No Keepers or Lunkers Today

After catching that nice Rainbow last night, I decided to take apart the spinning reel and see if I could fix the drag and clean things out for today's brief outings to Beaver Creek and the Rio Grande at the Masonic Park (near sunset).  I discovered the problem with the drag to be a spring wire had slipped off the pin on the cam which engages the drag notches on the interior of the bail and once it was back in place, the reel worked really well.  The plan today was to only fish a couple hours at Beaver Creek Reservoir, spend some time in the afternoon getting some things cleaned and start getting the RV ready for the move to Denver on Friday.  Then, I planned to head back to the Rio Grande River near Masonic Park to see if there might be more than one of the big fish I caught the evening before.

My first stop today would be the corner under the sign at the dam with the idea that the corner might offer some protection from the westerly winds that were predicted -- instead the wind was blowing right into the corner from the east or southeast building up some floating scum and grasses on the water's surface.  Each cast I made had to come back through the stuff and had to clean the lure after each retrieval but, the reel was working great and the action really nice -- for about the first two dozen casts and then, something seemed to jam in the reel and I had to climb back up to ponder the problem.

The reward for having to do this was an amazing visit by a beautiful Hummingbird -- just as I got inside the Jeep and was about to open the reel, this little bird flew right to the middle of my windshield and hoovered there for a few seconds before heading off to somewhere else.  Really a magical moment.  Reminded me of all the Hummingbirds I had seen last year in the RV park where I stayed near Cimmaron, CO sometime in late June.

After opening the reel as much as I could without tools, I thought a piece of dirt or something got lodged under the wire pin that activated the bail return but, needed to get back to the RV to get the tools to check it out.  When I got back and took off the small cover over the spring mechanism for the bail operation, I discovered the wire spring had broken and a piece did get lodged under the wire pin.  Once removed, the reel again worked but, I had to manually close the bail after each cast.  Headed back up to Beaver Creek Rservoir and returned to the spot by the cliff or bluff where the lunker took my lure -- didn't feel like climbing the boulders and down the shute today.  Fished instead on the sandy shoreline and only caught one little fingerling Brown which I let go immediately after getting him unhooked.  I did give in to climbing over just a few of the boulders at the corner below the bluff and just far enough to throw a few casts near the spot I had hooked the fish before but, had no hits.

I then went over to the picnic area and fished the deep end nearest the parking lot for awhile before giving up and heading back to the RV -- content to think I might have better luck again at the Masonic Park spot around sunset.  Nothing happened there either after fishing for an hour and a half -- until 7:00 p.m.  Time to go back and cook the two fish I had gotten ready for the grille.  Guess the fishing Gods thought I had enough fish for the time being.