Trout Fishing the West-- an alternative?

[numbskull]

If you hadn't wasted your life soaking eels you would have learned how to fish and be doing better. Now quit your biitching and go find me a Clovis point.

[puppet]

I went through a similar shock when I moved to southern california
after living the majority of my life in the Northeast. At that time I
was mostly a freshwater fisherman.

The southern californian freshwater fishing was somehow tainted or
artificially represented. If you wanted the natural world you had to
travel deep and away from civilization.....and even then there was no guaranty.

I practically quit with fishing freshwater, and the only highlight in 2.5
years was fishing in a state park and catching the biggest native
rainbow that the ranger had ever seen. We backpacked 6 miles into
the park. I had released the fish without knowing its significance and
I am glad I did. You can imagine how good a rainbow can taste on a
backpacking trip...it was a close call.

Unlike your situation, I was fortunate to have the pacific at my feet,
and prior to living there I had only just started to get into surfasting
in the northeast. Just the same, the surffishing is different out there
and my few outings on this coast haunted me.

Plain and simple.... the wild energy of the northeastern surf is
unmatched.

I don't know you, but I have a feeling what might be suffering
through. Its like loosing a limb.

Those of us who live and fish the northeast are so lucky. Now that I
am back out here, I don't ever want to leave.

[MartinD18]

Spent a frustrating and mostly fruitless week trying to fish the "Gold Medal" trout streams of Colorado some years ago, driving and driving and driving to try to find access to the water. Yes, you can get on the Roaring Fork (better be a fearless wader!) and the Frying Pan (along with a few hundred (thousand?) others on the non-posted stretches but other "Gold Medal" highly touted streams and rivers? Let me put it this way: at the entrance of one long dirt road to a famous river there was a sign that said "If you trespass here you will be sorry!" From what I hear, it's even worse now, not only there but up in WY and MT too - with rich Hollywood pukes buying up mile after mile of streams and rivers and hiring armed guards to patrol. Yes, we have some serious access issues here but it is not even close to what fishermen face on many of the famous streams and rivers in the Rockies.