Time: 1:00PM – 5:30PM

Location: Bridge where Dan caught some nice fish when he was young up to where the river re-emerges from underground; Himes Peak area

Fish Landed: 21

North Fork of White River 09/11/2013 Photo Album

Tent pads are a wonderful thing. While the Front Range of Colorado endured one of the worst periods of rain in history, I camped and fished on the western slope of Colorado for three nights and then one night near Flaming Gorge, Utah. During the four nights of camping, I slept in my REI two person tent for three nights, and this was only possible because I used campsites with tent pads. Tent pads look like large raised beds that are popular for gardening except that they are filled with a fine gravel material that is very porous. When it rains a lot the water seeps almost instantaneously into the fine gravel and thus does not create streams and puddles that eventually undermine a tent and tarp.

Apparently Being Herded Down from the High Country

I planned this trip for quite awhile, and had most of the camping and fishing gear loaded in the Santa Fe the night before scheduled departure. On Wednesday morning all that remained was packing the food items, the water container, my Camelbak, and my pillow and I was on my way to the North Fork of the White River in the Flattops Wilderness Area. This is a fairly remote area of Colorado and requires 40+ miles of driving over a dirt road that climbs two mountain passes. I actually did quite well and completed the trip in roughly four hours and fifteen minutes in spite of slowly creeping my way through a flock of sheep just beyond the tiny town of Pyramid. There were plenty of spots available at the North Fork Campground so I snagged number 25 as it contained a tent pad and as described earlier, this became a critical choice. I unloaded the water container, ate my lunch and paid for two nights and immediately went in quest of wild White River trout.

The sky was quite overcast as I drove east on the road I had just covered and then turned right and headed toward Trappers Lake. I decided to fish in the area I remembered from perhaps fifteen years ago when Dan and I did quite well not far below Trappers Lake. After approximately eight miles I spotted the old bridge that appeared close to my memory so I pulled along the shoulder of the dirt road and prepared to fish. I hiked thirty yards below the bridge and tied on a Chernobyl ant and beadhead hares ear nymph and began to cast my Orvis Access four weight. By now the sky was even more threatening than it appeared back at the campground and the surrounding landscape was quite bleak as a wildfire had consumed all the trees and left twisted black stumps and branches behind on the meadow grass covered hills.

Fairly quickly I landed a  nice brook trout that would actually be a monster by eastern standards. It was around eleven inches long and flamboyantly attired in orange and iridescent blueish green hues. Next I landed a small Colorado cutthroat and snapped a photo of this increasingly rare catch and then worked my way upstream and beyond the bridge and added a third fish along the way.

Pretty Cutthroat from North Fork of White River

There was a large beaver pond ahead but below it a nice deep run cascaded from the dam, and here I landed another nice colorful brook trout. Several other fish were rising in this area, but they ignored my Chernobyl/BHHE combo, and then I switched to a CDC BWO as I noticed a few small BWO’s fluttering up through the air. Unfortunately this did not deceive the feeding fish so I moved on to the beaver pond.

At this point the rain began and became quite heavy but I stuck it out as there was no thunder or lightning and I had on my ski hat, fleece and raincoat. I negotiated my way around some beaver channels and soft muddy bottom areas until I approached the inlet and here there were quite a few fish rising. Again I cast my fortunes with the CDC BWO and again the fish ignored my offerings. The rain was so dense that it riffled the water and made it quite difficult to discern any insects that might be attracting the attention of the trout. I decided to switch to a size 16 light gray deer hair caddis, and after a few casts a fourteen inch cutbow slurped it in. I was now very excited and assumed I’d unlocked the secret code to duping these beaver pond fish.

Slash of Cutbow or Cutthroat

Alas that wasn’t the case and the caddis went unmolested until the rain slacked off and I could now see PMD’s fluttering and skipping on the water thus prompting yet another conversion to a size 16 light gray comparadun.This proved attractive to a nice brook trout, but then the other fish ignored it. I noticed that the natural PMD’s were quite active on the still pond surface so I began stripping my PMD and received 5 or 6 hits, but I was unable to land any of them. I was perplexed by this situation, but decided to concede and continue on my way up the stream.

Another Colorful Brook Trout from North Fork

Between the inlet to the beaver pond and the spot where the North Fork of the White River emerges from underground like a spring, I landed another three trout including a nice cutbow, a chunky brook trout and a small brooky. Another heavy wave of rain descended and most of the river disappeared underground so I decided to leave this area and explore the Himes Peak stretch of the North Fork. In the hour or two that I fished near the beaver pond I landed nine trout; one cutthroat, two cutbows, and six brook trout. It was a fine beginning to my five day fishing trip.

North Fork Above Beaver Pond

As I walked down the dirt road to my car a Hyandai sedan approached and the driver rolled down the window to ask how I fared. I discovered that the driver was from the Philadelphia area and had traveled to the White River to fish by himself. I continued hiking down the road as the rain continued to fall and jumped in the car and drove down the road to Himes Peak Campground. This area was also marred by wildfire damage and there were several hunters parked in the lot at the trailhead as well as camping in the campground. I hiked down the muddy trail to the river and then descended a steep bank and began to fish with low expectations due to the rain and the fire damage.

My low expectations proved to be misguided as the fishing proved to be awesome. In the very first place I fished after sliding down a steep bank in the mud and converting to a Chernobyl ant and salvation nymph, I landed four trout; three rainbows and one cutbow. Two of the rainbows and the cutbow were 13-14 inch chunky fish that attacked the salvation nymph.

I continued fishing upstream for the next one and a half hours and landed a total of twelve fish including the four from the initial small pool. Several were nice brookies, another pure cutthroat came to my net, and the remainder were largely rainbows. Once again a period of heavy rain commenced, but again I stuck it out given the high level of success I was experiencing. After the rain once again slowed a dense BWO hatch kicked in, but the fish seemed to ignore it. The salvation nymph probably produced all the Himes Peak fish except for three that crushed the Chernobyl ant on the surface. Toward the end of the afternoon, the salvation nymph got destroyed so I tried a Craven emerger, RS2, and beadhead pheasant tail, but these did not produce and the last fish landed was on the Chernobyl ant.

It was an auspicious start to my fishing trip with a total of twenty-one landed in four and a half hours of fishing in some rather adverse conditions with three waves of heavy rain. Unfortunatey I have discovered that bad weather for fishermen is good weather for fish and vice versa.

Soggy Campsite Wednesday Evening

I returned to the campsite, and the ground and tent pad were saturated due to the constant and intermittent heavy rain so I decided to rearrange my cargo and sleep in the back of the Santa Fe. I was able to eat my dinner during a brief thirty minute lull in rain showers which resumed after dinner and continued through much of the night.