Boulder County ’s Tr ue Independent Voice / FREE / www.boulder weekly.com / July 31 - August 6, 2014
Hope
ere was no expectation in this fishing trip; I was prepared to be disappointed. But the day was wa
sometimes it’s enough to stand in the river’s cool current and go through the motions. Trout wer
on the
med, out of the question but there was a part of me that thought just maybe something had survi
St. Vrain
monster flood of 2013. It had been ten months since the St. Vrain River had turned into a bro
Gregripped Lowellout– bridges and roads and turned a clear, s thing monster that tore apart homes and–lives,
rout stream into a combination strip mine and junkyard. For those of us who fished the river dow
ugh Lyons, the flood had turned a dream stream into a desolate stretch of piscine tragedy.
odwater had deposited piles of debris and untold tons of silt and sand alongside a riverbed scour
an of all the necessities a trout needs to thrive. Streamside willows and grass that cooled the wa
d provided insect food now lay flat and buried. And as if the flood’s destruction wasn’t enou
winter excavators and dump trucks ran up and down the river, removing the debris and preparing
ver for the uncertainties of the spring run. The river flowed brown and silty for months as t
ork churned the waters. Then, to add insult, the ditch company jumped in to replace their destroy
A Lyons-based angler returns to a favorite fishing hole
ersion dam and in so doing sent the entire river down the ditch for three months while they work
aving only a trickle of dirty water in a dusty riverbed. Whatever trout that survived the floo
machines and the diversion were surely gone now. But all winter and early spring I walked what