Time: 11:00AM – 6:00PM

Location: Small island below MM12 up to fast water below MM12; tree rock and angled riffle

Fish Landed: 27

Frying Pan River 09/23/2013 Photo Album

Occasionally the fishing gods smile upon us humble fishermen, and Monday proved to be such a day, but before getting to that part of the story, more on the weather. While sleeping at The Green Drake in Basalt I awoke periodically to the sound of rain pounding down on the roof and as the morning drew near, these periods of heavy rain continued. Would we be able to fish in these wet rainy conditions?

We killed some time by paying for another night’s stay at The Green Drake and then proceeded down the street to Saxy’s coffee shop for some tea. After our morning tea we returned to the hotel and prepared lunches as we were optimistic that the weather would clear based on Jeff’s review of the satellite weather imagery. It remained quite overcast with ongoing periods of moderate rain and drizzle. Next we drove to Aspen to check on a medical issue and then returned and headed back up the Frying Pan River Valley to the upper 2.5 miles below the dam. Here we found a parking place in the large guide lot which only contained two other cars at 10:30 in the morning. Jeff overheard a guide saying that Frying Pan Anglers experienced three cancellations due to the rainy weather, so perhaps the morning rain would keep some of the fishermen off the water.

Upstream View of Right Channel Below Rectangular Rock on Monday

Jeff decided to begin fishing near the parking lot, but I elected to walk down the road to the small island just below MM12 where I angled on the path that meets the smooth pool at the bottom of the left braid around the island. At this point I proceeded down the fast water to the bottom point of the island and then began fishing my way up the right channel which contained more favorable volume at the low 115 cfs flow rate. I began once again by prospecting with a green drake and alternated between the size 14 parachute green drake and a size 14 comparadun. I used the parachute pattern with the easily visible white tipped wing post in the faster water and switched to the comparadun in smooth water.

When I arrived at the large pool at the top of the island with the large rectangular rock I substituted an even smaller comparadun for the one that I used previously, and this comparadun seemed smaller than others that I tied because it was not tied on a 2XL hook and it had a lighter tan wing. This comparadun produced far better than the darker winged version and the combination of green drake flies delivered eight fish to my net by approximately 12:30. Meanwhile it was quite chilly but the sky was brightening and the sun peeked through the large puffy gray clouds on a more frequent basis. The weather was changing but presistent wind and breezes were part of the clearing equation.

Nice Chunky Brown From Rectangular Rock Pool on Monday

At around 12:30 a BWO hatch commenced in the large pool and I was still positioned at the tail and continuing to prospect with my green drake imitations, but the fish were either wise to my fraud or had switched to another food source. Within a few minutes the BWO hatch thickened and the pool came alive with rising fish. The fish in the faster current along the main run down the center of the pool rose sporadically and I could see them underwater moving and perhaps feeding on subsurface nymphs and emergers. More of interest to me were two very visible brown trout that began sipping BWO’s along the smoother left side of the large pool where the current fanned  out below a large protruding rock. These fish were directly above my position so I tied on a CDC BWO and began making casts above the two fish. I was careful to shoot my casts high and check them early so the fly fluttered down with plenty of slack tippet. It took quite a few casts and patiently watching these fish snatch natural duns within inches of my fly, but eventually I duped and landed both fish, an accomplishment that I was quite proud of.

Rectangular Rock Pool

By 1PM the BWO hatch had abated somewhat although with the overcast skies it never truly stopped, so I used this period to quickly down my lunch next to the rectangular rock pool. After lunch I waded closer to the top of the pool where the faster water entered and I began to notice a larger mayfly mixed in with the BWO’s. As I looked on I observed a brown trout ten feet in front of me drift back sipping BWO’s and then a larger mayfly fluttered on the suface, and the feeding brown slurped that in as well. Clearly the fish were tuned into this larger mayfly in addition to the BWO’s, and this natural was larger than the BWO’s but smaller than green drakes. I spotted another one drifting on the suface toward me and was fortunate enough to scoop it off the surface with my net for closer observation.

