Meant to post this earlier but just got around to it. Had to go to Denver for work the last week of June and decided to take a day off and head into the mountains with a friend that lives in Denver. We picked a nearby tailwater that seemed to be the best option. Everything else in the state was blown out, but the South Platte was only flowing around 100cfs.
After work on Wednesday, we took off. We had a $10 campsite next to the river(thanks minesguy). The whole area was beautiful. Set up camp, and had about 30 minutes of day light left for fishing. We found the river was running a bit higher than expected. Didn't see anything rising, so headed back to camp for hotdogs and jim beam.
This is the river about 100 yrds upstream of the campsite.
View from camp the next morning.
Next morning, we packed up and headed to the fly shop in Deckers to pick up a few things and meet up with another angler. The flow was up to 550cfs that morning, which seemed ominous.
Went upstream from there and hiked into cheesman canyon. It really is a gorgeous area and was prettier than I could have expected. There was no trash, and only a handful of other anglers.
View from the walk in.
More river shots.
Despite the high water and tough fishing, I did manage to get one brown. It was a pretty, feisty fish that fought bravely. As you can tell there's no picture, which is b/c I broke her off attempting to net her. I'm not used to fishing with 6x or 11ft of leader so I goofed it up. That ended up being the only fish our group got the whole day. We could see fish holding near the banks, just couldn't get them to bite.
On our drive out, my buddy slowed down as we passed a little roadside cafe, and said "There's a bear on the roof!". I looked over and sure enough, there was a bear on the roof. Turns out the cub has been raiding their dumpster at night, and for some reason decided to climb up there. Don't know where momma was but we stayed long enough to take a few pictures.
Great trip, really enjoyed camping riverside, and fishing one of the prettiest areas I have fly fished. Fishing was tough, but I'm looking forward to getting up that way again.
