Fly Fishing in Colorado

The Start of the 2008 Damsel Fly Hatch

2008-06-23T06:36:00.002-06:00

The damsel flies on The Lake are starting to hatch. It seems a bit later than usual, but we did ice-off two weeks later than usual, so that probably has something to do with it. The larva for these flies are HUGE! Now I know where the sci-fi guys get their ideas for movies like Alien...

A River Runs Through Everything

2008-06-13T07:14:00.000-06:00

In Colorado, like most of the states west (or even east) of the Mississippi, the rivers are raging right now. Even the most die-hard "I only fish moving waters" fishermen are looking for a nice, calm lake to wet their line. Thankfully, I have my own lake. That makes me a VERY popular guy in June. Better yet, the stockers have been in the water since mid-May and they're turning on every day with the warmer weather.

The Lake Opens Again

2007-04-28T20:59:00.000-06:00

The lake is open again. It opened up about three weeks ago, but the weather fluctuated a bit and it closed & opened over and over until this week. From the look of things, the hold overs are bigger than ever!

This fish is one that a buddy of mine caught. Notice the hardware... that's NOT a fly in this pig's mouth, that's for sure. I'll have a talk with him. The good news is that he put back every one he caught, so I'm pretty sure they're waiting for me...

Consistency

2007-04-28T20:51:00.000-06:00

I know, I know - write more. I just need another hour in the day, that's all...

Westslope Cutthroat Denied Protection

2007-03-29T11:58:00.000-06:00

I'm still learning about the various efforts that affect conservation, access, fish habitat, etc. This one jumped out at me...

From the American Wildlands website there's this article. Apparently the appeal to have the Western Slope Cutthroat listed as an endangered species has failed yet again.

The publication of the original decision from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is available here.

As far as I can tell, there's more to this matter than meets the eye. My guess is that if the species WAS listed, a lot of major industries (timber, oil, gas, etc.) that currently get away with polluting rivers that host this species would be hauled into court and forced to recognize that their hurting one of the few native trout species in the Rocky Mountain region. Given our current energy situation and presiding party in Washington, I doubt this matter will ever be judged in favor of the trout and those that represent them.

Roaring Fork Here I Come

2007-03-03T20:42:00.000-07:00

My new job requires me to travel all over the state of Colorado. I'll be in Glenwood Springs in two weeks. I plan on fishing the Roaring Fork and maybe the Frying Pan while I'm there. I'll let you know how it goes...

The Fly Fishing Show Comes to Denver January 5,6, and 7

2006-11-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

There almost two (2) feet of fresh snow in the yard and the lake is STILL frozen over. I just picked up the newest edition of Fly Tyer Magazine and my vise is out of storage and ready for some tying. The first stop for the Fly Fishing Show is Denver (of course!) on January 5, 6, and 7. I know that I've already seen 905 of what will be at the show, but it is a great excuse to take my daughter out of school for the day. Besides, she's so cute, maybe someone will give her a flyrod... See you there. Fish on!

A little time off...

2006-10-31T07:45:00.000-07:00

Now that I've entered into the realm of multi-sports (elk hunting, duck hunting, pheasant hunting, etc.) I'm not fly fishing all the time, every time. Don't get me wrong, I still love fly fishing, it is just that there's more to do in the outdoors and I want to explore a bit. Besides, there's 2 feet of snow in my yard and the lake is frozen over. It is hard to think about fly fishing under these conditions. Fish on!

Arkansas River Trip - Part 2

2006-10-06T21:58:00.000-06:00

Before we got on the water we met Salida's local Laurel and Hardy duo. These two fellas we obviously challenged in some way. The each were carrying a spin rod without any tackle or lures. The tall one knew his fly fishing gear - he had the buzzwords down. He also asked me a LOT of questions about where we were going, how long we were expecting to be on the river, who was driving our car, etc. Sensing that this was not 100% kosher I offered no tagible infomation what-so-ever. My buddy, who works in security for a living, told me that I got an "A" for my peformance. Had I given out any information, he said he's have to give me a lecture on dealing with scammers like these two. Good to know that my time in NYC and LA paid off...