The mayfly appeared to be a size 16 with a light olive/maroon body so I began searching through my fly boxes, especially the two that contain comparaduns that I tied for the many mayflies that hatch in Pennsylvania. Buried along the edge of one of these boxes was a size 18 comparadun with a body blended with light olive and maroon dubbing. The resultant color was a shade of cinnamon with tinges of olive. At this point I thought I had only one of these so I tied it on my line and began to cast it over rising fish. What a choice! Over the next hour and a half I landed twelve nice fish on the one fly wonder, and I was careful to not damage it too much with each release. Several of the fish were in the 14-16 inch range and the remainder were chunky twelve inch browns. At one point I felt abrasions on the tippet near the eye of the hook so I clipped off an inch of monofilament and reknotted the valuable comparadun with smooth line. I rarely pay this much attention to line damage.

This Brown Isn’t Missing Any Meals

I moved above the long narrow island and fished the pockets along the left side of the river, but because the flows were lower than normal based on past trips I was able to wade across to the south side and explore new water that is typically out of reach at higher flows. It was in this area between the top of the large rectangular rock pool and one of the larger pools along the right side that I experienced the success with the olive/maroon comparadun.

I Was Attracted to the Small Fin with Brilliant Orange Red Spots

There were two nice pools that formed along the south bank where significant current breaks allowed the water to fan out and provide nice feeding stations for hungry trout. The lower pool was smaller and had a branch angling upstream from just below the tail. Here I spotted four or five trout rising regularly and I managed to fool and land several on the size 18 comparadun, but the nicest fish cruised about the pool in a small circle and periodically sipped a fly off the surface. I worked this fish relentlessly, probably longer than I should have during a nice hatch when other fish were more willing to cooperate with my efforts. Unfortunately I couldn’t time my casts, avoid drag and predict where the fish was moving and eventually conceded and moved on.

Just above this smaller pool was the larger wider version and this also contained some visible fish. The most visible was a large fish that resided in a deep depression at the very tail of the pool next to a large rock that extended from the bank. The water in the pool funneled through this narrow deep trough before pouring downstream. I observed this fish rising occasionally, but my magical comparadun was not of interest. At this time I also noticed two green drake naturals on the surface of the water so I removed my valued comparadun (the wing had by now been reduced to a small cluster of five deer hair fibers), and replaced with the size 14 comparadun with the tan wing, and cast to some decent water to my left and above me and landed two medium sized browns.

My eyes returned to the big guy in the trough and again I observed a sipping rise. I ran a few drifts of the comparadun green drake over the large target, but they were ignored. Jeff had given me three green drake flies that he purchased at Taylor Creek Fly Shop so I decided to try one of them on this stubborn fish right in front of me. I nervously removed my comparadun and tied on the purchased version with a tall dark gray CDC wing and yellow hackle wound parachute style around the wing post. This fly looked quite similar to the naturals while on the water as it created the illusion of fluttering movement similar to the ones that floated by.

I flicked a short cast above the fish and as it drifted toward the target, the large fish drifted up and sucked it in! What a visual moment! Somehow I remained under control and waited for a second or two so as not to pull the fly out of the fish’s mouth. Now the battle was on and the rainbow charged up and down the pool and thrashed vigorously from time to time, but much to my relief it never attempted to escape the pool and swim into faster water. I carefully lifted the thrashing fish so its nose was above the water and quickly slid my small net opening beneath the long body and the net bowed out with the weight and length of an eighteen or perhaps nineteen inch rainbow. In addition to the discovery of an effective fifteen year old fly, I had now landed perhaps my longest fish of the summer.

A Green Drake Fooled this 19 Inch Rainbow

This pool was actually the last piece of good water along the right side so I backtracked along the bank and crossed above the island and fished the deep pocket above the island on the left side with the purchased green drake and landed a few more fish. At this point it was 4PM so I exited and walked down the road to “tree rock” pool, a nice small pool with a large protruding square rock at the center top with a small tree growing from it. I spotted two fish below the rock and made some solid casts with the green drake but they ignored it and seemed to be focused on smaller food. I acknowledged their preference and removed the green drake and tied on a CDC BWO and placed some casts over the fish in tree rock pool, but they were not interested so I turned my attention in the direction of angled riffle.

I was positioned in the middle of the river and to my right was a nice wide riffle where much of the river angled toward the south bank and then deflected and ran swiftly along the bank for twenty feet. From past experience I knew these riffles held quite a few nice fish so I began drifting my BWO along the current seams sequentially covering the water closest to me and then extending away. This search yielded a nice rainbow on the BWO but other visible fish were not reacting. After I’d worked the area for awhile Jeff arrived and began making downstream casts from the bank next to the road, and he experienced some success.

I was quite chilled and weary at this point with quite a successful day behind me, so I wandered back to the car and left the area for Jeff. When I arrived at the lot I noticed that Jewel Pool directly across from the parking lot was void of fishermen, so I decided to wade part way across the riffles and give it a try. I spotted small tan wing caddis on the water, so I tied on a light gray caddis and prospected with that for a bit, but it only generated refusals. Suddenly the pool came alive with slashing fish that occasionally broke the surface and I noticed some fairly large midges flying by. These natural insects appeared to approximate size 20 flies, so I tied on a Chernobyl ant as my indicator and then added a trailing zebra midge larva. This did not generate a response but the fish continued to slash and move subsurface for something. I clipped off the midge larva and replaced it with a griffith’s gnat, and once again my flies were simply treated like floating leaves or debris. Nothing was working and it was getting quite cold so I called it a day and retreated to the car and waited for Jeff who arrived fairly soon thereafter.

On this chilly autumn Monday I experienced some great surface action and landed 27 fish on green drakes, PMD’s and BWO’s. I discovered an old fly that was eaten like candy and I landed a 19 inch rainbow. It was certainly one of my better days on the Frying Pan River.

Time: 12:00PM – 4:00PM

Location: Above guide lot

Fish Landed:10

Frying Pan River 09/22/2013 Photo Album

Jeff and I spent Saturday night in the tent at Lottis Creek and although it was quite chilly on Sunday morning, we didn’t think it was as cold as Saturday morning. We were anxious to get an early start for the Frying Pan River and the drive entailed a trip over Cottonwood Pass and then Independence Pass, so we rolled up the tent in a damp condition and ate some quick breakfast foods that didn’t require any stove or cooking. As we traveled up the Arkansas River and then over Independence Pass we encountered some thick clouds and heavy rain.

The rain abated somewhat in Aspen and when we reached Basalt there was no precipitation, but the sky to the north and west was quite dark and foreboding. We stopped in Basalt for gas and purchased ice and then visited the Taylor Creek Fly Shop and then moved on and drove up the road that follows the Frying Pan River. The flows were at 115 cfs and the water was crystal clear. We quickly decided to park in a pullout on the opposite side of the road from the river .5 mile or so above MM12 and quickly prepared to fish while the rain held off, but with each passing moment the wind kicked up and the sky darkened.

My rod was still rigged with the nymphs that were on my line from the end of the day on the Taylor River, a beadhead hares ear and a salvation nymph. I walked down the road a bit until I was somewhere between the Santa Fe and the large “guide lot” across from Jewel Pool. Jeff continued on down the road a bit further and found some nice water with respectful distance between fishermen above and below him.

Almost immediately an eleven inch brown hit the beadhead hares ear on an upstream cast, but the nymphs stopped working and the water seemed a bit shallow at 115 cfs for this approach so I converted to a green drake and began to prospect. My first green drake was a size 14 parachute version and before long a 15 inch brown smashed my offering. At this point I was pretty excited about my early hot streak, but the sky was very gray and the air temperature hovered in the low 60’s.

A Nice 14 Inch Brown from the Frying Pan River on Sunday

Next I spotted some nice fish in a smooth pool behind a current break and noticed they were sipping something quite small so I put on a CDC BWO and after quite a bit of casting I induced a nice 13 inch brown to rise and take the BWO. As I progressed upstream I encountered water with faster current as well as slower smooth water so I continued to switch back and forth between the parachute green drake in the riffles and runs and then the CDC BWO in the placid water. The BWO got ignored in the next two slow water situations, however, the green drake picked up two smaller browns.

When I reached five fish landed a nice brown rose to the green drake in a current seam, but it broke off when it went into heavy current and needless to say I was quite disappointed with this turn of events. Another medium size brown slid into my net after slurping the green drake and I was now pleased to have landed six fish on the afternoon. Unfortunately at this point it got quite windy and began to rain fairly heavily so I crossed the river and returned to the car for 5-10 minutes until the rain subsided. I felt it wasn’t worth getting drenched when it was nearly impossible to cast in the stiff wind blowing across the stream.

After the wind and rain subsided I returned to my exit point and resumed fishing just below some overhanging tree branches on the road side of the river. The branches forced me to wade up the middle or south side of the stream and fish back toward the north bank. After covering this area with no success I prospected along the left bank by popping the green drake into all the narrow pockets between the bank and the heavy current. This approach yielded two more trout including a rainbow and a brown that probably measured thirteen inches. The last pocket before the raging chute with no fishable water contained at least four fish working in a small space, and when they flashed their sides they appeared to be rainbows.

A Rainbow Adds Variety

Unfortunately these fish ignored the green drake so I tried a light gray comparadun and that was equally uninteresting to these trout so I gave up on them and decided to walk back down the road to see if there was an open space with rising fish. Sure enough I found Jeff stationed in a nice riffle area and joined him. Fish were rising everywhere and just as I arrived Jeff began to have success with a quill body parachute green drake. Prior to this, however, he insisted that the naturals on the water were mayflies larger than pale morning duns, but smaller than green drakes and he was ill prepared.

Based on his description of the naturals on the water I tied on a size 14 comparadun with a yellow body and landed a small brown, but then Jeff began landing fish on the quill body green drake so I quickly clipped off the comparadun and tied on the parachute green drake that had performed admirably for me earlier while I was in prospecting mode. Unfortunately  the fish in this part of the river did not favor my green drake imitation, so I switched to a green drake comparadun and this resulted in a thirteen inch brown for my tenth fish of the afternoon.

At this point the hatch faded and the rain continued to fall steadily and it was 4PM so we decided to call it a day and returned to Basalt and found a room at The Green Drake. We draped our wet clothes on hangers in the bathroom and visited the Riverside Cafe for dinner. We survived some difficult weather conditions on our first day on the Frying Pan River, but did experience some decent hatching action and looked forward to Monday.

Time: 10:00AM – 4:00PM

Location: Pool across from large parking area .3 miles above MM12

Fish Landed: 29

Frying Pan River 09/06/2013 Photo Album

What did the Frying Pan River have in store for me on Friday September 6? Would it be another hot bright sunny day? Would I have to battle for prime space on the upper public water? Should I perhaps retreat to the water near the spring between mile markers 10 and 11 where I had a great day during my previous visit in August? The Frying Pan continues to amaze me, and Friday was certainly another different experience. How would Friday stack up against my other days on the Frying Pan River?

Thursday evening yielded several rain showers, one during my dinner, and then I retreated to the Santa Fe and listened to the first half of the Ravens vs. Broncos game. With the Broncos losing at halftime 17-14, I snuggled in my sleeping bag and fell asleep to the sound of the pitter patter of rain on the tent roof. I find this sound very relaxing and in a brief amount of time I was sound asleep. When I awoke on Friday morning the sky was blue and once the sun peeked over the hill to east of the campground, the moisture from the previous night’s rain burned off quickly. As I ate my breakfast and prepared my lunch I discovered that my ice supply was quite low, so this required a trip to Basalt to purchase more.

I loaded the car with my lunch and fishing gear and made the 14 mile drive to Basalt where I bought a 10 pound bag of ice at the liquor store and then stopped at Taylor Creek Fly Shop where I purchased five PMD imitations. My standby light gray comparadun did not seem to be producing as on previous occasions, so I decided to experiment with some locally recommended store bought flies. Next I called Jane to check in with her while in cell range, and she asked me to buy some M&M’s at the supermarket. Jane packed her car and drove to work and planned to make her departure from downtown Denver in the early afternoon.

