Nice Fish with Stonefly in his mouthClick on these pics to see the full size image
What an incredible weekend!! Friday afternoon Winchester and I teamed up in Golden to head up to Granby to visit Crabtree who is working up there for the summer. We rolled into town about 4 o'clock just in time to get a tour of the development Crabtree is working on and then hit the golf course. We squeezed in 8 holes and a couple froth dogs before we got rushed off the course by a punishing thunder storm. 
John hard at itPerhaps the coolest feature of this development is that they have a huge stretch of private water on the Frazer River and a river camp set up right next to the water as a perk for members. Crabtree was able to reserve the camp for us which was really cool. The camp consisted of 3 big canvas tents furnished with card tables and bunks. It also came equipped with a big fire pit, grilll, outhouse, firewood, and pretty much anything else you might need on a camping trip.
Our RigAs soon as Crabtree, Winchester and I got out of our soaking wet clothes a geared up to go fish the evening hatch the rain quit and our buddy Sheats showed up. We all fished till dark, and all of us caught fish(primarily browns) but Crabtree took advantage of his previous knowledge of the river and caught the most and biggest fish of the evening.
Crabtree hooked upWe quickly got the fire and the grill going and busted out some fancy irish whiskey that Sheats brought that just tasted like regular old whiskey to me but Sheats and Crabtree think they are real fancy so they made me drink it out of a cup instead of the bottle. We grilled up the steaks and corn and had a first class dinner. We all are friends from B-school so we rarely get the opportunity to hang out with each other in such a relaxed and cool setting, so we were all soaking it up and promising each other we would not take school so seriously next year. As the fancy whiskey began to set in we also started telling jokes that I would not dare post to this blog, but I think Crabtree stole the show with a couple side splitters I had never heard before. About 1 o'clock we decided it was time to hit the hay.
The real driving force behind this weekend was that Morgan Read, a mutual friend of Crabtree's and mine, invited us up to Kremmling for the weekend to go fishing with him and John Papini, who is a friend and coworker of Morgan's from California, on a private stretch of the Colorado River. Morgan, Crabtree and I have teamed up in the past on other hunting and fishing trips and they have been telling me about this place for a while now. We had also planned on fishing it earlier in the summer but cancelled our plans because the run off was so big this year the river was still way to high to fish. Anyway point being we were all really looking forward to it.
We all got up around 6 and headed to the ranch which was about 30 minutes away after loading up on beer and groceries. Sheats and I were the first to get there because Morgan and John did not get in till 3:30 in the morning on Saturday and Crabtree is a freak and decided to ride his bike the 29 miles to the ranch.
Sheats and I got on the water I am guessing about 9:00 and it was about 9:15 before I was screaming at Sheats to come help me land and document what I thought would certainly be the fish of the trip. I was fishing a big yellow stone fly with a d-sheats special dropper, and I cast to a big boulder in the middle of the river hoping to pick up a fish on the seam between the current and the protected water behind the boulder. To my suprise a monster rainbow came up and inhaled the stonefly on the pillow in front of the boulder. The fish came out of the water twice and put up a hell of a fight. Sheats rushed over and helped me land it with his net and it clocked in at about 19inches but was a reall fatty.(Sheats is a deadbeat and has not sent me the pics yet) Turns out however that this fish was no where near the biggest fish we would see this weekend, and was actually sort of standard on this stretch of river. All of us proceeded to have an absoulutely incredible day of fishing. We were treated to an impressive yellow sally and caddis hatch that got a bunch of nice fish to start rising, but I think everybody would agree the most damage was done with caddis or mayfly nymphs on the swing.
Beautiful Sunset from the Bridge
As it got dark we all convened on the bridge that you can see in a couple of the pics and broke out the Jack Daniels which had been sitting on ice all day and started to tell lies and compare battle scars from the mosquitoes that had been praying on us all day. We polished off the bottle and were treated to a great meal by John and waited on by a big boned waitress named Anastasia, who seemed to have a crush on John. We all got pretty toasty and hit the sack pretty early at little dumpy hotel in Kremmling, CO.
We got up early the next day and started all over again. The weather was perfect and for some reason the mosquitoes did not bother us. Once again we all crushed it, but for me the highlight of the trip came when the fish you see above came out from the depths and inhaled my Orange Blossom Special. I have always been a big fan of streamer fishing and it is fish like this one that inspire my affection for fishing big ugly streamers slow and deep. Fortunately Morgan was close by and was able to come over and get a good picture. Neither of us had a tape of a scale but based on the forearm test we guestimated 21-22 inches but more impressive then its length was its weight and girth. Definitely the heaviest rainbow I have ever caught in the states. This fish was an incredible way to wrap up an absolutely incredible weekend. We are all permanently in Morgan's debt for sharing such a special place with us.
