John and I made reservations to fish the private waters of Granby Ranch today. Granby Ranch’s private three-mile stretch of the Fraser River is a beautiful gold-medal tributary of the Colorado River, containing brown, rainbow, and cutthroat trout. Starting time was 9:00 AM, so we paid our trespass fee, signed a release, and drove to water’s edge of Beat 2. A fly shop in Fraser has exclusive “guiding” rights to these private waters, and the shop owner told us that Beats 1 and 2 were his choice as to where he takes clients. At the river, we put our rods together, strung them up, and donned waders, boots, and vests. We both started with flies purchased at the Fraser fly shop. I had a couple of misses on the big ant, and changed to a #18 caddis, success as the little 6-inch brown was a fighter. Over the course of the next three hours, I constantly changed flies, even using several two-fly combinations, and caught an occasional fish here and there, with lots of misses; the fish would miss the fly, failing to hook up.

Shortly after noon, I switched to a deer hair hopper, and after several misses, a 9-inch brown inhaled the hopper. For the next 3 hours, I fished the hopper without hooking up, but got strikes at almost all undercut bank sections. Thunder, lightning, and a light rain finally drove us off the river. John had several fish for the day, mostly on nymphs, but of course, he’s the nymph master. This was a fun river to fish, with riffles and pools at every bend. It might take a couple of days, but I believe the code could be broken.

While John and I fished, Sandy and Kay further explored the Grand Lake and Granby areas, getting a taste, both literally and figuratively, of the local culture, eating at The Blue Moon Bakery, where they had a tomato bisque and half sandwich. They met some colorful locals, and some transplants who had opened businesses in the area.

John prepared a great eggplant Parmesan dinner (Sandy and Kay prepared both fruit and spinach salads), after which we all spent a quiet and early evening.

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