On the water it was business as usual. My buddy had the sticks first, so I was swinging and missing for a bit. After about an hour I took the sticks, only to watch my buddy haul in 3-4 fish in the first 10 minutes he stood in the bow. Figures. We were both swinging streamers (there was no hatch to speak of) and I suppose he's a better "swingger" than I am. No comments, please.

After lunch I got the "skunk of the box", hauling in a nice brown on a streamer from a deep pool. This was one of these pools that holds at least a dozen fish. If I couldn't coax a fish out of that pool, I had no business holding a fly rod. Lucky for me I found a hungry one. Luckier for me I trailed a Hornberg behind my Autumn Splendor. Fish on!

Autumn Splendor on the Arkansas River - Part 1

2006-10-02T16:55:00.000-06:00

WARNING: This is a long post/trip report. You might want to get a beverage before you start... for the impatient and short attention spans out there, here's the summary: I caught half-a-dozen fish. Three were dinks caught around Rincon using BWO parachutes and Black Ice droppers. The other there were big (12" to 16"+) browns caught with an Autumn

Spent yesterday fishing the Arkansas River from a raft. My buddy and I floated from Salida to Vallie Bridge. Gosh it was a long day... but a good one!

Up at 4:30 AM and I was out the door by 4:45; arrived at my buddy's house by 5:20 and we were on our way down 285 to Salida by 5:30. Our goal was to be on the water fishing by 8:00. Goals are nice, but this one had a wait a bit until we found a shuttle. Too bad I didn't see my bed again until almost 11:30 PM. Gosh I love fishing, I just wish I didn't have to give up all the sleeping to do it.

Our first stop, ArkAnglers was a bust. Nice shop, nice folks, but nobody available to help with shuttle. Our next stop at Anglers Junction was the winner. There was just one lady at the counter and she said she couldn't do it, but got right on the phone and made a few calls. Within a few minutes we had a shuttle and I had a half dozen flies (Black Ice and chartruse Copper Johns) that would make or break my day of fishing.

Twas the Night Before a Fishing Trip...

2006-09-30T22:58:00.000-06:00

And all through the house
not a creature was stirring
except me, running around
looking for all my stuff
packing lunch, shoving drinks in the cooler...

Does everyone get as excited about a fishing trip like I do?

Almost Time to Start Tying Flies for Next Year

2006-09-26T10:19:00.000-06:00

The pond is get a little more ice every night. I figure a few more weeks and we'll be done for the year. I have NO motivation whatsoever to ice fish. I like beer, I just don't like it so much that I can drink a case of it while shivering over a hole in the ice.

My buddy and a friend of his came up this past weekend to fish. Apparently my theory that the turnover was done and the fish are bulking up for the winter is true. They each caught a few fish, one of which, a rainbow, tipped the scales at 4.5 pounds. Yes, I said 4.5 POUNDS. Once I get this job situation under control I've GOT to get out there and catch a few...

Little Joy on the Roaring Fork

2006-08-28T08:13:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago I ventured out with Brennan and his buddies to float the Roaring Fork. Our crack-of-dawn start had an interesting suprise - Idaho Springs was lousy with folks dressed for a jog. A long jog. A marathon, to be exact. Good thing Brennan had my cell phone number so we could reconfigure out meeting point on-the-fly.

On the drive out to Glenwood/Carbondale, the skies grew darker and darker. Oh well, cloudy days are better for fishing... right? Wrong. While conventional wisdom says that we should have seen more than the average number of fish, we didn't.

There we little, if any, action on the top with only marginal success using streamers down deep. The one fish I hooked required a lot of line, cursing, and reeling in at high speeds to keep the tension.

