With little to do the past week, management was good about giving out a few jobs to keep biscuits in the jar. It was suggested I go clean and roll up the 4 new duckies that were over at the ranch and take them down valley. Not sure if we bought them and are now promptly selling them or what, attempting to do what I've been told while fighting my go fuck off gene is a challenge. The boss and Whitty took a couple of these Cooper Minis down a stretch of the rivers middle a week ago and had some good success going hole to hole using the boats as taxis.
Check out the link for more on their day http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.417471754975272.102625.342358329153282&type=1
There was talk about using the duckies for trips with clients, I get the theory, but honestly can not see any of my clients following behind as I kayak my gear to the next spot. Now on the other hand I can see say, Jmac and I on a secret weekday mission to some mystery water.
The Roaring Fork was out automatically as neither of us needed to be seen in duckies, these things and their drivers can be a huge summertime menace out there and we didn't want to test the guilty by association theory. A section of water where only these stupid boats could go was in order. We have seen almost every inch of the home river except for the Delta and this stealth little play boat was going to be our ticket to see the rest of the map. The manual said there should be post spawn giants moving back to the big river in water no one floats and they should eat everything we throw. Going into the unknown in boats neither of us understood how to control was admittedly a nice rush for a Thursday.
We knew where to put in but not exactly where to take out, so phase one involved a parking spot for the 4 Runner on the bottom side. The most obvious spot was the boat ramp back up the big river but there was a huge bridge construction site right in the middle of said boat drag. A drive through the barrio down river had options but the bloods and crips of the area were known to break into unsuspecting gringos trucks. We were suspecting. We stopped and asked permission at the sales office and were granted access by Ivan Drago who was either in charge of rentals, cartel stuff or was watching the 2 pieces of Universal equipment they called a health club. White beard, wind breaker, thick eastern European accent, working the desk at a Latino subdivision in the middle of the Colorado Rockies....not that weird.
The trip started easy enough but it wasn't long before we heard the river speed up downstream from the frog water we were in. Next stop, Lava Flows. We scaled down what we brought but we still each had cameras, chest packs and I was fishing the demo One from the shop (BTW boys, I have that, it's beautiful) stuff we didn't want to bust or loose. Pulling over and walking boats made sense, It was not a long float so we would be stopping anyways, translates roughly into, we were scared of swimming. The run at the top of Lava Flows gave us a fish with a few misses mixed in, we were off to a good start. We grew braver and braver in each rock garden and eventually grew enough hair to stay on board through all but the really shallow sections.
Every turn was new water for the both of us. It was Columbus shit. River right was mostly sheer cliffs of ancient lava while river left was a steep arid mountain side buttressing Cottonwood pass. At one stop a small rock slide started well above us and the abandoned railroad track across the river from our spot. Neither of us saw the creature but we were both convinced that a Bigfoot started the slide to make the men in strange boats go away and give him peace again. Everyone knows Bigfoots throw rocks, shits real when your in the unknown.
All in all we did not murder the fish. "We caught em" but it was not richter. I hooked 3 fish on a side channel to the big river stuck knee deep in some sort of quick mud and managed to lose a fish I would have measured not far upstream of the confluence. It was a gorgeous female Rainbow that came to my feet twice before roaring back to the current to break me off. It was nice to see a giant where we were expecting to find one, but we both figured it would have been a Brown.
I still haven't done what I was told. Maybe I'll put those toy boats away next week
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