Camping in Estes Park

My buddy Paul is getting married this weekend. For a bachelor party we went camping on Paul's land in Estes. Really nice property right on top of a mountain. I had a great time hanging out with his buddies from Wisconsin. We spent most of the night drinking beer and laughing.

This was my first chance to try out the new bed I made for the back of the Tundra. Only took a few minutes to get it all setup. I slept great. Super warm and very comfortable. Probably the best sleep I have ever had camping. This was a good test run for next weekend. Next Friday heading up to Granby to camp in Arapaho Bay.

Memorial Day At Lake Granby

Took my first trip to Granby for the season over Memorial Day weekend. Left the house Friday morning at 4 am. This was the first real test for the new (to me) Tundra. The truck did great. It had no problems driving over the mountains while pulling the boat. Did use a lot of gas.. but that was expected.

My friend Marin and his girlfriend flew in from San Francisco to fish with us. I had another friend from work who was supposed to go up with us.. but the super charger on his new Audi blew up, so he didn't get to make it.

We found a nice house to rent for the weekend on VRBO. Pretty close to the lake and with all of us pitching in it was cheaper than the cheapest hotel in Granby. It was also really close to Grand Lake.

On Friday morning it was cold and wet. The girls and Marin did not want to fish, so I dropped them off at the house we rented. I was on the lake fishing by 7:30 am. My friend Jeremy who lives in Granby and fishes all the time told me lakers were active in 40ish feet of water. I looked at a topo map and found a few spots at that depth that I thought might hold some fish. Didn't really have much luck in any of the spots I found. So I checked out some deeper spots I normally use later in the summer. Marked a couple of fish at Inspiration Point and Ford's Hump. So I gave them a try and caught a few. I got 5 that morning. Nothing huge, but it was good to be out on the lake. That evening we ate at Mavericks and drank a lot of beer :)

Saturday morning we were out on the lake by 6:30. I had a full boat with 4 people. That was not ideal for fishing lol. We fished 3 people at a time. I tried the deep water spots again and we caught a few. It was really cold and wet all day. No one was having a great time :s That night we went into Grand Lake to get dinner. That was my first time in Grand Lake. Nice town with some pretty decent food.

I spoke with my friend Jeremy that night and he said he would be out fishing the next morning and would show me where the fish were hanging out. Next morning at 6 am we met him in Arapaho Bay. There is a nice big sandy flat back there that is between 30 and 60 feet. The fishing was awesome and so was the weather. Caught fish all day till we left at 11 am. This time it was just Marin and I in my boat and Jeremy in his boat. I would have stayed all day but the ladies were at the house with no car and not much to do. I feel like I really dialed in my vertical jigging style that day. That night we went to the hot springs in Indian Springs. It was very relaxing and felt good on muscles sore from jigging for days in a row. We had lake trout for dinner that night :)

Monday morning we all went out again and fished till about noon. The fishing was still good, but not as good as Saturday. Diane hopped in Jeremy's boat so we could all fish at the same time. She caught her fist fish of the season. After fishing we cleaned up the house and stopped at Mackinaw's to grab lunch the headed home. Cant wait to get back up to Granby on the 10th. Got to go a friends wedding this coming weekend or I would go then.

Broke the Chatfield Skunk!

Just barley though! Took the boat out yesterday. The weather was awesome. Bright, no wind, no clouds. Got on the water about 7am. The surface water temp was 56F. The water is still pretty cloudy from run off. By the dam the water has maybe 8" of visibility. Water on the southwest end was a little clearer..maybe a foot of visibility.

I fished all over the lake. Saw a ton of trout suspended and on bottom. I had one big follower near Massey Draw. No bites though. In the after noon I hit the east-west road bed and saw a few walleye. So I drug a worm across at about .8mph and finally caught one. Fished for a few more hours with no luck.

I also spent some time just checking out different spots I found on Fishing Maps map of Chatfield. I think later in the summer they will produce. I also tried out the foot petal to my trolling motor. I have always used my remote control, but it died in the afternoon. The foot petal is kind of hard to use standing up in waves, but its a good backup. Heading back to Chatfield this evening to do some mapping! Just got Humminbirds Autochart Pro in the mail :D Plan on making a really good map of the gravel pits on the southwest end of the lake.

