
On the day after our July 4th celebration we drove up to Grand Mesa with the family to do some trout fishing. Jayne and her brother grew up fishing with their dad on the lakes of the Mesa.
Grand Mesa is a 500 square mile flat-top mountain at more than 10,000 feet in elevation with more than 300 lakes. Our destination that day was Sunset Lake near Mesa Lakes Lodge. After a stop at Walmart in Grand Junction to pick up some supplies and fishing licenses, we were on our way. It is about an hour to drive from Grand Junction up to the Lodge.
It was my second trip up to the Grand Mesa – on the first we spent an entire day exploring and did no fishing. This would be different as we had six kids between the two families and spent the day in one location on the lake rather than constantly on the move to try to take it all in.
The lake had been freshly stocked with trout and we had a great time fishing with the kids. We were basically fishing on the bottom with salmon eggs or worms, and it worked well. This was a much different experience from my history trying to catch stocked trout back east in Pennsylvania. All of the kids were able to reel in a trout! We were also able to recreate a family photo that the family has cherished for years, with the next generation of the family. We went home and had a fish fry that night. Fortunately, I did not have to either clean them or cook them.
I had been looking forward to a day of fishing on the Mesa for some time. I really wanted to bring our inflatable kayak out for the trip but we already had too many things in our van to fit all of our kayaking gear. Plus it seemed like a lot of things to haul around when we were probably only going to be fishing for one day since the primary purpose of the trip was to spend time with the family.