Time: 12:30PM – 3:30PM
Location: Downstream end of catch and release stretch below Lake Estes
Fish Landed: 8
Big Thompson River 04/18/2010 Photo Album
Jane agreed to accompany me back to the Big Thompson so we could shop in Estes Park for a wedding gift for our nephew. We arrived in Estes Park around 10:30 and did some shopping then stopped at Subway and picked up sandwiches for lunch. We drove down along the Big Thompson and stopped where I’d quit on Thursday. I ate my lunch and prepared to fish.
- Jane Reads While Dave Gets Ready to Fish
The weather was cool with temperatures in the low 60’s or upper 50’s and partly cloudy and breezy. The flows were up a bit from Thursday at 52 cfs and the water had a bit more color. I walked down along the highway and descended the bank to where I’d exited on Thursday. Jane accompanied me and took the camera while I hooked a rainbow in short order on a beadhead pheasant tail. Jane took several photos and then headed back up to the minivan to read while shielded from the wind.
- Dave Begins Fishing Downstream from Van
- Dave Shows Off First Fish
I was fishing a yellow Letort hopper and trailed a BHPT. Even more so than Thursday, my success was limited to slack water with three feet of depth or more. Most of this water was along the bank. I rock hopped the roadside bank and picked up five total trout on the BHPT. All were rainbows except for one brown.
- Nice Rainbow Caught on Beadhead Hares Ear
I wasn’t getting any action on the hopper so I switched that out to a Chernobyl ant for better flotation. After a slow spell of roughly half an hour with no fish, I removed the BHPT and tied on a beadhead hares ear as the dropper. This worked quite well, and I landed an additional three rainbows in the last hour. Two of these were quite nice fish in the 13-14 inch range, and I caught them in the tails of some deep pools in the center of the stream.
- Saving the Best for Last
Jane and I decided to call it a day around 3:30 and headed back to Denver.