I rowed the raft for a fair bit. I had the sticks through most of the best whitewater, which if fine with me. If I can't catch more fish, at least I can keep the brain engaged with some challenging whitewater. I'm pretty confident that the next time I want to float the Roaring Fork I can take my own boat and stay out until dark... which is when the fishing got better. Too bad we were already off the river by then.

I'm not dead yet...

2006-08-24T16:55:00.000-06:00

I'm not dead yet! Really!! I've just hit a rough patch (laid off by my company) and I'm using most of my time writting cover letters and emails to companies looking for a huge talent like me. I will return... I swear.

Goodbye Derek Maxwell,Goodbye Dear Friend

2006-07-26T21:39:00.000-06:00

We Bid You Goodnight
Lay down my dear brother, lay down and take your rest,
Won't you lay your head upon your savior's chest,
I love you all, but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.

I would never ride, well, I would never ride (goodnight, goodnight)
But His rod and His staff, they comfort me (goodnight, goodnight)
Tell "A" for the ark, that wonderful boat (goodnight, goodnight)
Tell "B" for the beast at the ending of the wood (goodnight, goodnight)
You know it ate all the children when they wouldn't be good,
Walking in Jerusalem just like John (goodnight, goodnight)
I go walking in the valley of the shadow of death,
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.

- The Grateful Dead

Zero for Ten

2006-07-10T21:25:00.000-06:00

I've been visiting Wyoming for over ten (10) years. In that time I've taken my fly rod on about half of my trips. I'm zero for ten - in ten years and approximately 8 trips, I've yet to catch a fish in Wyoming. The best part is that each time I return, my resolve to catch a fish grows exponentially. Like Ahab returning to the sea, I return to Wyoming more determined than ever to catch a fish, ANY fish. Hell, a sucker fish would even make me happy. Oh well, maybe next time...

The good news is that I know where I want to fish the next time I return. The Madison River. On one of our days in Yellowstone we took the western road out to West Yellowstone. It was all I could do to keep the truck on the road as I watch fishing breaking the surface, chasing the PMD hatch. Oh well, maybe next time...

I did jump into Yellowstone Lake for a few minutes. It really was just casting practice, but I still had fun. My kids are starting to realize that their daddy likes to fish and so they are beginning to latch on to the idea that fishing is fun too. My daughter got on my shoulders and waded out a bit with me. She'll be double-hauling a #6 line in no time. Wink, wink.

Vacation Time

2006-06-30T10:19:00.000-06:00

I'm heading to the Jackson Hole/Yellowstone area tomorrow. I tried to line-up a float trip on the Snake, but the shop guys told me that the water was still running too cloudy and they wouldn't recommend fishing the Snake until much later in the summer.
So it looks like my only option for fishing is going to be Yellowstone Lake. I've got a nifty new 8# rod I bought on sale from Sierra Trading Post, along with a new reel I bought from Cabellas. The funny part is that the Scientific Anglers line cost more than rod and reed together! Go figure.

Let's Keep It and Call It Wilber!

2006-06-13T22:32:00.000-06:00

As the saying goes - "the sun shines on a dog's ass once in a while...". I guess last Saturday was my sunshine day. It was a less than perfect day at the "lake" - intermitent wind gusts, not enough clouds to help or hinder, no hatch to match.

The weather was so good early in the day that my phone was ringing off the hook with friends that wanted to "come up the hill" and fish.

I was busy clear cutting my back yard and hauling the slash to the county slash yard. I'd already made plans to fish with yet another buddy later in the afternoon, so I knew that I'd have my turn. By 3:00 pm my buddy showed up, the chainsaw went back into storage, and the fishing gear was loaded into my truck faster than you can tie leader to some tippet.

When I arrived at the lake it was grim faces all around. Everyone that had been fishing for hours already was not too happy. They'd gotten a few strikes, but caught nothing. Ouch. Given the conditions and the luck my friends were having, I decided to put my sinking line on my #6 Fli rod and go "low and slow" with a sparkle caddis pupae.

