I went on a road trip looking for turkeys on Saturday. The first four pictures are just south of New Castle near a State Wildlife Management Area (WMA). They list turkeys as being hunted there and the state shows it as part of their range, but I didn't' see any turkeys. The big valley is mostly private land with the land between the road and valley being WMA and the surrounding mountains are BLM and NF. More than likely if there are turkeys there they would travel to the state land also. The NWTF was listed along with others as partners with the State in developing the area, so I would guess there are turkeys there on occasion at the least. I'll definitely give it a closer look. When I left there and got on I-70 to drive toward Rifle, I could have swore there was a flock of turkeys in a field just above New Castle on a small plateau. I was driving too fast to stop on the shoulder, but when I came back through I did not see the same spots in the field. I hope they were turkeys.

I drove on to Rifle and stopped at Timberline Outdoors and bought a couple Primos Videos (Elk and Turkey) . I've been having the shakes not watching any new videos lately. I then drove to Rifle Gap Lake which can be seen in the next two photos. I stopped into the State Park office there and met a guy from Mississippi that has lived near Grand Junction for three years. He was trying to find out about the fishing. He said he wasn't much of a hunter but loved to fish. If the guys in Avon think I have an accent, they ought to here someone from southern MS talk. I enjoyed talking to the guy. He had actually lived in Mt Carmel, IL for a couple years a while back.

I then drove north of the lake on a county road which can be seen in the last four photos. There were a few fields that looked like they could have turkeys in them, but there aren't many trees for them to roost in like I had hoped. I did see several Mule Deer and a few cow Elk, but no turkeys. I also saw a Golden Eagle, just off the side of the road, feeding on a deer that had probably been hit by a vehicle. I tried to stop and get a picture but it flew off when I made the sudden stop. The magpies swarmed the carcass when the Eagle flew off. This country was nice, but I probably won't find many turkeys there, so I'll try other areas.

I did see one of the worst sights I've ever seen while driving down I-70. I spotted a mule deer doe in the median that was standing with here head low, so I figured she had just been hit. When I got up to her, everything behind her ribcage had been ripped open and was hanging out of her. I wish I could have stopped and put her down quickly, rather than her standing there dieing like that. When I came back through a couple hours later, she was laying there dead.

Other than the doe on the interstate and driving out a tank of gas, it was a pretty good trip. I got to see some beautiful country and bought two new videos and one map.

The pictures are from the Towns Rec. Center. Several people from church took their kids swimming Sunday afternoon since our sledding day had to be cancelled. The snow is pretty much gone here in town. The first two are Olivia and Boyd in the Lazy River and the next three are of Isaac climing a small climbing wall out of the diving pool and jumping back in.

I think it took him a couple times to get the hang of it, but he can climb it every time now. There was a kid a few years older than Isaac trying to climb it before he did. The funny thing was the kid couldn't get the hang of it and Isaac was trying to tell this older kid how to climb it. The kid got out of the pool and went to do something else.

Isaac has been moved up to the next level in his ski lessons so he is looking forward to skiing with poles for the first time tomorrow. We have two ski school tickets left. Olivia was moved up last time also, but she doesn't want to go, so Isaac may get to use both tickets before the season ends.

Isaac doesn't show any interest in playing ball this year when we've asked him about it. I'm not going to force him to play, but he may change his mind after he's been here a little longer. He is only interested in skiing and skateboarding. I think he would like a mountain bike also. Olivia and Boyd may want to play soccer, but with the number of Hispanics here, the game is taken a lot more serious than back home.

I'm going scouting for turkeys in the morning. I'll be driving west of here to the Rifle, CO area. I'll probably do more driving and glassing than anything to try and familiarize myself with the country. I hope to get out and walk some just to be out and maybe find some sheds.

There is an outdoor store in Rifle that I plan to visit also. They carry some bows, so maybe I'll get to take a look at some of those and I hope to find the new Primos turkey and elk hunting videos. I'll also try to get some pictures of the area and post them in the next few days.

Fishing Again

I got home this evening around 5:30 and since Heather and the kids were at Beaver Creek, I decided to make another quick fishing trip to the same spot as before. There was another guy fishing with spinning equipment when I got there, but there is plenty of room for a few people to fish. I managed to catch three Browns and lose one. I also had several strikes that I didn't get hooked. The first fish was small like my previous picture and the second two were similar to the previous picture of Isaac's fish. They are fun to catch and hopefully later this Spring and Summer, I can fish enough to find some bigger fish.

We are going to look at a house on Saturday if the realtor calls us back. Actually, we will probably look at a couple houses. Only one of them is in the range we could pay for before selling our house at home. They are both in Leadville, but even the houses there sell for double what they do at home. The house is no more than 1,500 feet w/ 3 BR and it is in Town in an old subdivision that has houses right next to each other. They are all very similar houses and were probably built late 60's to early 70's. If we could find one of them that is in good shape, but needs some cosmetic work, I could make all the upgrades myself. Selling it after we sell our house at home should be no problem and we could probably live in it for a little while anyway. Any upgrades I do myself should build some equity in the house also. We'll see how it looks.

