By Jeff Boswell, Partner/Broker Associate
While on my annual trip to the mountains of the west to escape the heat of Texas for a week and pursue one of my favorite activities, fly fishing for trout, I had the opportunity to visit our listing along the Dolores River just south of Telluride. Fishing had been generally tough up in Wyoming and Montana during the week, with scorching temperatures changing to cold rain during my trip. I was eager to get back down to Colorado where recent rains had recharged the rivers around the Telluride area and I was hopeful that it would turn the fishing on. I arrived at the ranch on a beautiful sunny and warm afternoon to meet Baker Gentry, a friend and guide with Telluride Outdoors who was joining me. He had brought another friend and a couple of dogs to help us try and catch some fish.
As we went down to the river, it appeared a little off-color from the recent rains and I was concerned it would make the fishing difficult. To start off, I decided to put on a hopper with a dropper hoping with the still stained water it might catch a fish’s attention. On my third cast to the back of a large and great looking deep area a very large brown came right up to the hopper and slurped it down! After fishing for hours up north I was a little slow to react and missed him but gladly took off that dropper and went hopper fishing. In about an hour of fishing, I managed to catch two really nice browns, multiple rainbows, and managed one of the Colorado River cutthroats. My friends were also successful in catching several fish along the river and we had a great, if short, fishing trip.
In speaking with Baker, I mentioned that I was amazed at how fishable the over a mile of river was on this ranch. We estimated that as much as 80% of the river was prime habitat which is way above the typical stretch of the Dolores. We both agreed it had to be one of the finest stretches of the “top 100 trout rivers in America” after our short trip. I was crushed I could not spend another day at the ranch, but had to drive back to Texas and the heat. The ranch manager told me that he had heard his first elk bugling that morning. I hated to miss waking up the following day to hear one of the greatest sounds in nature and see if I could hammer the fish again. My mission in life is to now find a friend to buy this place so I can go back again. It is just an amazing place!
Check out our Dolores River Ranch listing here.