Here's the best part, and where the picture comes in - as I was kicking my float tube into my favorit spot I trailed my line to do a bit of trolling along the way. I'd caught fish doing this before, so I knew it wasn't a waste of time. Sure enough, after being on the water less than 5 minutes I had this HOG stripping out line as fast as can be. YAHOO!

After what seemed 15 minutes (3 really) I landed this beauty and posed for a few quick pictures before getting it back into the lake. My friends were green with envy. They'd been on the water for hours and within 5 minutes of putting on the water I pulled out one of the bigger fish in the lake. I told them "Hey, it's my lake." but that didn't seem to help. Oh well, I had fun...

Pigs Fly!

2006-06-05T22:57:00.000-06:00

Sunday was one of those days at "the lake" that I rarely see in early June - no clouds, at least very few, until much later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing inttermitently, keeping the hatch from kicking into gear. All the action was below the surface. The question was, how far below.

Without any fish jumping, I assumed that the emergers weren't in play, so I tied on a sparkle cadis pupae to my sinking #6 line and went "low and slow". Five minutes after kicking off the shore in my float tube, I was hooked into something and it wasn't the bottom. As usual I pulled the line until I had it tight and went to work reeling in the slack. Before I could get this fish on the reel, it took off! This was not the average 14-16" stocker. This was bigger...

A minute went by and I finally got this log onto the reel. Taking in slack as fast and as often as I could, this pig took back as much line as it could, running hard away from me as soon as he got a look at my ugly float tube and waiting net. The good news is that my "tippet" was just 4' of 2x. I learned a few years ago that when you're nymphing you can get away with a much bigger and shorter tippet. Heck, sometimes if the leader is ready to be changed, I just fish 5' of the leader and forget about the tippet.

When this fish jumped out of the water, it was a glorious moment. Being in the moment, I took in the clear blue sky, the gentle breeze, and the best part - three of my fishing buddies in the water around me watching me wrestle with this pig! Yahoo!

I hauled it in as quickly as I could, removed the fly, posed for a few pictures (I'll post them later), measured the beast on the skirt of my float tube (20"+) and put it back into the water. Turned out to be the only fish I pulled up from the bottom that day. Oh well, at least I got to see a pig fly.

Merry Christmas Charlie Brown

2006-05-30T22:03:00.000-06:00

I've been reading that Brown trout feed on fingerlings (little baby trout) at night. The sage advice is to fish under a full moon or just at the sun is setting. Since the moon is weeks aways from being full, I choose to fish as sunset.

Using my trusty Sage FLi #6 rod with a 9' leader cut short and a streamer, I waded into the lake and starting casting to the sounds of splashing. A hatch was in progress and I didn't feel like like untying my streamer, tying on some tippet, etc., so I left the streamer on, hoping that the hatch would die off and the trout (Browns, remember I'm here for the Browns) would turn their attention to my wet fly.

After about half-an-hour of nothing I began to question my tactics. Since going home skunked (again) was not my first choice, I continued to cast, changing the locations varying the retrieve speed. Just when I was ready to call it quits, I got a strike!

By now it was pitch dark. I got the slack line onto the reel and played the fish for a bit while I pulled my little LED light out of my vest, turned it on, and stuck it between my teeth. As it passed by, I could tell from the polka-dot pattern on its back that I had my Brown! A minute later I netted it, removed the hook, and sent it back to the depths. THAT was fun! Guess I'll try again tomorrow night... maybe with the "Space Ghost" while wolly bugger I tied over the weekend. (I'll post a picture soon)

Stocking the Lake

2006-05-16T21:49:00.000-06:00

On Monday the lake was stocked for the year. We get our fish from Cline Trout Farms. This year's delivery brought 85 pounds of 12-14" Browns, 150 pounds of 11-14" Rainbows, and 57 lbs of 2-3 pound "Hogs" (Rainbows). I took my son down to watch the fish being unloaded. He loved it.

