Taylor Park Reservoir
An early weekend in August, Ben and I set off for a fishing trip to the Taylor Park Area of Colorado, which is nestled deeply behind the Collegiate Peaks and north of Gunnison. We left Friday evening and decided to cut through Cottonwood Pass to get to the park quickly.
The night was extremely clear and calm, with a very bright and visual milky-way. We pulled into camping spot around 11:30PM and poached a reserved camping spot that wasn’t claimed. I set up my bivy and took some night pictures of the lake and mountains.
The next morning we awoke at 6 AM and snuck out past Camp Master Joe. The clouds were just starting to burn off the lake and you could see people fishing on the beaches. We drove down to outflow river and through the private property till we got to the public land. The morning was calm, I didn’t have any luck, but Ben got a few near noon. We drove down further, where the water calmed down and widened out. Here I caught a very pretty little brown trout. But since I was wading in the middle of the river I wasn’t able to get my camera out for a picture. We packed up and tried fishing above the lake, but their was nothing there. I ended up sleeping on a big rock in the middle of the stream. Next, we tried the reservoir and hooked a nice lake trout right off the bat.
We caught of stuff ready for some night fishing on the outflow in the “monster fish section” of the river. The section is known to house 5-10lb trout ranging from 26-36 inches. Night is the only way to beat the crowds. When we got there at 9pm, we got a few casts in then a monsoon of snow and rain flashed upon us. After 10 minutes of not being able to see what we were doing, we headed to camp. Again, we snuck back into the park and set up camp in the rain, almost getting blast by lightning a couple yards away and harassed by the local squirrels.
Next morning, we left before Camper Bob got up again and head to the Tomahawk Wildlife area. This area is right outside of Harstel and provides some real nice beaver pond fishing. The stream and ponds contain a lot of Rainbow trout, which average 12-16 inches. They don’t get much bigger because a lot of people keep what they catch here.
Your blogging is sick Mikey! Glad to see some good outdoors shit going down. Wish I was there. Did you identify those mushrooms with your handbook? Spelling is pretty ok too. I’m wildly impressed. haha. That cliff jumping spot is sick too! keep up the good work!
Thanks Na.. Ya wish you guys were out here to have some fun alongside. I did ID those mushrooms, but i can remember exactly what they were called. But they were either not tasty, or shutdown your liver in 3 days. So I didn’t taste them either way. Also, I may or may not have people assisting with my spelling corrections.