Matt McClure and Kenny Klimes took their annual (fifth year) Spring trip to Colorado. Each year they head to Colorado and fish for six full days with two days always reserved to fish with famous guide, Landon Mayer. This year the two flew out to Denver on Saturday, April 16th and drove to Buena Vista, Colorado to stay at Vista Court and Lodge. They had a nice two-bedroom cabin. They have stayed there before, and it is a wonderful place to stay if in the Buena Vista area to fish.
Their fishing started on Sunday as they headed to the Gunnison River. Matt had never fished the Gunnison, so it gave him the chance to try a new location. Matt did well as the two fished two distinct locations on the Gunnison. One location was just a little north of the town of Gunnison and the other location was the “Never Sink” park. Matt caught a couple quality fish while Kenny caught a few too.
On Monday, the guys met up with FATC member Greg Krochta from Denver. They fished the Eleven Mile Canyon and did very well. The catching kicked in more in the afternoon as small flies were the ticket, but larger patterns like the Frenchie fooled a few trout too. In the afternoon many of the trout were rising to mayflies and the guys took advantage of it. The browns were nice size, but the rainbows were fat and feisty. The guys fished from the dam to about two miles downstream.
On Tuesday Matt and Kenny were going to fish the Arkansas River with Altar fly fishing guide, Nathan Flowers but he came down with a bug and had to back out. But Nathan did give them a few choice places to fish. The guys went to the Brown’s Canyon area and caught about 4-5 trout each. They mostly fished Euro-Style but Kenny switched rods so he could swing some Barr’s Emergers which paid off for him. The winds were strong, and they got off the water early again.
On Wednesday and Thursday Matt and Kenny met up with Landon Mayer who guided them for the next two days. The first day they fished the Dream Stream (the South Platte River in Charlie Meyer’s Park area) and the second day they fished the Antero Reservoir. The water was very cold, and the winds were blowing extremely hard. It made the fishing more than difficult. Landon got the guys on some fish of nice size, but it was not what they wanted or expected. The hunt for big fish was tough. Sometimes the conditions just do not play along.
On Friday, the guys drove to the Taylor River to hunt more massive fish. Kenny had to go there because the fish there just “Pi$$” him off. They are finicky, fussy, and hard to catch. Nothing is worse than seeing gigantic fish but not get them to bite. The morning started out slow with fierce winds making it difficult to cast. But then the trout started to rise and feed on small mayflies and caddis flies. Kenny started to swing Barr’s Emergers and had some good success. He hooked into a nice twenty-inch rainbow with a size twenty fly. He did a little running up and down stream to keep this guy on the hook. It was a beauty of a rainbow. Just what he came for… The guys left early again as the winds were just too strong to fight.
It was a great trip and awesome fellowship again with Matt. They drove to the airport on Saturday to arrive back in STL on Saturday evening. We had some great food and then some not so great food. Matt played his “Song of the Day” each morning until Kenny told him to “STOP” (but they were uplifting songs) – it was just his singing that drove Kenny crazy.
