The big fish are back on the Taylor. With the higher flows over the last year, the fish have fattened up and there were many fish around in the 18-22 inch range. The majority of the fish were browns, but there were probably 8-10 rainbows in the upper Catch & Release Section that were 18-24 inches. We spotted one really nice fish right by the top wire that would have been over 10 pounds, but we unsuccessful in getting it to take our flies. The fish in the top section spooked easily, some fish even took off before we could get a cast on them. Matt hooked up almost right away with what turned out to be his largest fish from the river. He had been working on a larger fish when the one next to it took the fly. He carefully played the fish and we landed it down river. It was a fat female close to 23 inches. He landed a couple of other nice rainbows, while I struggled, breaking 5-6 fish off after hooking up. I finally landed a nice 19 inch brown right as it was starting to get dark.

We returned early the next morning and it was my turn to get some fish on the board. My first fish also turned out to be the largest. The fish were agressively taking mysis before the sun came out and this fish came up and slammed the fly. It was a super fat 21 inch male rainbow. It was long after the fish was released that I was hooked up again. I quickly landed 2 more fish from the same slot before things began to slow down. We headed down river to check things out. We spotted a couple of nice rainbows in the 20 inch range, but they were also skittish and we didn't manage any hookups. We caught an occasional fish in the afternoon, but overall things were pretty slow. I hooked one large rainbow up top, but it managed to throw the hooks with a headshake on the surface. We stayed and fished into the early evening, and the browns again turned on to the mysis. We each landed a good 10-15 fish before deciding to call it a night. The majority of the browns were in the 18-22 inch range.

We returned early the next morning and we each landed a couple of nice rainbows. Matt got one really nice looking male rainbow close to 20 inches. Once the sun came out, we decided to move on to see if we could track down some kokanee on the Gunnison. The flows were up on the river, in the 250 cfs range. The best flies were mysis (Charlies Mysis) and black beauties, with smaller sizes working best. We also caught fish on miracle nymphs, RSII's, and small red midges.