Time: 11:00AM – 4:00PM

Location: Grandpa’s Retreat upstream

Fish Landed: 6

Big Thompson River 05/13/2013 Photo Album

Was my slow day on Friday on the Arkansas River evidence that the delayed snow melt was finally commencing? Was it a lull in the early season insect emergence cycle? Was it an inability of the fisherman to solve the ever changing riddle of trout feeding habits?

With high temperatures projected to reach the 80’s on Monday and a bit of a lull in my workload, I decided to try a different stream and settled on the Big Thompson as the flows were at 103 cfs, and my experience has taught me that this is a decent stream level for fishing. In fact, I researched this fishing blog and discovered that I fished the Big Thompson on May 10, 2011 when flows were 95 cfs, and I landed 13 trout mostly on a beadhead hares ear and a beadhead emerald caddis pupa. On Monday the time of the year and flows matched my 2011 trip rather closely.

Nice Area That I Covered

Unfortunately my fish catching experience did not match up as favorably. I fished intensely from 11AM until 4PM and landed six fish and all but one were brown trout with one rainbow in the mix. I couldn’t find a fly or combination of flies that produced consistently during this time period, but I certainly experimented with a number of standby patterns. I began with a pool toy trailing a beadhead hares ear and had a few momentary hook ups on the hares ear. The pool toy eventually became quite water logged so I swapped it for a Chernobyl ant. I noticed some BWO’s emerging early between 11:30 and 1:00PM and tried a RS2 and then a soft hackle emerger. Eventually I spotted some rising fish and tried a CDC BWO and pricked a couple fish. When the rising ended I decided to stay with a single dry and tied on a olive brown deer hair caddis and managed to land a pair of browns.

Small Rainbow Typical of Monday Catch

This success didn’t last so I experimented with a larger stimulator with an olive body and this produced no interest. I remembered that during my 2011 visit I used a yellow Letort hopper trailing a beadhead hares ear or beadhead emerald caddis, so I tried these combinations. The emerald caddis produced one brown and a rainbow and one small brown actually rose and slurped the yellow hopper. I covered a lot of water with the hopper/dropper and went through a period where the hopper was attracting refusals, so I reverted to the olive brown caddis and landed my last small brown.

I probably had an equal number of fish that were hooked for a moment and then escaped, so the action was somewhat better than the fish count would indicate. Despite this, it was a slow day and I could never find a fly that produced in a consistent manner. Perhaps the warm air temperatures and sunny skies were the main reason, but I think I am going to rest my arm and body for a bit and focus on gardening before returning to my fly fishing passion.