Gorgeous Weekend At Blue River

This weekend was as pretty a weekend on Blue River as I've ever seen.  The sun was shining ever brightly on the masses of anglers, campers, and sight-seers. 

It was great camping weather even though it did get down to the freezing mark on Friday night.  The new tent heater I acquired works pretty good considering the fact I was in a summer tent.  Sleep certainly didn't come easy Friday night because my neighbor fell asleep and left his generator running until 3:45 a.m.  The next morning he came over to apologize and I told him I wished he just left it running because I was use to it by the time he'd shut it off.

Beautiful branch on Blue River

Fishing is pretty darn good.  Friday I started at 17, which wasn't fishing last weekend, but was this weekend.  Then I waded up to the boulder at 16, which was fishing last weekend but wasn't this weekend.  Just goes to show you, that we never really know about these fish. 

Next, I went to the ledge at the Island and this was a hot-spot.  Bryon Down and Steve Swenson were in the Flats below the Island and they said they had a treasure chest of fish they were trying to figure out.  As I left the Island it looked to me that Bryon and Steve had indeed figured what the trout wanted, because they were plucking them out.

Fished off the crossing a bit and took four trout there, and then it was time to hit Chimney Falls.  Chimney Falls was pretty hot too, but I did suffer a lot of subtle bites that resulted in a lot of misses. 

All in all, twenty-four fish came to hand Friday morning. 

Saturday, I did not wet a hook because we were trying to have our BRFF get-together.  Our get-together was kind of like organized chaos this year, but we did pull it off. 

Gosh, did we ever have a lot of food... a lot of good food.  Honestly, I don't know if I can remember what all we served up.  Donny and Linda Carter, served up a great Mexican dish along with a dessert.  Kevin Harris also provided a Dutch oven dessert.  Jeff Joseph made the biggest batch of jambalaya you've ever seen and there was a lot left over.  Harold and Eva Beck brought some beautiful and good stuffed jalapenos.  We also had El Paso Poo-Poops, sweet and sour chicken, some great bread, and other goodies. 

Although we were missing some people that usually always attend, we had some extra company in the form of our furry friends.  David Dillow brought his beautiful Irish Setter "Bree" and Bree is getting to be an old hand at these get-togethers.  Harold and Eva brought their beautiful chocolate colored friend, and Lane Kregel brought his gorgeous Golden Retriever.  All of these animals were simply beautiful and so well-behaved.  Dogs like Blue River. 

Harold and Eva's Stuffed Jalapeno's

 

Lane and his buddy.

 

Chimney Falls Rainbow

 

Sunday morning I ventured into the south wilderness.  I didn't go deep into the wilderness because I blew my legs Friday due to not being use to wading Blue in a long time in addition to trying to break a new pair of wading boots in.

I fished Coyote Pass and the Cove.  Honestly, the fishing was a little slow and spotty.  Two hours of fishing netted a total of nine bows.  It was easy to see that the flow has slowed down in some of the better spots in the south wilderness - drifts were painfully slow.  Also, there is still quite a bit of algae build, but this should go away rather quickly as the weather grows colder.

As far as flies that are producing... I've been terribly lazy.  In three outings I've caught about seventy trout, and all have been on buggers except one - that fish took a San Juan Worm. 

Breaking camp around noon on Sunday, I give thanks and leave the river.  This coming weekend is the trout derby, so expect a big crowd.

Tomorrow I fly fish for carp.