I found myself in possession of a canoe in Colorado, and it had been a
while since I've been able to enjoy paddling around a lake and
catching trout. So we went up to a smallish mountain lake just a 30-
minute drive away from where we were staying, and had a blast. Pics
are at:

http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~jcook/pics/col2009/

Colorado was getting LOTS of rain (it rained every day we were there)
and the day was extremely cloudy at the start, so stupid me I left my
hat in the car. My head's still peeling as I write this. Most fish
were caught trolling, which I find extremely pleasurable to do in a
canoe. The last picture shows my typical trolling setup, the butt of
the rod is just barely visible resting on the gunwale behind my knee,
the rod sitting in front of my other knee (this is when it'd be nice
to have a lightweight rod with a little fighting butt, the reel seat
isn't really long enough to rest on the gunwale -- any little move
pulls it off). Then I just paddle easily along, zigzagging along,
enjoying the day. The fish in the last picture is stringered up, he
was unfortunate to be caught late when I was getting hungry ;-) He
sure was tasty though.

Quite a few of the bigger fish (all rainbows) had orange slashes
under their jaw. I don't know if they are pure stockers or if there is
some natural reproduction going on; I think a while back this lake had
some snake river cutts stocked in it. Maybe there is remnants of that
blood in some wild population; or maybe they are all holdover
stockers, I don't know.

I don't know how many fish I caught (easily double digits), but it was
good enough to head back up the next day and get my brother in law
onto a bunch of fish. My shoulders were blown out after that, though;
I'm not used to two days straight of paddling, and the second day back
to the dock was a long haul into a brisk wind.

That'll probably be my trout fix for at least a few more months.

Jon.