutes I landed, revived and released the fish back into the waters of the South Platte.

Getting ready for the next cast, I moved up a few feet from my first drift to work a nice piece of faster pocket water. The flows were beautifully at 356 cfs which is much better then the 96 cfs we usually see at this time of year, but with the work going on at the dam the water temps where much warmer then normal. Getting myself ready for the cast, made my decision on where I was going to put the fly. The fly hit the water, I made an upstream mend and the line went tight! After a few minutes landed a 21" bow. Two cast, two fish, on the new rod with the new fly. The stars must be aligned for me today I was thinking. Worked a few more pockets and runs that I like in this section and another 6 fish later I was ready to hike up stream a bit. All fish took this new articulated streamer I developed earlier this week.

Back to the fly itself, The Apprentice

Stinger Hook: Partridge CZ #12
Tail: Widow Flash, Marabou Olive, and dash of lite Bright Flash

Body: Bunker Torpedo Dubbing
Collar: Wood Duck Flank

Main Body: Streamer Hook Size 6
Tail: Widow Flash, Marabou Olive and dash of polar flash
Body: Bunker Torpedo Dubbing
Wings: Olive Ostrich Herl
Legs: Speckled Olive rubber legs.
Collar one: Wood duck flank, Colored olive
Collar two: Mottled Marabou
Hot Sport : Siman Peacock Red
Tungsten Cone Head

Underbody Weight: 7-10 wraps of .030 Lead

To articulate the streamer. I take a heavy mono filament and feed through the hook like you would be tying it normally. Then I take the two strands of the mono and tie to each side of the main hook shank and wrap it good and cement it and begin the second portion of the fly. Once the fly is completed, I snipe off the hook of the main fly and now you have a really great articulated fly.

Here is another color variation. I titled the Majestic, with some minor flash subsititutions.

But a great purple/black streamer for those overcast days that lie ahead in the coming months.

Tight Threads!