July, 2025

7/24-25:  Camping trips this month have been on a single overnight weekly basis.  Unhappily the fishing has not even been that productive. A number of issues each week seem to put our schedule for combo camp/fishing on the back burner.

Thursday we were able to make it up to the White River upstream from Meeker for a couple of hours of casting and a decent night's camping.  Sue opted to tend and walk the dogs while i got in a bit of wading downstream from Sleepy Cat.  Wasn't sure if I'd be able to cross the river there as the flows were still running around 400, but with the aid of my slip on boot crampons and a sturdy stick, I made it across without wetting my butt.  The first hole I fished with a dry/dropper rig could have been spectacular with a couple of great fish hooked.  Neither was landed.  One pulled loose from the top water fly and the other was way too strong for the 4X tippet I had on, and he simply tore the fly off on an extended long run.

But it was an exciting start to the short couple of other hours of casting.

Not much else of note happened.  Hooked another couple of modest sized bows and released a bunch of juveniles and that was about it. 

We had a nice quiet place to camp above the now completely drained Avery Lake, so crowds that might have normally been around us were completely absent.  After a decent dinner and the following morning's similarly good breakfast, we waited until the sun was on the water again and did have a bit more fishing.  Have to admit it really was pretty much a dud.  Released a few more sub twelve inch rainbows and that was the story.  Here's the very short video that defines the fishing and the camping:

Last Logbook Entry  � for previous day

A quick end-of-the-month trip back to the Crystal today. Have to admit not being overwhelmed with any of the fishing we've done so far this summer.  Too much heat, too many low flows, a few too many people clustering around the same water, etc.  Despite the river probably at a little bit below 100 cubes, it was still be staying quite cool compared to a few other places we've been so far.

I spent my short time up in the Redstone area.  There are a number of decent runs and a few patches of quicker, deeper water too.  Starting out with a dry/dropper did little good.  After a couple of small fish rose to the dry, I detached the small trailer nymph and stuck with a #16 stimulator for the first hour and followed that up with a #16 WRS for the latter hour.  Missed more strikes than I should have out of the box but eventually did get plenty of hookups and releases.

It wasn't great fun despite the nice sunny day.  At a spot downstream I tried a bit of nymphing and had almost zero success with that approach.  Historically the Crystal is dominantly an underwater fly stream though it was not that way today.  Enough for now.  We'll be back on the water in a couple of weeks when we return from a short stint to the place in Arizona.  Here's the one minute video:

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