My kids lost their summer camp experience this year due to COVID, and vacation plans have been a challenge. We decided a couple of months ago to book a few nights at a cabin that an old friend of mine operates on the Colorado Western Slope and play it by ear regarding making the trip. We've been lying low and socially distancing, so we decided to go for it. The trip involved a 950 mile drive each way from CA to CO with an overnight stop in Salt Lake City at the beginning and end. We stayed near the upper reaches of the forks of the White River near the Flat Tops Wilderness. Beautiful area. We mixed up day hiking, a visit to a limestone cave, and an all-day horseback trail ride to a pair of high likes in the Flat Tops Wilderness. This was a family trip, but I managed to wedge in three one-hour sessions with a rod in my hand.
Side note: if you like beautiful varied terrain and you don't mind grinding out long drives, driving from CA to CO is a wonderful, immersive way to see the American West. Our kids survived and we got to listen to a lot of really interesting podcasts to boot.
My first session was about 1 hour on a short beat of public water in the evening. I used my Scott F 4-wt with a dry dropper rig. I only really had time to fish a couple runs, but I found fish in every run. I landed two 16"-class Mountain Whitefish on the nymph and had a big-enough-to-be-scary-on-a-4-wt Cutthroat grab my dry fly. I kept it on for about a minute before it popped off. I almost felt relieved to be honest. It was kind of funny - there wasn't any surface action at all except for fish that hit my dry fly. But I'll take it.
My second session was in the high lakes. The fishing was much like high Sierra lake fishing - sight-fishing for 10" brookies with dry flies. The family horseback ride was awesome, too.
My third session was on another public of water away from the road. The stretch I fished was fast pocket water - challenging "combat" wading, complex flows, and limited spots that were slow enough for fish to hold AND conducive to good drifts. My kind of fishing. I pretty much found that rainbows were sitting everywhere I expected they might be. In an hour I landed 3, had 3 more on, and had multiple grabs, all on a dry dropper rig. The fish weren't trophies, but they were solid 12" to 16" fighters. Fun stuff.
Over all, this area fit my preferred fishing experience - adventurous, off the beaten path, enough action to be interesting, and absolutely stunning location. Pics follow:
Late afternoon on the river
My rig for the trip - Scott F 754-3 with a dry dropper
Entering the Flat Tops Wilderness
High mountain lake
Brookie
River valley carved out of the Flat Tops
Pocket water at the bottom of the river valley
Nice 12" rainbow
Another great catch