Back from the high country

[jim]

For several years I’ve been splitting time between living here on the Galveston West Bay and in South Fork Colorado where I built a little log cabin on the banks of the Rio Grande River. South Fork is in the South central part of Colorado near Wolf Creek Pass about 45 miles from Pagosa Springs in the Rio Grande National Forest. Since my lungs have deteriorated from an interstitial disease, I have spent more time here than there. However, once or twice a year I go up there to relive the high country experience.


Fishing in Colorado in the Fall/Winter helps me remember that there is nothing in my life that I enjoy more than chasing redfish in a kayak in the west bay marsh with a fly rod.


Reflections on fishing in Colorado: wading in a freezing river trying to keep ice cleaned from your guides; swing casting a weighted nymph hoping it doesn’t hit your frozen ear; sitting immobile staring at your line going into little hole in the ice on a frozen over mountain lake; I could go on but I think you get the picture.


I’m just glad to be back home on the West bay and hope the Lord sees fit to give me one more year on this marsh before I go to that big marsh in the sky.




Photos:
South Fork cabin on the river
Brown trout from the Rio Grande river in the back yard.
Brook trout from a little high country lake.
Mountain Rams from across the river
The bear that lives somewhere across the river

[Root Canal]

Great pictures and you have a nice place. Thanks for sharing.

[walkinwader]

Awesome pics.....looks very relaxing.

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[reeltime]

beautiful place and I hope the Lord give you more than one year may He give you many.does it flood so close to the river or creek?I've had the pleasure of living on many different rivers in Texas all of them flooded the place. and we weren't even that close.

[plugger]

Yea , Jim ! You know you can post up on WEA from Colorado so we can know you haven't fallen off the planet . Cool pictures and a mess of brook trout .

[mgstei1]

God bless you and thanks for the pictures!! That sink full of trout and the bear are my favorites!!
Hang in there and keep fishing and the outdoors will keep you going!!
Tx's so much for the post as it has made my morning and day!!

[GregG]

I stumbled in to South Fork looking for a place to tent camp on a totally unplanned trip. Me and a young man we were fostering at the time crawled in the truck with a tent, some peanut butter and bread and headed out after talking to him one night. He said he had never been on a vacation, never seen a mountain, never been on a road trip, never camped out. We changed that the following Saturday morning. I don't know diddly about trout stream fishing, but we managed to catch some rainbows in a little mountain lake right out of town a bit. Got lost on a mountain road crossing Fox peak, and lived like hobos eating sandwiches, beans and soup around a camp fire at night on the banks of the rio grand. I will always have a great memory of that area even though that was the only time I have been there. You are a blessed man to spend extended time there.

[plugger]

The Rio Grand River looks a little worse for wear in these parts . Not what comes to mind when I think of the Rio Grand River . HAR ! Go fish in the Texas Rio Grand and you're more likely to hook a crossing illegal than a fish .

[Parker Meek]

That's awesome, thanks for posting. Very cool seeing all the pictures, hopefully we all get to have a life full of the outdoors.

-Parker