Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I haven't been reading or posting here in a while as the Covid limitations, lack of travel, general craziness of the past 2 years,etc. finally got to me. I also haven't trout fished since May so I knew that was a sign I needed to make some changes. When an opportunity came up to work from Denver for a period of time, I jumped on it and packed up my truck and did a good old fashioned road trip across the country. My daughter met me in Chicago and made half the trip with me and her husband flew in to meet us here in Denver. We had a great labor day weekend exploring the area and they stayed for the first week.

     

I've been working east coast hours since I got here so have had a few hours every afternoon to explore the neighborhood and surrounding areas. I also know quite a few people out here so we took the opportunity to get together and have some fun. Yet another thing that had been missing for a while



My first opportunity to fish was last Saturday 9/11. My buddy Colin (who I went to Montana with last year and who I'm making the return trip with this year) and I made the trip out west to fish the Williams Fork of the Colorado river where we met 2 of his buddies fishing the same stream. It was about a 3 mille hike to the water, but thankfully fairly easy except for one steep section near the river. In spite of being an easy hike, I really struggled and blamed it on the elevation. Turns out that I was having a reaction to the Covid Vax that i got the week prior and had an elevated heart rate which my resting heart rate was a full 10 beats per minute higher than my normal. It also came with palpitations and difficulty breathing. It lasted for a week (measured on the FitBit watch) and I thought I was getting better this week but unfortunately its back up again the last 2 days. Ugh.

Anyway, the hike brought us to a beautiful section of river. Unfortunately the fishing was slow. In spite of the 3 locals getting skunked, however, I was able to land 3 nice brown trout. Here are a couple of samples.

   

The next day I set out on my own in a different direction to the South Platte River to an area I fished in the past. Again, the fishing was tough, this time due to low water, but again managed a few fish. I only fished about 2 1/2 hours before I got driven off the water by approaching thunderstorms. The highlight was this beautiful colored up brown



The South Platte has some beautiful water and I hope to explore more soon.



This week my buddy and I headed down to 11 Mile Canyon which is part of the South Platte but way upstream from where I fished last week. This is a narrower, high gradient pocket water that is very technical fishing. Today was a great day. I managed 8 fish in less than 4 hours with 2 lost fish and several other missed hits. The highlight today was the first fish which was this pretty rainbow.



Most of the other fish were smaller but still feisty in the fast water. They were all similar in size to this beautifully colored up brown.

 

I'll be here through the end of October, except for the first week when I go to Montana. I hope to fish once or twice and maybe even get a few hours in after work in some smaller local Denver streams. I hope to post more updates here in the coming weeks.

Last edited by Paul Naj (Sep-18-21 10:38PM)