My first Colorado fish

June 3 – I knew when we got up it was going to be a long day.  We had over 20 sites vacating and that would take some time to clean and rake.  Bill went out and cleaned 2 while I made Sunday breakfast and then we went out together and did another 9.  Luckily there were several groups so they didn’t all use the fire rings but visited together.  We took a break after the 9 and then headed out again.  Well, I did a small boo boo.  Unbeknownst to me, there were some hot coals (after sitting all night) in a ring and I shoveled them into our big plastic tub.  A couple of sites later I noticed some smoking and told Bill and he said to drive the mule over to the water and pour it over it.  I did just as I was told and it sizzled a lot and stopped so I continued on to other sites.  One site had several large pieces of partially burned wood in the ring that I put in the tub and when I came back to put ashes in there was a gaping hole in the side of the tub and more smoke and I poured the bucket of water (that I now carried in case of hot coals) over it and stopped it again.  Bill was not happy with me.  He told me I’d have to tell Terry and I said I would just go buy a new tub and he would never know.  Bill drove me home and said he’d clean the rest by himself.  I guess he’s lost faith in my ability to spot a hot coal, although he did comment we now had a tub with a special spout on the side!

You better believe I was willing and ready to fix his lunch when he came in and I had several of our other chores out the way too.  I guess from now on I’m going to have to douse them all with water before shoveling.  Then the tub gets really heavy though.  Oh, and boy did all the dumpsters reek today of dead fish.  These campers caught so many fish I was afraid there would be none left for me to catch.  This weekend was free fishing, as in no license required, in the whole state of Colorado and we had planned to fish yesterday until I was put on shuttle duty.

Kelly's Big catch!

After lunch we walked Xena it and looked like a storm was brewing, but in an hour it has blown around us so we got out our fishing gear and our bucket of minnows (the recommended bait) and headed to the marina.  Without a boat you can fish from the front portion of the dock or anywhere along the shore you can get to.  So we fished from the dock and I caught 2 fish, but the first one was tiny and was thrown back.  I was so excited when I hooked the second one because I could tell he was much bigger.  It was a Croppie, which I think we would call a Brim.  Bill wanted me to let it go but I said no.  He, which ended up being a she, was coming home with me.  After that neither of us had any luck, but I had a couple more nibbles.  As we were getting ready to leave a boy caught a Croppie while his dad was trailering their boat and he asked if we wanted it so I came home with 2 fish to clean.  I put one in the freezer and ate one for dinner.  That’s fresh fish!  Bill had steak, poor guy!

We didn’t do much after dinner, just did a loop check.  While I was sitting at the computer I spotted 4 deer in the campground crossing in front of me.  We figure they were the same ones we saw down at Tiffany camp Saturday evening.  Since it’s really dark here we couldn’t see when they left.  The sky here is beautiful and clear at night.  The moon is so bright and the sky is always full of stars.