Went on a full day guided float trip with a great and interesting guy. He, Randy, is a 55 year old special needs high school teacher who grew up on a ranch. His dad had 100 head of horses. As a teenager, Randy would take pack teams in to supply Outward Bounds groups. Randy is from Durango, which is something like an hour from here. While in his 20s he would walk here, guide people trout fishing and sleep on picnic tables. He told me he walked 80 miles many times. I asked how long that would take, 7 days. I don’t think he’s a bullshitter.
In the morning we floated a stretch below the “quality area”. I caught at least 20 rainbows from 10 to 12 inches and a couple of browns that were a little bigger. We saw very few people. In the afternoon we went to the quality area where there are big fish and big crowds. Didn’t have much luck. You can look down and see many large fish.
For fly fisher people, Randy taught me a lot. He told me to go back to where I had been fishing but use smaller flies, a two fly nymph rig size 24 down to 26, 6X tippet, and at least twice the distance from the tiny sinkers to the strike indicator.
After we finished I asked him to help me pick out a few flies. This is a photo of the flies and two different size sinkers.