07/05/12 Colorado River Pumphouse to Radium

07/05/12
Colorado River
7:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Flows 890

A reader of my blog brought up a good question...Have I fished the Colorado yet this year?  And the answer was no!  So a decision was made to head up to the high country for July 4th holiday week!  I also figured this would be a good time to spend some quality time with the wife and take here on a float trip!

We got to Pumphouse around 7:00 AM and unloaded the boat.  Then a quick shuttle to Radium and we were on the water around 7:30.

I rigged up the wife's fly rod with pat's rubber legs, a copper john, and a prince nymph.  I had her hit the fast riffles, the bubble lines, and the seams and she got numerous hits, but was unable to land any fish.  Most either gave a good shake or took a run and got off.

But this didn't put a damper on Brenda's spirits!  She was determined to land some fish!  Our float through the canyon and up to the Needle's Eye was pretty uneventful, it wasn't until the stretch before the hot springs that she finally got into some fish!

She managed a few more of this size, but we were looking for the bigger guys!  The hot fly for this stretch was a red two bit hooker.

With the fish rising, we decided to switch to a dry/dropper rig for the last little bit before the take out.  A rubber legged stimulator and a beadhead BWO nymph was the rig for the last stretch.

With Brenda being relatively new to fishing dries, she missed quite a few hits, but managed to take her biggest brown of the day on the dropper!

It was pretty exciting since she caught it and landed it in front of a bunch of boats!  Everybody was hollering to see what it was.

I didn't get a chance to really get my line wet, but it still was a great day.  I put the wife on some fish and she really had a good time.  It was a scenic float and the fishing just added to it!

The fishing wasn't really good by any means...the fish are keyed in on smaller flies.  No need for a size 6 or 8 pat's rubber legs, but dries and size 16/18 nymphs will bring fish to the boat.  We only caught browns, no rainbows, but at least we didn't get a skunk!

The best part of the trip was when we were driving back to pick up the car at Pumphouse and she asked when we could do this again!  Better yet, when can we float the Blue!