Outlet mall and Toilet bowl fishing!

[tbblom]

Sounds pretty bad, but the fish were pretty good.
Seeing all of Vitesse304's Blue river posts has had me chomping at the bit to get back up there for some fun.
Fished the Blue river in Silverthorne by the outlet malls and the highway overpass on friday and landed a bakers dozen. Nothing huge but several quality 18-20" fish. When the fishing is good, it is pretty easy to tune out the mall and the traffic. I mostly fished the hole underneath the highway; I found a few fish toward the dam, but more closer to town. These must be mostly brooder fish with the scarred fins.

After getting about 5 hours of sleep in the car from 10pm-3am, I was wide awake and getting restless. So I started the drive to the Frying Pan River. Made it there by 5:20am and started fishing at the 'toilet bowl'. Once again, nothing huge was landed, but 1 nice 20"er made it to the net, and I stopped counting the 14-18" variety. Highlight was getting a big rainbow to eat a hopper off the surface. I got the hook set, but the fish just would not run. Stayed put shaking its head until the fly popped out :lol2: ...
By 3pm, I was shot... taking a nap in the drivers seat in my waders.
At the 'Bend Hole' I caught a few nice smaller 12" fish to wrap up my day at the Pan.
A few typical Frying pan fish:

This fish was almost magenta, never seen colors so vibrant!

I thought about staying out another day and hitting up the Roaring fork, but sleeping in the car just kinda sucks! Home for a night, and maybe I'll get the pontoon out tomorrow to continue the Memorial day madness.

PS I threw some streamers in the Colorado river on the drive back, but did not see any fish...

TB

 

[williamhj]

And here I am 18 hrs into 24 hr call and very jealous. Congrats on a great day.

 

[Jackster]

We were out that way several years ago for a couple of weeks for a family members wedding. I promised the wife and young daughters it wouldn't be another fishing vacation for Daddy... wink, wink.

One morning we woke up and when asked, "Where are we going today Daddy?" my answer was, "to a huge outlet mall".
They were slurping their Slurpies while watching Daddy have fun teasing some mighty fine rainbows. Though the locals suggested mysis shrimp, I had great luck on RS2's.
Sometimes having buildings and people around can be used to cure a fishing fix for us who got it bad!

 

[fredaevans]

Fun read.
fae

 

[vitesse304]

Great job man!

The I-70 hole is always productive, but it sounds like you passed right over cable hole?!?!

The fish are mostly holding between cable hole and I-70 hole. They stocked them right above I-70 and with the low flows,the fish aren't really moving very far...

Good job getting into the fish! And the "bowl" is always a blast! Way to break convention and fish the top. Most people don't realize that those guys are eating just like the guys down deep and it's mostly the bigger guys cruising around up top!

 

[stl_geoff]

Nice! I love fishing dumps like that....and it looks like its still chilly out there where you are. Bummer

 

[tbblom]

I was doing so well under I-7o and had nobody sharing it with me, so I stayed there for a few hours. By the time I walked up toward cable hole, the sun was dropping fast. I hooked a nice fish by that little creek inlet, and lost it shortly after. There was a guy fishing cable hole, so I kept moving upstream. I caught 3 little dinks in a row up there before finally finding some nicer fish behind the boulders below the dam. Caught a nice bow on a black cricket and called it a day. I realize now how important sight fishing is on the blue, they really won't move far for a fly. Only a couple of blind takes that day.
Pretty last bow to wrap up the day:

 

[pab1]

Great pics, thanks for sharing!