Week of the Rainbow

I hit up some of the local rivers after work last week.  First was an evening in the Black Canyon.  This National Park is seriously one of the coolest places I have ever been to.  It was so green down at the bottom.

There's some awesome fishing as well :)  Usually my catch is 80 percent browns, but today I could only find a couple.

Instead I was blessed to find the awesome bows that the black canyon has to offer!  

Usually rainbows are my least favorite trout to catch.  They're usually planters, maxing out around 10".  They attract power bait lovers, and they love to turn belly up even with the best handling and release.

However, when one finds bows pushing 17-18+ inches...gold mine.  They fight hard, and often give an arial display.

There are some real tanks in this river.  I didn't find any true monsters, but the ones I did catch fought amazingly.  They peeled line from my reel and went airborne a number of times.  I actually had one break me off and another spit my jig while doing some acrobatic jumps for me.

This next guy had a gnarly wound on the gill plate and hardly any fat on him.  He was strong though :)

VERY beautiful place to spend a couple hours.

I found a couple more hours the next day and headed down to good ol' Paco.  I didn't catch a brown or cutt all day.  The bows were so aggressive.  I couldn't get my jigs down to the cutts or browns fast enough!

They all fought just like the bows from black canyon.  Ah bows can be fun when they have a little shoulder behind em'.

Spunky little guys...

The rainbows at Paco are very healthy and seem to be putting on the feed bag.  There is a lot of potential for some big trout to start showing up here.  I'm talking 25+ inches :)

 It ended up being a fun little mini trip to the river.  The roads are opening up on the Grand Mesa.  It's calling my name next week :)

Until then, life is short....live it well