doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Boondoggle?

If you can drive to it….it’s not “back country”. At least in my mind it’s not. I agree though, since Covid, it seems everyone is an outdoorsy person now. It’s been horrid here in Utah. The Uintas used to be a place you could go to get lost….not so much anymore. They wanna turn the main canyons in SLC into toll roads and build gondolas because of the gridlock. The country is getting full.

Nice writeup Lloyd. Looks like a familiar moustache and Westley Richards holding that grouse. Too bad the yuppies were out.

Thanks for rounding out the little adventure. I got a chuckle out of your comment about folks driving rigs that might cost more than a house.

There's a place I've hunted a bunch of times that when wet out has the tackiest clay based mud I've ever run into. The locals call one of the main access roads, O'reilly's. It's littered with parts and accessories, that get ripped of from the weight of the mud, from big land yachts that some folks try to bring in. Go back some time and try to get your grayling.

Your last statement is spot-on, Colorado sure is a mess anymore!

I'm fourth generation Coloradan & can't believe what has happened to the state. I for the most part quit going to the mountains several years ago due to the items you've mentioned above. I will be up in the Craig area in a couple of weeks for a pronghorn hunt, but it will be on a private ranch with a trespass fee involved. It's getting hard to even find ranchers who will let you hunt with a reasonable trespass fee these days because most of them have contracted with outfitters. I used to hunt public land back in the days when you could easily draw a license & still not have much competition on the million's acres of national forest & BLM lands Colorado has. Now it takes years to accumulate enough points to draw a license in a good area & when you do the public lands are crawling with different types of rig's & people driving around.

I'm still out there doing what I love to do, but I do long for the days in different times! Maybe our mutual friend Mr. Cobb has it right & it's time to look elsewhere for a place to live!

Looking at that picture of the lake sure makes one appreciate Lake of the Woods. And, a 28’ Sport Craft to get around it on.

Enjoy September, Lloyd. I’ve never heard the claim that Greyling eat better than a Walleye, but, you never know.

Best,
Ted

I fish right off a forest service road near the Appalachian trail. Tons of hikers on the trails, but no fishermen or otherwise in the water because you have to clamber over glacial boulders. If an area is crowded here, just a few dozen feet off the road or less down a very steep and forested embankment tends to result in complete solitude. I have the good fortune of being a young-ish and spry-ish forty though. Still concerned about having a bad fall and getting hypothermic in the cold water before someone finds me...However, for me, a little bushwhacking always yields good results. Probably also helps to be a very hyper technical fishery where most get skunked.

I gave up on fly-fishing in CO years ago-- unlike Montana and Michigan, the river access is controlled by the landowner, and it is not always to get on to some good trout waters. Wanted to hunt elk in Co. but never got my number drawn for a tag (also the case here in MI) C'est La Vie. Le Reynard

limapapa: Not a Westly this time, but an H&H Royal that started life as a 2-inch gun. It's now one of the nicest 16s that I've ever seen or handled.

Dogon: Change is hard, it's even harder if you're stupid about it. Colorado has become California in so-many ways. I've considered our time here as very fortunate but I'm not sure that this will be where I make my last stand.

Foxy: Yes....I've got lots of tackle that I don't really have a place to use anymore. I have been told that I'm overly-fussy and that I should be grateful for at least the opportunity to get out, and in many ways that is true (I suppose). My problem is that my memory is still too-vivid, still too-fresh, of lovely, open, & uncrowded rivers and streams. When I go now (& I do so very deliberately to avoid said crowds by going mid-week, in off-seasons, and very early) it is occasionally still some of the fun that I recall. But.... the experience pales by comparison to my past adventures and I haven't been able to fully get over that.

Ted: Even the LOTW isn't immune from crowding anymore. I've had several occasions where I'd set up on a piece of structure, drop my anchor and start to fish and then... find myself in a crowd shortly after catching a few. LeFusil is dead right, things are clearly filling up in this country. The lonely places are getting ever-harder to find and then (selfishly) protect.

"Dogon: Change is hard, it's even harder if you're stupid about it. Colorado has become California in so-many ways. I've considered our time here as very fortunate but I'm not sure that this will be where I make my last stand."

Just curious, are you calling me stupid?

For years now I've done many of the things you mention to try and avoid the crowds while perusing my outdoor adventures and I've been pretty innovative with how I go about things. I know our mutual friend who you've worked with at Marks shop has joined me on many of these adventures for years without a complaint. I really don't know why you felt the need to throw in the stupid comment.

Dogon: I'm sorry, perhaps I wasn't very clear. Not calling you stupid at all (actually, I'm fairly certain we're quite like-minded). I was referring to the general policies of our home State, of late.