Well folks, the trip has come and gone and I got home late Sat night. To cut to the chase, I didn't land a single fish. Caught one but lost him literally within seconds when the tippet broke off the tippet ring I had on that particular leader. To say that disappointed me would be the understatement of the century. I spent 3 of the 4 days on the Ute water south of town, and one day in the Purple Cliffs area. Lots of great looking water but nothing I tried worked other than that one time. The first 3 days I had temps in the mid-50's with the last day getting considerably colder with the current storm rolling in. The midge hatch that began about 11am everyday was impressive and lasted into mid-afternoon. Despite the thought of running south to the Juan for a day or 2, I stuck it out on the Animas the whole trip, determined to give it everything I had. I tried everything but dries and followed the advice of Andy and Kyle at Duranglers. I even met up with Dutch off the SJ River forum and his Animas River blog; he gave me a lot of good tips for where and what to fish. It just wasn't my time there. Still, it was a very successful trip: I spent some time to myself out on a beautiful river, enjoyed seeing some distant people I consider friends, and enjoyed the CO atmosphere completely. I never tire of being in that part of the state and its always an emotional experience.

Gear notes: Scott Radian 6, Hatch 5+, SA sharkwave GPX. Break-in trip for Patagonia zip front waders, foot tractors, and river salt jacket. All performed flawlessly and that jacket is my favorite piece of fishing gear, ever. I used nothing finer than 5X flouro and it was very strong; I determined this by the multiple snags on submerged rocks that survived me changing angles and tugging a bit to free the line. I went from a sling bag to a waist pack and that's the ticket for me. Although I like the front pockets on the Pat sling vest, it causes me some crampy discomfort in the left side of my back after just a couple hours. I bought Simms Exstream socks for this trip, expecting colder temps but found them to be too thick to comfortably fit inside my boots in conjunction with the neoprene booties on my waders. They prevented me from wiggling my toes at all and I was afraid that the tight fit might reduce circulation and make my feet colder. I used thick "trekking" socks from Smartwool and they seemed to be the right thickness. And a bigger boot size would have made them unusable with anything but those super thick socks so, no-go for the summer. I found #6 split shot to be horrible at staying on my leader after anything more than a few casts. I bought AirFlo Di-Do putty last fall and this proved to be the right choice. It stuck well on the line and stayed put.

Here's a few pics: