One of my buddies just pulled the trigger on a sweet raft outfitted with a fishing frame, giving us the capability to start exploring different waters than we are used to, starting with the Colorado River from State Bridge to Catamount. I have traditionally been a wade angler, carrying my large pack full of flies around my shoulder, and exploring our local waters on foot. While I will always love this style of fishing, it will be a complete new experience learning how to catch fish from a boat. Even though I was a little apprehensive, I had the opportunity to get on the sticks for a few hours and start learning how to maneuver a boat down a river. It really is a team environment from the raft, because if the rower doesn't get the raft into the correct run, the anglers just float down the river missing all of the fishy water.
We had heard the Salmonflies had hatched on the Upper Colorado, and we were stoked to be heading up with the chance of catching this short lived hatch. While we saw lots of the bugs flying around the river, and lots in the water, the river was just too high and dirty for the fishing to turn onto that epic level. With a float that typically takes 7 hours, we flew down the river and got to the takeout 14 miles later at Catamount in just under 5. Pretty crazy seeing and hearing these massive insects fly around the river, and can only imagine how crazy awesome it would be to see the all of the fish in the river take notice and start gorging themselves on them. Now with this boat, there will be more chances to do this kind of thing in the future, and really use it to see some beautiful areas of the state and chase some pretty fish.
