Sam's First Catfish

The boys and I headed to the Sioux River to do a little fishing today. Joe decided we should go to the river because he wanted to catch a catfish. But it was Sam that caught the only fish of the afternoon, a nice three pound channel catfish. It was a little much for the Zebco and he needed some assistance reeling it in. He caught it on a night crawler. We were hoping to catch a carp or moon eye to use as cut bait, but they only nibbled and stole our worms.
Sam spent most of his time watching for bugs. The ticks are very bad this year. He's going to be like his mom when it comes to bugs. Joe's going to be like his dad when it comes to "itch weed", his legs were very red and itchy! Next time they want to take the boat out to a lake where there aren't so many bugs, just different kinds.

Hunter-Frying Pan Wilderness

Last fall I went on a mule deer hunt in the Hunter- Frying Pan Wilderness. The DOW (Colorado Dept. of Wildlife) told me the deer numbers might be a little bit down from normal, but I should see some good deer. Well I spent a week up top here (the photo is of the upper drainage of hunter creek where I spent most of my time) with binoculars and spotting scope and the only deer I saw was a fork-horn. And he was on the wrong side of the mountain and out of the wilderness area and my hunting unit. It was kind of depressing to spend the time and effort to prepare and then go that far and not see any deer. I did see some elk and a couple dandy bulls! Evidently the winter of '07-'08 was harder on the deer in this area than the DOW thought. So if anyone is thinking about giving this area a try for deer you may want to give it a couple years. Just a heads-up. I plan on posting more pictures and stories from this trip in the future.