New Battery Charger

My favorite place in Colorado to fish is Lake Granby. It's a beautiful lake with huge lake trout. I usually vertically jig in 80+ feet of water. The depth makes using an anchor not really practical, plus who wants to fiddle with an anchor. A few years ago I bought a Minnkota trolling motor with iPilot. The iPilot is pretty cool. It's GPS enabled and can do all sorts of neat things. The killer feature it has is a virtual anchor. You can tell it to hold a position for you and it will keep you right in that spot. So when I'm on Granby I use this feature for 6-8 hours in a day. This can really eat up your batteries. Especially on windy days. To keep the trolling motor running strong for a whole day I have wired two 12v Optima deep cycle batteries in parallel (my trolling motor is 12v). This will last the whole day, but the batteries need charging at the end of the day. I used to carry a 10 amp charger with me. This was just kind of a pain in the butt. I decided to make life easier and bought an on-board battery charger. The charger is smart and looks at temperature and current voltage to work out how and if it will charge the battery. This will allow the batteries to charge quickly and safely.

Today I did the install. I found some 5/16" thick rubber standoffs to put between the boat and charger to help with vibration. I used 1/4" hardware with fender and lock washers plus locktite. Hopefully the install will hold up to all the vibration and banging around. Here are a few pictures.

Miserable day at Chatfield

Colorado weather is all over the place, even more so in the spring. Yesterday it was 70s and 80s all day and sunny. Today it was 40s, cloudy, and windy :( Took the boat out to Chatfield anyway to see if the walleyes were holding on the submerged roadbed yet. No such luck. Only marked a few fish on the finder. Today was just a cold miserable day. Can't wait till its 80s all the time. Meh...

New Bench Seat For The Boat

I often have 4 people in my boat, usually on days when I'm not fishing. Just hanging out on the lake. It's always been a little awkward for the 2 people without proper seats. They set on the cooler or on the storage compartments attached the gunwale. Today I solved that with a padded bench. I bought some marine grade vinyl and 3" thick, really dense, padding. Put it all on a 2x12. I had to raise the bench up about 1" so my coolers would fit under it. Turned out pretty nice I think.

Good Day At Cherry Creek

I went to Cherry Creek today with my neighbor Ben. First time out this year when it wasn't really windy, rainy, and cold. Great day on the water, starting to feel like summer here. We lindy rigged with worms for a few hours. Got a couple of 15" walleye. That was my first fish from Cherry Creek. I have camped there and took the boat out, but never actually fished the 'Creek before. Think I'll walleye fish at Chatfield this weekend.

Windy Morning

Hit Chatfield Reservoir today at 6am. It was overcast, windy, and cold. The northeast side of the lake by the dam was really muddy. The inlet by the north boat ramp (plumb creek) was flowing pretty good. I fished all over the place with no luck. The roadbed was empty. Tried jigs and jerk baits in shallower waters.



Watched a video from Nate Zelinsky today. Think I'll try fishing with a heavier jig next time..using super line with a very slow presentation.

Nathan Zelinsky Presentation 2016 from Born to Fish Media on Vimeo.

Misc Updates

Continuing to get ready for the summer. Installed a 12v power plug under the glove box on the passenger side. It's connected to one of the back batteries using 12 gauge marine wire :) Should provide plenty of capacity for the spot light and phone chargers etc. Also got the window seals on the topper replaced. One side had a slight leak. Got a picture of the truck with the topper off. Was supposed to go to Horsetooth reservoir in Fort Collins this weekend... but we are supposed to get a lot of snow... :(

New Bimini!

Got the boat back from Paul's Custom Canvas. They did a fantastic job on the new bimini. I could not be happier. Today was also the first day out on the water for 2016. Didn't get a bite, but it was still a great day. The truck did great too.

Unwrapped the boat today!

Took the wrap off the boat today! Great day :D Only bad thing is I won't get to use it for 2 weeks! I took it to Paul's Custom Canvas in Denver to get a full bimini!! Going to be 6'3" tall and 5' long with removable sides and back. Going to make sudden storms no big deal!



Today is the first day to tow the boat with the new Tundra. It did great. Only towing around Denver but I was very pleased. The backup camera makes lining up the truck to the boat easy.