June, 2025

6/5 - 6:  Our first camping/fishing trip of the year since getting back to Colorado from our place in Green Valley, Arizona.

This weekend was the annual four day GoPro Mountain Games in town which draws enormous crowds up from the front range, so as usual we looked for a likely spot to escape to for a combination of camping for Sue and some fishing for me.  Unfortunately the weather was unlikely to cooperate for either of us as rain was forecast tor the entire time period,

Nevertheless we headed out optimistically on Thursday morning heading Northwest where the clouds were supposed to be more broken during this period.  As it turned out, that wasn't the case.  We drove something of a back way towards Vernal and then up to Flaming Gorge dam and down one of the side roads to the reservoir where we found a decent camping spot for the night.  Enjoyed a nice sushi supper, plenty of decent jug wine, and spent a quiet night in the camper van.  After a good breakfast, we took a hike around the peninsula and stopped at a somewhat steeper shoreline where I was able to do some unproductive casting with a crayfish fly for a half hour before we departed the area.

With the wind starting to howl we opted out of trying some casting at Little Hole on the Green and instead drove down the back route to the lower "B" section where I finally got a chance to trout cast for a bit.  Very difficult throwing a small fly into riffle water with a downstream 20 mile per hour wind.  Eventually got one strike and hooked and landed a very nice 18" brown.  That was it for the fishing - period.

We'd hoped to be able to camp later in the day on the White River at Avery Lake so did the long drive back thataway, stopping for lunch in Maybell before taking a look at Rio Blanco Lake near Meeker.  It was useless to try to cast there too due to the relentless winds.  Cloud cover was nasty as well and got worse the closer we got to Meeker.  The rain started in earnest.  We gave up the rest of the trip's plans and spent the next two hours slogging our way back to Vail through never ending storms.  Ugly couple of days.  Here's the very short video of what highlights there were about the expedition.

Last Logbook Entry  � for previous day

6/11-12:  Hopes for some early season success on No Name Creek proved futile this June.  While the releases from the far upstream dam seemed workable, the creek itself was running way too high and off color this week.  I tried it in a number of places using a variety of stone and caddis nymphs along with some small rainbow or black streamers and had nothing doing anywhere.

Topping off the bad water conditions was the rotten weather which was also not forecasted.  I never got my down jacket off all day, and the intermittent rain kept up with out relenting.  As my campsite was tenuous due to the wet conditions, I exited the spot (after six tries) and drove to Slumgullian Pass where I slept the night.  Next morning drove past Montrose and Delta to the south bank road of the Gunnison and made that nasty drive to the named river.

Here again bad conditions were still in effect with both the Black Canyon and main stem running dirty.  Although I eventually did release a few browns it was not what we could call and even moderately successful trip.  Mid July will be a different story - I hope.  Here's a short vid clip of what I found on the outing.

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