St. Vrain in the membrain

The St. Vrain is a river about 15 min. North out of Boulder that runs through a small, country town called Lyons. Oddly enough, I had never fished it until today. This is largely in part because whenever I drove past it the section I saw was always a low flow. I knew if I went 15 more minutes up the mountain to Estes I could hit the Big Thompson tailwater.

So I get a tip from a guy online about a specific section to fish. I look it up on my topo map and it seems legit. The hike in is about 2 miles and it's in a narrow canyon. That alone deters great numbers of other anglers. This specific stretch is a whole different beast from what is viewed from Lyons.

*trekking into the gorge*

The river is in a narrow canyon with very high, smooth cliffs. It also sports huge, smooth boulders. It all looked very similar to the canyon walls of a hike up Mt. Evan I once did. I had been told that the walls there on Mt. Evans looked like that due to glaciation.

...Anyway, I'll start with birds since I did last time. I've really started to enjoy the presence of the birds all around me while I fish. They are very interesting to observe. Every time I see a bird I've never come across before I feel like I'm discovering a new species.

I came around a bend and ran into a pair of Merganser ducks swimming around in a pool. The female has a red head with spiked back hair, and they both have bright white bellies.

I also saw an American Dipper. These birds jump around on the rocks of the stream and then dive underwater to eat the same insects the trout do. They're like a big flashing light informing that there is insect action underwater

The fishing was strange. I saw no fish feeding, holding, or spooked for the first hour. I was running an elk hair caddis I tied with two droppers. There were brown caddis naturals all over the boulders around the stream.

Finally, I got a lightning fast take from a dark over-sized brown on the caddis. The brown was much bigger of a trout than I expected and it caught me very off guard. The colors were a deep golden brown.

About another hour went by without spotting a single trout. I then came up on a nice deep , gushing pool in which I had to make an awkward cross current cast. The instant the caddis hit the water it was slammed by another brown of similar proportions. This one fought very hard and made me have to play it around the boulders and overhangs to avoid its attempts at hanging me up. Both takes were aggressive and decisive. I was able to cleanly se tthe hook in the corner of the mouth both times.
This brown had scars on its mouth and lower jaw from the rock bottom of the stream. These markings are usually on older, bigger, and wiser trout. In addition, the jaw was very strong and the entire body was very muscular.

As I worked my way upstream a bit more I realized that my arms were getting burned. I had only brought a tee shirt and had nothing to cover them up with, so i was forced to change back into my hiking gear and head out.

It's a good thing I left when I did because my arms are both burned as hell right now. I think the sun was reflecting off the water and hitting them from the underside as well. I learned a lesson the hard way, as usual.

This is a unique stretch of river. I wasn't able to spot a single trout, but I caught two of very nice size relative to the size of the water. They were both very wild and dominant fish. Maybe this stream is only inhabited by wary, selective, big trout.

I stumbled across the remains of a big horn sheep out there... cat food?
*24 CFS -- Nice flow, but wouldn't mind seeing it up near 60.
*Weather was bluebird, need to try it in different weather.