Rio Trio

 Been to a number campsites lately with no cell cvg.  

Yampa: 2nd attempt to try further downstream from headwaters was a complete bust.  Water was way too warm in Craig.  Steamboat Springs will let you fish the Yampa which flows right through the town, except that they closed it to fishing due to high water temps.   They suggested Chuck Lewis recreation area south of town.  I get there and it too is closed for same reason.   I follow the river for miles trying to find public access but it's all fenced off.  Finally. I found a short stretch in a National Forest and it looks beautiful...except the water is really high and murky due to all of the rain.  Huge wads of alge were breaking loose from when the water was low.   Ewww

Rio Grande: time to escape all the rain so I headed for headwaters of Rio Grande.   There 4 or 5 reservoirs on the way but they looked like the pits of strip mines.  Horrible.   The plan was to camp near Mt Canby where the RG begins as a mere brook.  Forest Service road got increasingly narrow and sketchy so I backed off.  Fished the RG in an open Meadow the next day.  Gorgeous,  no rain and three beefy rainbow trout plus one that got away.  

Next day I tried the Palisade section of RG.  Pretty but no fish.  Finding a campsite for the night was a series of failures:  roads that don't ex

Poage Reservoir not on my map, near Beaver Creek area of Rio Grande NF

ist anymore, others that are blocked,  hailstorm,  etc.  I wound up driving 10 miles on a NFS road but found an excellent site.

One of the Rio Trio of rainbow trout

As I prepared to leave this AM I saw multiple cars going past my site.

White knuckle access road to Mt Canby

so I decided to follow    Turns out,  there's a reservoir not marked on my map they were headed to.  Short walk and boy, was it worth it!  CLEAR blue water and loaded with trout.  I caught at least 10 cutbows that were 12 - 18 inches plus 2 little ones.  Still haven't actually caught a cutthroat yet but that sure was fun.

Headed toward Delores tonight.