It really isn't anything amazing, the dumping of the fish. The truck backs up to the water's edge, the driver puts a big metal tube over the outlet of the fish box, the door is opened and the fish dump into the lake. Unfortunately the temperature of the water is considerably lower than the fish farm, so the fish get a bit of a nasty suprise. Kind of like that first year at camp when you had to take your swimming test in the cold morning air. Brrrrr. The cold water stunned a few fish, but they recovered and started to feed. We dump the fish into a deep hole that holds the piping for the community dry hydrant. The fish tend to stay in the hole for an hour or more while they get their bearings.

The best part was the hatch that was going on just before the fish dropped in. A Mayfly hatch. Big, fat, juicy Mayflys. I had a feeling that I was going to see an amazing exhibition of fish feeding on flies. Once the fish got past the shock of the cold water, they realized that lunch was being served. The action was amazing. I videotaped a few minutes of the action. I'll post a link just as soon as I finish editing it.

Brown Sugar ~ Brown Trout

2006-05-01T23:09:00.000-06:00

The moon is rising this week. I think I try my hand at fishing for some browns on "the lake" one night this week. Should be fun. I picked up some Hornberg wet flies at Your Fishing Partner fly shop in Idaho Springs over the past weekend. I really like this shop.

The owner was fun and interesting to talk to. I told him about my quest to catch a Tiger Muskie on a fly rod at Gross Reservoir. He gave me some great advice, sold me a couple of leaders with steel tippets, and gave me a free mouse pattern fly to try out. Hopefully, when I do catch that Muskie, I'll get back to the shop and tell him all about it.

My First Time...Fishing on the Arkansas River in Colorado

2006-05-01T23:00:00.000-06:00

A fellow fly fishing enthusiast was kind enough to take my fishing on the Arkansas River just outside of Canon City two weekends ago. We'd talked about fishing mayflys around Salida, but the weather was so crazy we opted to fish the caddis hatch further south.

Long story short, it wasn't the best "first time" I've had. It WAS fun to get out for the day on a new river with a new fishing buddy. I only wish we'd caught the hatch and the wind wasn't such a pain in the ass. Oh well.

I did learn something, actually a few things: I learned that leaving the split shot and indicators back in the car is poor form. I learned that using a loop connector to attach the leader to the fly line (I use a short piece of Amnesia line tied to the fly line with a perfection loop as a connector) makes life a lot easier when you make a bird's nest out of your fly line. I learned that roll casting is something I need to practice A LOT more.

I didn't catch many fish. I did learn a lot. Oh well.

I'll Make Mine a Double

2006-04-16T20:11:00.000-06:00

On my lake it can always be a frustrating experience fishing just after the ice has melted. The temperature is still pretty low, so the bug activity is equally low to nonexistent. The weather can go from clear blue skies and sunny to snowing in less than 24 hours (and then back to clear/sunny in another 24 hours). Finally, the biggest question is: How many fish made it through the winter?

The good news this year is that we seem to have had a pretty gentle winter and there are plenty of big, healthy fish. I know, I caught a few Rainbows over the weekend. Ah the joys of fishing...

This coming weekend I'm heading to the Arkansas River to experience my first "Mother's Day Hatch" of mayflies. I can't wait! I used to do a fair bit of kayaking on the Ark, but a few distractions have kept my feet on dirt for the last few years. Hopefully I'll be in a raft, drifting and fishing the river. Second best option is wading. Should be fun either way...

Let'r Fly

2006-04-07T00:31:00.000-06:00

Went down to the lake with my son the other night after dinner. I was excited to "wet the line", so to speak; he was so excited he wet his pants. We're still working on the potty training thing. Needless to say, I caught nothing while my son caught lots of grass, rocks, and a little chill due to his wet pants.

I'm sure things will improve, for both of us.