River Tales: D-Wrangling in Colorado

From generation to generation to generation, and maybe one more generation of rivers flow together, in the green state of Colorado--and wow how they get it on! But hold on, I’m getting ahead of my self, before I dive into the rivers, I need to set the stage of the D-Wranglers who were willing to follow El Padre aka Roger Hagland into the rocky mountains of South West Colorado.

El Padre proudly proclaimed on last years annual trip at Jarbidge Nevada, that he would pick/plan the next trip, and although he originally had New Mexico in mind, SW Colorado was ultimately his selection. The Durango area is roughly the zone, in fact we drove through the town, and stopped to get licenses and a few flies at Durangler's--the main shop in town, and since we bought a few things there we figured that made us D-Wranglers--what ever! At any rate, El Padre put some good work into planning this trip, hats off to him.

Diamond James Tobler, a crowd favorite, and long time regular, shows up sporting a brand new charcoal Ford truck. Oddly though the truck wasn't the only charcoal item he was rocking. His cute lil ass was wrapped in these adorable charcoal pants, he had a new charcoal fleece hoodie, and a really sweet rain jacket--yup you guessed it, the color charcoal. We were all convinced that he had found a new sugar momma, but he was really tight lipped, and adamantly denied receiving any gifts from any sugar momma or even a sugar daddy for that matter. Its all good, none of his fishing buddies really care how the new truck is getting paid for, as long as we get to drive in "Mo" we are happy as clams. "Mo" is his name for the truck. I'm not really sure why he named the truck "Mo" but he should tell us at some point.

Busting with young stallion energy, ready to help, and all packed up with his own gear--even a camp chair, Jake Taber, not only shows up, but is willing to drive. After a solid 2-3 years of being a member of the Mag-7 he has gone nick-nameless. To his credit, he has never complained, or even brought it up that he is simply called Jake, sometimes Jacob. Well not anymore, henceforth the council has determined that Jake will now be Mowgli. Due to his fighting moves, eternal youthful image, and his just damn cute way about him; he is Mowgli--Jungle Boy.

Obviously I was there as well, just doing my best to be a simple, naive, innocent country boy and stay out of trouble. I feel like it’s my job to not tease or in any way harass my bros—its important to show all of them my support and respect.

Rivers fished:

1. Williams Creek

2. Piedra River

3. West Fork of the Piedra

4. Dolores and West Fork of the Dolores

Each and every river we fished was at least a 9 for beauty, lacking for nothing in the department of splendor. They were all high mountain surrounded by lush green pine and aspen. They all had rocky bottom rivers, and most were lined with big badass Colorado boulders! We fished a section of The Piedra that Tobes said was pretty enough to film a fly fishing movie on. It was sort of a slot canyon with lime stone walls that made me cry when we left. We did work pretty hard for a small amount of small fish. But that's not really a big deal anyhow; a lot of fish and big fish is simply gravy on the meat & potato's.

Group adventures & mishaps:

1. Extensive research was conducted, mathematical and scientific data was collected.