Time: 11:00AM – 3:30PM

Location: Between Silverthorne and Kremmling

Blue River 10/08/2025 Photo Album

For quite some time now my fishing friend, Nate, has been touting the Blue River, so we arranged for a trip on Wednesday, October 8, 2025. We agreed to meet at the Woolly Mammoth parking lot just off of Interstate 70 at 8:00AM, and I arrived a bit early. As I waited for Nate to arrive, my iPhone rang, and I answered and heard the voice of Nate. He was calling to tell me he had a blowout on Interstate 70 just beyond the last on-ramp before the exit to the parking lot that I occupied. He dropped me a pin, and I circled around the interstate ramps, until I was parked in a precarious position behind his VW. We were in a triangular space between the on-ramp and high speed traffic blasting by on Interstate 70.

Nate had already extracted his temporary spare and tool kit, and he made the change over expeditiously. My only contribution was to observe and advise, and he did learn from me to loosen the lug nuts before jacking up the tire, and to fully tighten once the car was lowered back to the ground.

Once Nate’s tire was replaced with the spare, we carefully got on the entrance ramp and returned to the Woolly Mammoth lot. I was the obvious choice to drive, since Nate’s temporary spare advised to not drive over 50 MPH.

Nate Ready to Roll

We arrived at our chosen destination to fish the Blue River by 10:30AM. The temperature was 51 degrees, so I pulled on my North Face light down coat and raincoat. I chose my Sage One five weight for casting in case I tangled with a larger fish, and also because the flows were elevated at around 700 CFS. We hiked down a bank and along the river for a mile, and we began fishing in a long and wide riffle section.

I began my efforts with an amber ice dub chubby Chernobyl, an olive perdigon and a salvation nymph, and I was certain that I was going to enjoy a productive day in a new section of the Blue River that I never fished previously. Nate, likewise, launched his day with a dry/dropper set up.

In the half hour before I broke for lunch I made a host of futile casts, and my confidence seemed misplaced. Nate, meanwhile landed a small brown trout during this time period, and he delayed his lunch.

Love the Drop of Water Off the Lip

After lunch we progressed up the river, but the fishing was truly a challenge. I was having no luck in the long slides and troughs, so I began to skip the featureless areas and focused on shelf pools, moderate depth riffles and deep slots around structure. In addition to unresponsive trout, we were plagued with a nasty cross wind that pushed my backhand casts back toward my body and bushes and branches along the shoreline.

Site of First Brown Trout

Over the course of the afternoon I cycled through different flies including a 20 incher and RS2 for nymphs and a hippie stomper and size 16 olive-brown deer hair caddis for dries. For the last 20 minutes I tested a black ghost streamer and a white and tinsel streamer. How did these flies produce? I landed two trout; a nice chunky thirteen inch brown that munched the olive perdigon and a smaller brown trout that grabbed the classic RS2. That was it. I spotted some tiny mayflies, midges and caddis; and these sightings prompted the RS2 and caddis dry. I worked the double/dries along the bank thinking that some opportunistic bank huggers could be tempted, but that ploy was to no avail.

Nice Colors

The streamers failed to generate so much as a follow, but I was pleased I stepped out of my normal routine to try them. I did not test a deep nymphing setup with a strike indicator, and given the elevated flows, I regret that oversight.

It was a gorgeous fall day among spectacular scenery, and I scouted out new water with my good friend, Nate. Hopefully I will return at a future date with lower flows and more insect activity.

Fish Landed: 2