The MAD Fishing Show “Trade a Trip” Saturday with MKG

This adventure was the first of a “trade a trip” scenario with someone who is an excellent high country warrior in my view. He wanted to get a taste of some warm water action so we decided to do a little horse-trading.

Keith has lived in Colorado longer than most. Legend has it that his ancestors helped settle this land and even traded with the natives. Ok, maybe that last part was made up but it is definitely a fact that Keith is one heck of a fly angler. I highly recommend checking out his blog http://coloradoalpineangler.blogspot.com/

Early morning meet up, drive out and gear up. Morning conditions are a calm 65 degrees with very little wind. Water was mostly clear but with a slight tint due to algae and depth. Fishing action didn’t happen right off the bat but Keith managed to get into a number of quality bass on the long rod.

(Above: Here’s MKG with a solid bass and one of several on the day. Hopefully Keith will do a full write up on his blog and I won’t spoil the effort by telling the details.)

The fish were holding at the edge of the shoreline if there was sufficient shade, cattails or tree cover. Areas exposed to the sun for long periods of time were nearly void of action. A few fish were picked up in the middle of the lake as well as along the deep inclines but for the most part: tree shade on the south side was money. I expected morning action to be hot but the big bite didn’t come into play until 9AM for some reason. The bite lasted three hours and by noon it was tough getting even a nibble. Air temps were in the mid 90’s by then (up from a mild 60-degrees in the AM) and wind started to get angry.

Don also got into quality buckets on the long rod with the Kieth’ster putting in some of the photo work. I pondered posting a few of the shots that were e-mailed to me but decided against it. With a little more effort on my part we probably could have done a shared post or collaborated a bit more on this one. In fact a lot of my posts seem to write themselves and the flavor in text just rolls off my fingertips with little effort. Not this one. I tend to get this way when I fish the same spot too often and run out of different things to say. So a lot like the fragments of this paragraph, so are the remnants of this post.

Not the money shot

Action shots are some of the most difficult to nail down in the wild especially if you don’t have a camera crew following you around all the time. In this case I managed to get an action shot but the fish didn’t turn quite right making a potential money shot really ho hum.

(Above: This could have been an amazing shot had the fish done a front dive rather than the side flip. Things rarely go perfect.)

Me? Oh I caught fish…but that is not what I want to talk about.

It took me a while to get any fish of quality. My patterns and locations were working but not picking up anything of quality. Eventually I stumbled into a better pattern by way of an oversized spinner-bait in black and white. Rather than posting those pictures here I am going to milk them for a spinner-bait post hopefully in a week or two. 

Getting a trip where three people’s schedules meet is a lot like trying to juggle chainsaws into a shopping cart. Family obligations, work obligations and the spousal units of both Keith and Don add further complexity. People will often ask me to take them fishing or otherwise toss out an invitation of planning future trips. Part of me cringes deep inside when this occurs as this is often a difficult task to organize and the trips rarely go well for some reason. Mountain Goat Keith has been run through a few trips with The MAD Fishing Show, which have been real hit or miss. Probably already screwed myself by foretelling of a future trip, which is also the kiss of death. (Sigh) I am not a superstitious person unless it comes to fishing.

My name is Matt and I’m a fishaholic.