Taylor Goodness 3-7-13

I spent the last two days with my family at the 3 Rivers Resort in Almont, and we had a blast! Our cabin was huge, complete with a loft, and it was amazing. The Gunnison River across the street was a solid block of ice with a narrow channel of open water that you would have to risk your life to get to. Of course, we were on a mission to harass fish at the C&R section of the Taylor River so no worries.


The report said that the Taylor was moving at a raging 50 c.f.s... It was extremely low and clear, and with a few exceptions, the bulk of the trout brave enough to live in the C&R were stacked in the Avalanche hole. We knew the night before that we were going to have to leave the comfort of our cozy cabin earlier than we wanted the next morning in order to get our spot.

Still rocking the new Orvis waders and loving them!

Arrival time was around 8 a.m. and we had the entire river to ourselves -which might have had something to do with the fact that it was 2 degrees outside, with a windchill of freezing balls cold. We braved climbing a massive hill of snow and ice standing between us and the fish, and immediately I take a spill while holding Bree. Thankfully the baby ended up being ok, and all I broke was my butt-cheek.

Brrrrrrrrrr!

Because I was trying to recover from falling on the ice and sacrificing my body for our baby, Kristen took first drift. On her first cast she landed a 14 inch brown on an Apricot Egg. Four to five casts later she hooks up with a Brute of a male brown on a size 24 red midge. After ten minutes of battle we got it to the net. This was her first Taylor hog so it's safe to say she was stoked!

Kristen and her Taylor Hogasaurus Rex! Yes, her face and hands were actually that shade of red two fish into the trip. It was that cold! Fricken stud!

As if my butt wasn't already sore enough, she would continue kicking it the rest of the day. I'm not only humble enough to admit it, but I'm the first to express how proud of her I really am. As I told her during the drive home, "this probably won't be the last time you out fish me". It's not like I didn't have my chances -twice at fish over ten pounds, and both times I broke off on the hook set. Aside from Kristen's big brown, she matched me fish for fish on the 12-16 inch "dinks". Here is to many many more times of Kristen kicking my butt! Not too many women would even be willing to get out of the car to watch someone fish in 2 degree weather, let alone get in the water, land a monster trout, and then stick her bare hands in the water to pick said fish up for a killer photo op.

One of many trout that fell victim to Kleis's Mysis

After she landed her big fish, I made the mistake of trying to climb up the hill of ice to grab a pack of leaders I left in the Jeep, and slammed so hard that I broke 2 fly boxes in my waist pack, and may have potentially did work on my wrist. Don't you love those kind of days? There was no way I was gonna let a little thing like a potentially broken wrist get in the way of fishing.

Thanks for breaking my fall. Ouch! Scientific Anglers makes one tough box.

In case you were wondering, we used size 24 red midges, apricot eggs, and a size 12 Kleis's Mysis, and nothing else. Half of our fish were taken on my Mysis pattern even though conditions were far from perfect for fishing shrimp. This was pretty much the only thing I had to hang my hat on from a fishing perspective the last couple of days, and believe me I'll take it. The fishing was extremely technical, and the takes were equally as subtle. Que the abrupt ending to this blog post because I need to go ice my bum and wrist...


As always if you have any questions or would like to schedule me for a guide trip send me an email to jonkleisflyfishing@yahoo.com

Show your support for this blog by subscribing to our site, and by liking the Colorado Fly Fishing Mag Facebook page. Tight lines and be safe everyone!


                                                                                             -Jon Kleis