Time: 9:30AM – 1:30PM

Location: Same locations as Tuesday except in reverse order

Fish Landed: 15

Big Thompson River 09/27/2012 Photo Album

Jane and I had plans to join friends for dinner at 5:30PM on Thursday in Castle Rock, so I had to limit my travel time for fishing and; therefore, chose the Big Thompson River again. I got off to a nice early start and that enabled me to be on the water by 9:30AM. Once again it was quite chilly as I began fishing in the morning and I bundled up with two layers and my stocking hat. Initially I parked in the same location where I ended my fishing on Tuesday, but as I began to walk toward the river another fisherman appeared in the very location I intended to fish just above the private residence.

I walked back to the car, stashed my stuff, and drove up the road .2 miles and parked. I walked back down the road and began fishing just above the spot where I quit on Tuesday. The other fisherman was not visible, so I gave him quite a bit of real estate to cover. I began with a Chernobyl ant and a beadhead hares ear and began prospecting upstream. I covered quite a bit of water during the morning and the fishing was fairly slow as I landed 8 or 9 with two taking the Chernobyl on the surface and the others gobbling the subsurface hares ear nymph.

I reached a point above the car where the river went around a ninety degree bend away from the road. There were no trespassing signs on the opposite side of the river, but none on my side so I continued fishing. Shortly I came to a beautiful deep rocky pool and I began flicking casts just off the current seam in the slack water next to the bank under some overhanging branches. By this time I’d lost a beadhead hares ear and tied on a salvation nymph to preserve my dwindling supply of hares ears. I landed three nice trout in the area between the current and the bank including a beautiful rainbow that fell for the salvation. In fact all three fish liked the salvation, and I was quite pleased to have found another productive attractor nymph fly.

Pretty Rainbow Took Salvation

I continued a bit further along the left side of the stream but when I circled around the boulders at the top of the sweet area where I landed three fish, I noticed a white no trespassing sign ahead. I suspect I was OK fishing where I was, but further progress was clearly off limits based on the sign so I retreated and crossed the river and returned to the Santa Fe.

I decided to return to the first bridge below Noel’s Draw to fish for the remainder of my time on the Big Thompson. I recalled that two fishermen jumped in above me on Tuesday, so I had never migrated upstream to the area I love where the river makes a big bend and runs behind a nice cabin. I began fishing on the road side twenty yards below the large bend and experienced three decent hook ups, but I didn’t land any of them. Despite this frustration, I continued on and landed a small brown to the right of the island just below the big bend, and then landed a nice brown in the deep current seam right below the point of the island.

The next section of water was very attractive with numerous deep pockets, but I wasn’t generating any action except for a few refusals so I switched to a light gray caddis with a beadhead RS2 knotted to the bend in anticipation of BWO emergence activity. The last four trout landed came from the stretch of water behind the cabin and they inhaled the RS2, but the action was quite slow. Normally this water produces nice quantities of above average fish. The angle of the sun also made it very difficult to see the small caddis as it drifted from shadows to glaring sunlight and back. One of the four landed was a nice rainbow and the last fish landed was a 12″ brown that darted out from an obscure lie tight to the bank.

Another Nice Rainbow from Big T

As I reeled up my line at 1:30 to make sure I had adequate time to drive back to Denver and prepare for dinner, some very dark clouds rolled in from the west and I could hear distant thunder. It was probably time to quit for reasons other than a dinner commitment.

Pocket Water Above Bend and Cabin