Just One Of Those...

It was just one of those days that was meant to be... but I didn’t know it when I woke up. I was sore from the previous day’s adventure in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, in need of a few more hours of sleep, and I had things to get done before I could hit the park. But if I wanted to make it to the headwaters, I had to get my priorities straight. Up and into the shower I went.

Somehow, I got done with my errands early, successfully dodged the Ironman race that had much of the area shut down to traffic and passed almost all of the trailers on the twolane sections of the windy road up the canyon.

The last obstacle to overcome was getting into the park fast and finding a good parking spot... but that too went my way, as I skipped a good thirty minutes of waiting by having the National Parks annual pass (which scans at the gate like an EZ Pass) and knowing which lots to hit first. A little bit of luck also went a long way as I grabbed the last parking spot at my favorite trailhead.

Score!

Heading up the trail I quickly outpaced the crowd and found some solitude, taking in the beauty of the high-altitude mountains in early summer. And what an early summer it was... Melt out had already peaked, and as I arrived at the first waterfall, seeing the amount of water raging down it, I figured I’d be heading right to the lake.

However, another half a mile brought me to a beautiful cascading section with deeper plunges and open fishable water that wasn’t blown out. I couldn’t believe how good it looked this early in the season, so of course I busted out my Daiwa and began to fish.

It was just one of those days that was meant to be... on the first cast I caught a beautiful little cutthroat, my first of the season. Along with it came that wonderful feeling you get when the stars seem to align as you least expected them to. So instead of heading right to the lake, I fished a good section of stream and got a few truly beautiful wild trout.

I only used a single fly on this day... a pretty standard stiff-hackled kebari with a nice buggy dubbing on the body. If I could only choose one fly to fish for the rest of my life it would be that one.

For me it was just one of those things that was meant to be... Tenkara.