Skunk Killer

Until this past weekend, I was 0-fer for the year in my fishing expeditions.  Yes, that's right. 0-fer.  That would be zero fish caught in five or six outings.  But I have an excuse! No, I'm not a terrible angler, at least I hope not.  I have been steelhead fishing and I know next to nothing about steelhead other than they are hard to locate and catch.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

And after a number of painful skunks early in the year I was more than ready to go somewhere I know I can catch fish.  So I scheduled a trip back to Colorado to fish two places where I know I will catch quite a few fish.  My two places?  South Boulder Creek (if you read me regularly you had already guessed) and a quick two day trip up to the Yampa River outside Steamboat Springs.

South Boulder Creek, at least where I fish it, is the sort of place where you can catch something like 5-10 fish per hour.  At least that's my experience, probably because I've fished this quarter mile section of river something like 50 times.  It used to be my go to place in the summer most weekends when I didn't have another trip planned. The fish aren't huge, but there's a healthy mix of a million 6-10 inchers and a handful of 10-16 inchers if you know where to look.  Like this one.

The other bonus is it's an enjoyable hike in, the scenery is nice with some sheer cliffs, and it's usually fairly secluded, although on a weekend day you might run into another angler or two but it's otherwise rare.

I have to admit, though, I might be a bit of a simpleton.  It's more fun to me to go up here and catch 50 fish less than 10 inches in an afternoon, than to go up to Cheeseman canyon and hunt for lunkers and maybe get lucky enough to catch one or two 18-22 inchers.  Are you with me or are you totally against me?

Unfortunately, I didn't get away as early as I had hoped Friday morning, and I had to be back to Denver by 2 to gather people to head to the Yampa so my fishing outing here was a mere 2-3 hours.  I still had fun and caught fish.  Anyway, I will leave you with some more pics from my outing and longing for a future post on the Yampa trip.  But a quick tease:  last time I went there I claimed it was the best day of fishing I had ever experienced.  And this time I managed the elusive quadrupta two days in a row!  I might have made up that word, but after the post you will know what it means.

First fish of the day

 Yes, I rocked the autoreel for a little while.