The drive from Leadville is about a 45 minute drive. It isn't the distance that makes the drive that long, but instead, it is the ten miles of the drive closest to Avon over Battle Mountain. I've drove it enough now that I'm used to it, so I think I can do it without any problems. Considering the price difference in housing, we will more than likely end up in Leadville for a while. I prefer the town for living anyway. It is not much of a tourist town. It is actually an old mining town. So, as you can imagine there are parts of the town that are pretty old, but the mountain views are incredible. Our lungs will be strong as a horse living at 10,000 ft.

Spring is here

The weather has been upper 40's for the last week with sunshine. I drive with my window down when I go to lunch at noon. I believe Denver has been near record highs. I like the nice weather, but I'm not ready to see the end of winter yet. We can have snow all the way to May, so I don't really think the snow is over yet.

We didn't get to ski this weekend, but Isaac, Boyd and myself went fishing on Sunday while Heather worked and Olivia went to a friends house to play. We just went behind the apartments and fished the Eagle River for about an hour. I wasn't sure how we would do, but I rigged spinning rods with 1/8 oz. Kastmasters. Isaac had a little trouble with the moving water, but he did a good job casting. His rod's line is too heavy for trout in these rivers, but I had a Micro 6lb line on my set up. It is the same set up I used for trout fishing in Arkansas's White and Norfork River. I ended up catching two beautiful Brown Trout around 14" and 15" long. They weren't very big but they have incredible color. They were my first Colorado Browns. Isaac and Boyd each netted one of the fish.

Since we did OK on Sunday and the time change gives more evening daylight, I decided to go again today. Isaac, Olivia and Boyd all went with me. Isaac was the only one fishing, but he was using an even cheaper rod and reel since the screw that holds the handle on his other reel was lost during Sunday's trip. I caught one small brown on the second cast, which exited Boyd and Olivia quite a bit. I actually thought it was better than the two from Sunday when he hit and started to fight, but that didn't last too long.

We were fishing the same deep section of the far shore that we fished Sunday. The fish seem to want the lure to be moving fairly slow. I had several short hits that I couldn't hook. Isaac was trying to fish the lure like I told him, but the rocks were too much for him. While I was busy breaking off his second lure, I handed him my rod that I had just cast and told him to reel it in slow. He hadn't had it in his hand more than 10 seconds when he hooked a fish. He was very exited to catch one. It was another Brown and a pretty good fish.

After Isaac caught the fish he went to playing behind me in the rocks with Boyd and Olivia. I had at least 6 or more hits, and even watched several Browns chase the lure and repeatedly strike at it. But, they were striking short and I couldn't get a hook in them. None of them were any bigger than the one Isaac caught. I was fishing a rainbow trout colored Kastmaster (chrome on the back) by casting it slightly upstream and slowly reeling it in as the moving water moved it downstream. I think this spring and summer I'm going to give flyfishing a try. I never thought I would want to flyfish, but there are so many guys doing it that it's hard to not want to give it a try. I'll also be buying Isaac an actual spinning rod and reel of his own.

I got a few pictures of today's fish. The first is the small Brown I caught and the second two are of Isaac holding the fish he caught. His hands were cold holding the fish, so he didn't smile. You can see some of the color even though he is covering most of it up.

Warming Up

The temps are climbing here. The highs this week will be around 46 everyday w/ a chance for snow thursday night. It seems like unseasonably warm temps, but I think it is standard for this time of year here. I'm sure we will see plenty more snow and cold temps though. The sun is so intense here that 46 is really warm.

Heather and I drove to Glenwood Springs last Saturday. We went to a "Mountain Sports" store where she gets a discount for being a Vail Resorts employee. Heather bought a pair of Snowshoes that were already on sale at 20% off. She got an additional 20% off so she got a good price. I plan to buy a pair myself, but they didn't have what I wanted.

We saw quite a bit of wildlife on the drive down. We saw several mulies, a couple herds of elk and one small band of sheep in the Glenwood canyon. A couple of the sheep were rams, but I didn't get a very good look at them. Sunday there was actually two cow elk behind our apartment on the face of almost a cliff. I was shocked to see them there. I watched them through my binocs for a little while. I can't wait for bow season.

Heather and I also went skiing today when she got off work and during my long lunch break. I drove up and parked in the parking garage. Parking is free for less than 2 hrs. We skied a couple runs. I wore too much clothing and was sweating when I wasn't moving down the mountain. The weather, even though warm, is still fantastic. I'm just not ready for the warm weather quite yet.

Our trip home isn't too far off. We are all looking forward to the visit and I can't wait to listen to the turkeys gobble. Heather is worried I'm going to upset someone by spending all my time hunting, but I think most of the people who want to see me will be hunting with me. I think most of the family is probably most interested in seeing the kids, so I don't think I'll upset anyone.

I talked with another hunter at church yesterday who has lived here for a little more than 10 years and knows a little about the turkeys. He mostly hunts private land in NE, but has hunted them here before also. Since I'm going, he plans to hunt them also. We will probably go out in a few weeks and do some scouting in areas that he is familiar with.

I may take the kids fishing again this weekend while Heather finally goes snowshoeing with the girls from church. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post this weekend.