We pursue that which eludes us.
That’s not waxing rhapsodic, nor is it a profound statement. It’s just simple fact: if it didn’t elude us, there would be no need to pursue it.
And that pursuit is responsible for so much of what we find compelling in this life, isn’t it? We pursue goals, championships, promotions, happiness, pleasure… love.
And fishermen, of course, pursue fish.
I desperately want the South Platte River, through its urban corridor of Denver, to be a consistent, high quality fishery. I want to have the best of both worlds – the concerts, museums, sporting events, and culture of a city like Denver, with a trout river that flows through it. But in this instance, what I want and reality are still a ways off.
I’ve lived a few years in Arizona and New Mexico, and in the southwest there are mountain chains that rise to over 9,000 and 10,000 feet, commonly referred to as sky islands. They contain vastly different terrain than the surrounding desert, and above a certain elevation the desert flora and fauna are replaced by pine trees and mountain mammals. These mountains are pockets of uniquely different habitat surrounded by a vast, arid desert.
Fishing the urban South Platte in Denver is a lot like traveling between the sky islands of the desert southwest. In other words, there are some incredibly beautiful, high quality rapids, riffles, and runs, but they’re all at least a quarter mile apart. These little pockets of high quality water look as good as anywhere I’ve fished. I’ve seen caddis, tricos, and PMD’s in great numbers in these stretches. Take this one, for instance:
The day started fuzzy, thanks to two too many drinks the night before and the umpteenth viewing of “The Movie” that lasted well past midnight. To be honest, I hadn’t watched it in years, not since I really started to fish obsessively, and I found myself surprised at how poorly Craig Sheffer and Tom Skerritt actually cast a fly rod. Brad Pitt seemed to know what he was doing, but it was still obvious when they were using footage of Brad versus when they were using cleverly disguised footage of his stand-in.
Anyway, I had spent the night at Tim & Stacy’s because Tim and I both had Friday off and we wanted to get an early start. My wife, Jenn, and I are juggling careers while raising our two and a half year old son, so a night spent at a friend’s house, with a day of fishing starting the next morning, feels damn near like a vacation. (The challenge, of course, is making sure these getaways even out over time for both husbands and wives.)
After loading our gear and a quick stop for a drive-thru breakfast that probably met our recommended sodium intake for the whole day, we were on the road by 7:15. I was about to remark that in our younger days we could’ve made an even earlier start, but, actually, that’s probably not true at all. With jobs that wake us up early, aches and pains that do the same, and toddlers and infants that don’t let us sleep past 7:30 even if we could, I think most of us in our late thirties probably, on average, get up a hell of a lot earlier than we did in our twenties.
Our destination was the Cheesman Canyon section of the South Platte River.
