Keeping in Touch

So, on Friday night we received a text from a great friend we hadn't seen in a couple years, saying, "where are you guys going to slay this weekend?" To that I responded the pan, wanna go?, and he  immediately said "I'm in, I'll meet you at Basalt at 930 am." So we headed over to Basalt by way of Independence Pass, which is always a treat, especially the sections where the road narrows to 1.5 lanes and therefore no center line exists.

Since the pan was roaring below Ruedi at 800cfs and had a total of 300 yards before it turned to chocolate milk, the flats and bowl were very cramped, but everyone seemed to be hooking into fish all day long.  We also met Jake and his family on the river, making it an awesome experience!

Jake with a nice bow, having to use his shirt to keep it from slipping away

In the high flows Court was able to find a honey hole of nice rainbows, and his mysis, jujubaetis rig was the most consistent producer all day long, and all five of us alternated with that rod

JP with a beauty of a 'bow. he deserved this one after losing many fine fish earlier in the day

Paul getting a hold of a great looking fish

JP's dad Paul and I found a nice cutbow comfortably feeding in tight water, and after making a few adjustments to get the perfect drift, the fish took and Paul perfectly played the fish until I could get the net on him.

We kept the net under the fish, since these fat fish have undersized tails, making them very tough to hold

This 8lb hen was JP's fish.  He hooked and lost it, and 10 minutes later it gave me another chance

The next morning we wanted to try to catch some elusive grass carp in a certain pond, and JP was at the oars and guided us around the pond as we stalked, casted, hooked, and did not land a single carp. However the carp took special notice to an olive meat whistle and a bunch of grass tied on a hook shank with green 8/0 thread. We did get to land a bunch of rainbows on streamers as well, with the prizes of the day being two quite large brook trout!