“Fishing” gets quotation marks because I’m really not much of an angler, but I was traveling with two avid anglers: my dad and my little sister. My first attempt at fly-fishing was in Yellowstone when I was about ten years old and the only thing I caught was my left eyelid. Luckily, my dad is very conscientious about clamping down the barbs on his hooks, so it didn’t even draw blood, but it sure turned me off from fly-fishing for a long time.
I mainly went on this trip so I could take photos while enjoying the mountains and wilderness of Colorado. That said, I had so much fun watching Sis and Dad not catch fish on Saturday that I got a fishing license on Sunday so I could have fun not catching fish with them.
Yes, you read that right. We spent Sunday up to our thighs in the South Platte river, industriously waving fly rods around, working very hard at not catching fish. I was the only one to hook a fish long enough to see its belly flash as I tried to bring it to the shallows so I could admire it up close, but in the spirit of not being caught, it got away before I could do more than say, “Yep, that is definitely a fish!”
It was a pretty fish, too. And I’m gonna go on the record and say that it looked like it was about 12 inches long (which is definitely not any longer than it was the day that I almost caught it). Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
Aside from fishing, we spent some time hiking, some time spending money at Flies & Lies, and a bit of extra sight-seeing in the form of finding a place for dinner Saturday night (we ended up at the Historic Ute Inn in Woodland Park, CO, for those keeping track). I have to give a shout out to the staff at the Historic Ute Inn, because when we asked about places to watch the sun set, they were able to really help us out. We followed their directions and they did not disappoint, the view from the place they directed us to were incredible.
Sadly, we didn’t get to spend as much time in Colorado as we would have liked. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there, though, and will just have to go back again. Next time, I want to try and go to Rocky Mountain National Park, which we didn’t have time for on this trip.