As Summer came and went along, things improved. I spent most of my time on the South Saint Vrain chasing browns and honing in on my skills. I stayed mostly on the Vrain because the Poudre River has been hit so hard with natural devastation these last two years that it's not worth the drive to fish for nothing, unless you go above where the mudslide happened, which is a two hour drive. Though I will say this, the Wild Basin has opened up to visitors without a reservation, so I got to fish in there one time this year searching for cutthroat trout. I fished higher than I normally do hoping to bypass the brookies, but I couldn't find a cutthroat to save my life, just a bunch of brookies. A fish is a fish, so I wasn't too upset. But I realized I wasn't as young as I used to be and at one point I stood on a flat rock and my feet went out from underneath me and I landed flat on my back. I layed there for a minute trying to figure out if I was seriously hurt or not, and I wasn't hurt too bad, so I kept on going.
As the weeks went on I had to see what the Poudre was doing, so I found a place where the river splits in two. The fishing wasn't the greatest, but it was fun. I did happen to run into two moose. The other moose is behind the dead thicket, you can barely make it out.
As time went by I went back to the Poudre late Sept. This day proved to be the day of redemption. The fish were thick and the males were getting aggressive. I tried nymphs at first but nothing was taking, so I tied on two wet flies, both red and black colored. The best fly was just a black soft hackled fly with a red bead head. All the fish averaged over fifteen inches, and the fights they gave were wonderful.
One fish I caught was a surprise. It was a cutthroat of good quality.
As the day went on the fishing was spectacular. It was a search mission, because I had to work for them, but each and every trout I caught and lost was special. I won't even tell you about the one that took my entire leader set up. I knew I should have retied it.
But it was a day of redemption from the previous days on the water. Fall was in the air and the air was cool though the sun was warm. You couldn't ask for a nicer day.
