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The
Hatch, Arrival Day
One Day
Two Departure
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The Hatch Day Two April 28, 2003
Guide Larry Kingrey holds a fine, 12" wild brown for me while Tom captures the moment. This guy took a dry on a dead drift right in the middle of a riffle near Parkdale. The biggest disappointment of today would turn out to be arriving to a CLOSED Waffle Wagon. Wha!? Turns out that we would not have another breakfast burrito during our visit as they were also closed on Monday, but, we made due with a small, local greasy spoon. After again meeting up with Larry at RGA, we started to duplicate yesterday's trip by travelling pretty far up the gorge but were stopped short by county sheriffs rerouting traffic due to an accident further up Rt. 50. We stayed much closer than yesterday and made a day out of a stretch of water in Parkdale. Approaching the water there were few bugs to be seen and judging at how "public" this access looked, I was a little more than skeptical at what we might find. I should not have doubted Larry, though, because I got a strike on my first cast, just a few feet offshore. It was going to be a great day. I ended up fishing a stretch no more than 75 yards wide and could probably have fished it another day. There were rises happening all around me as I focussed in slowly on each I had seen. I was just starting to get my act together when, like the day before, the bugs seemed to go on strike. Seemed like a good time for lunch. The bugs came and went sporadically throughout the remainder of the day. 5:00 was upon us much more quickly than it seemed to be yesterday. Larry had done a fantastic job in my eyes as I felt very confident on my own. I was not getting the bird nests in my line as I had doing our first day, and I was starting to feel secure in my knot tying. Tom and I bid him farewell before deciding to find some dinner. We had planned on coming back to the same spot but needed sustenance. Halfway back to Canon City was a slightly questionable-looking place, but, there was some writing on the sign out front that made us stop: ELK BURGERS. That sounded like just the ticket. Feeling full (I wouldn't go so far as to say "satisfied"), we made our way back to Parkdale and began fishing a little further down than we were earlier. The current was much swifter, but, we were seeing fishing coming up along the opposite bank and the rocks in the middle of the heavy chop looked like great habitat. Tom proceeded below me while I started to work a dry caddis on top with an olive pupae below. Larry's patterns were very successful and I was not about to try anything else on this river--HIS river. For about 20 minutes, I was having little luck. I only had a couple of weak strikes, which coupled with my failing attempts at the set, kept me fishless. I backed up to begin working the chop and concentrate on my drift. I was barely paying attention to my dry indicator during the swing when WHAM--the line went tight, the rod tip slammed forward, and I almost stumbled from shock. This was by far the biggest fish I'd caught this trip (and probably the largest I'd ever caught to this point) though his strength was probably being helped out by a strong current. It didn't take long to get him on the reel and I was fighting him long enough that Tom had enough time to work his way back up to me to take advantage of a photo op. After a minute of so revival, I released this thick-bodied 16-incher into the slower water near the bank. He shot off strongly and disappeared from sight. THAT was fun. As it turned out, we were playing with waning daylight and I decided to leave it on a high note. Tom went back to his original spot and right as darkness was falling, pulled out one just as big as I just had. After taking a couple of photos of his fish, we could barely see where we were walking heading back to the truck. We took a moment to soak it in as we shed our gear and got everything squared away, then slowly made our way back to Canon City. I can't wait to come back next year.
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