Kokanee Salmon and Spawning Browns

I haven't put up a post in a while and the guilt has been weighing on me heavily. In the back of my mind all I can think of is that loyal reader checking my page only to find the same photo of me with my arm around Worm. I thought up a few solid excuses, but in truth, I have just been lazy. Sorry.

One of my fishing buddies, Vaughn, and I became obsessed with catching a mess of salmon to take home for many dinners to come.

The idea, of course, was to find a hot spot of podded salmon that will hit on every cast. A fantasy of raining salmon: every angler dancing up and down the banks on tippy toes playing hard-fighting fish, big grins, belly laughs, high fives, back slapping and such.

In reality, this involved us waking up around three o'clock in the morning, driving for hours, and then just being teased with something like one undersized salmon every hour or so.

Ugh.

Most days we even had our secondary plans all ready to go such as, "Well, I figure we can head over to the ******* river for trout after we limit out on salmon sometime around noon."

Nope. That whole "sometime around noon" graceful exit kept turning into me squatted on a desolate shoreline with bloodshot eyes and a five o'clock shadow around six o'clock with Vaughn murmuring something about his wife expecting him home tonight.

Keep in mind that there are easier ways to catch Salmon in the state of Colorado. It's called snagging.



I have this preference to not line up elbow to elbow with the likes of Mr. Deuce McAllister, fish kicking mullet man, guy sitting on cooler and family. This video is not shot in Colorado, but the scene is always the same when it comes to snagging.

No thanks. I'd rather have a slow day in pursuit of catching them in the mouth.

Moving on.

I decided to cut my losses on the salmon hunt and do what an angler is supposed to do during Colorado autumn - chase spawning browns and the rogue rainbows that are gorging on the brown roe.

I met up with the man, the legend known as Swizz and headed to a prime destination.

Sunrise while driving.



The action was slow which was disappointing considering the 3.5 hour drive each direction, but I learned a ton from Swizz and some of his friends that we ran into out there. Even though I got the skunk, I was able to take some photos of trout that those guys caught.

A prime example of a spawning brown all colored up.


A superior specimen of said rogue 'bow that is hanging out around the spawners gulping up the eggs.



I also spotted a sun dog at the end of the day and captured some photos of it. This is the second sun dog I've seen in Colorado. I find them extraordinary and enchanting and it put a smile on my face for the drive home.



****
On a side note, I was rudely awakened at four o'clock Tuesday morning with immobilizing pain in my neck. Long story short, my brother drove me to the ER with my chin glued to my chest and they said I just had to wait it out. Some strong meds and four blurry days later my neck feels much better. However, for this weekend, as they say in the NFL, I will be on the PUP list, so no fishing for me.