East Portal of Black Canyon

Today I made the hour plus drive to the East Portal of the Black Canyon to see if the "Gold Medal" was deserved for that section of the Gunnison river.  The color of the water was more like split pea soup but, after just two casts I had a small Rainbow flying through the air and spitting out my lure with another of the same size doing the same thing after another two casts -- seemed promising.  This was just down from the parking lot so, I decided to head down the trail in hopes of something bigger.

I arrived at a pool that looked more promising and tried some casts with no luck and thought of moving farther downstream to the next pool but, saw the hat of another angler behind a large boulder just at the head of the pool.  With no strikes or keepers, I headed past the only other angler I had seen and asked him how he had been doing and he said he had caught 6 or 8 twelve or fourteen inchers -- I didn't ask to see them and continued downstream.  The trail ended at the pool with some cliffs blocking the way farther into the canyon without a boat or raft.

I began fishing with a rainbow colored Panther Martin instead of the heavier Kastmaster and wished I had applied some lemon juice to the treble hook as it looked pretty dark and dingy -- not shiny.  After about a dozen casts, I hooked this really nice Rainbow trout that had to be 22 or 24 inches and really, really hefty looking -- like a well protected species (which it is in this stream).  The fish jumped fairly high for its size and then disappeared into the water after breaking off one of the hooks of the treble hook.  I fished on with just the two hooks on the lure and soon caught a nice 17 inch Brown trout.  Soon thereafter, I caught and released three decent size Rainbows and then I hooked that big one again and again he spit out the lure.  A little later, I caught and released a baby Brown trout and then another keeper Brown of about 14 inches.

Too bad I had forgotten to bring my camera with me on the trail as the scene there was prettier than the picture above.   I headed back to the Jeep with the two Brown trout and had some lunch -- found the time to be around noon and decided to head upstream in the Jeep to get a look at the dam but, couldn't get there so, decided to head back to Gunnison since I saw storm clouds looming overhead.

On the way back, I decided to stop at the Morrow Point dam and fished the stream there as it looked so clear compared to the river at the portal.  Only made about half dozen casts with no strikes so I headed back again as more storm clouds began to show in the direction of Gunnison.  Two trout for the grille tomorrow night.