By the time I returned to the upper Frying Pan it was 9:45AM but this was still earlier than my Thursday arrival so I decided to cruise the upper 2.5 miles in case there was prime open water. Sure enough the wide pullout just above mile marker 12 was totally open so I stopped there and prepared to fish. When I approached the water I discovered another fisherman on the opposite side who must have parked further upstream and crossed and waded down the south bank. The river is quite wide at this spot, so I began to fish next to the parking lot in the beautiful deep run and riffle with a Chernobyl ant trailing a salvation nymph and beadhead RS2. Other than a few refusals to the Chernobyl, I was unable to attract any fish in this attractive area, so I began wading up along the left bank.

In a short amount of time I arrived at another favorite spot where a large rectangular rock juts out into the river and creates a fifteen foot long eddy. I’ve fished this numerous times in the past by going above the rock and then casting downstream and allowing the eddy to bring the fly back toward the rock. I replicated this manuever, but initially I didn’t spot any fish facing downstream as is usually the case. However, as I observed I noted the huge nose of a rainbow sip a tiny insect very tight to the rock that I was kneeling on. I continued to watch the water and recognized another decent but smaller rainbow along the current seam four feet downstream of the large rock. I tried the three fly combo including some lifting action, but this didn’t attract any interest. Next I clipped off the flies and tried a parachute green drake and again no sign of recognition by the two rainbows. How about a light gray comparadun? Once again my strategy was thwarted. Finally having seen some tiny mayflies in the air, I tied on a CDC BWO, but the two target trout were apparently tuned into something different and I couldn’t unlock the code.

I tipped my hat to the fish and moved on upstream where I encountered two young men fishing the edge of the river in the stair step riffle area. The river was fairly wide here so I carefully waded across the bottom of the wide shallow riffles and began working my way up along the shadows from the branches on the south bank. I switched back to the Chernobyl plus salvation plus RS2, but after a brief time I swapped the RS2 for a BWO emerger. The emerger finally produced two fish; one as the flies began to swing at the end of the drift and the second as I lifted to recast at the tail of a pool. In spite of these two fish the action was quite slow so at 11:30 I decided to wade back to the road above the two fishermen working the edge, and I walked back to the car for my lunch.

Before making the walk, however, I noted that there was only one car in the large lot that is usually filled with at least six automobiles, so I decided to drive the .3 miles upstream and park in the “guide” lot. As I walked down to the river, two guides with clients did in fact pull into the lot and began preparing their customers to fish. I wolfed down my sandwich and the remainder of my lunch and practically sprinted back to the car to exchange my lunch bag for my rod and fishing gear. I made a bee line for the spot where I ate lunch and waded out into the river, and observed the two young men that I encountered before lunch thirty yards below me and another fisherman twenty yards above, but directly across from me was a very desirable pool that was open and beckoning my flies. I waded to the middle of the river where I was midway through the pool and standing in a 2-3 foot deep riffle that comprised the larger current of the river.

The river above me split with two thirds of the flow tumbling between the north bank and where I was standing. The other one third struck a current break and deflected toward the far side where it ran in a deep eight foot wide run along the south bank. In between these major flows was a sweet pool that was 25 feet wide at its maximum point near the top and then narrowed slowly until it tailed out below my position. The total length of the pool was probably 30 to 40 feet. This appeared to be one of the nicest spots on the river, but I was concerned that I was hemmed in by fishermen above and below me. I resolved that I would fish this attractive pool as long as I could see fish and then possibly retreat to the spring area for more space to wade and cover water.

The Chernobyl, salvation and BWO emerger remained on my line and in fact I now began to notice more of the tiny mayflies occasionally floating up from the surface. I tried dead drifting and then imparted motion to the emerger in hopes that this would imitate the small emerging mayflies, but the fish were having nothing of my overanalyzing ways. After a half hour or so of futility, however, I began to see a few fish break the surface and in short order I noticed some yellowish colored mayflies cruising on the surface. Meanwhile some larger clouds glided overhead and blocked the intense rays of the sun periodically causing the hatch to intensify during the low light periods and then wane a bit when the sun reappeared.

I clipped off the three fly combination and replaced with one of the store bought flies, a fly that had an olive quill body and a white poly tuft on top as an indicator. This didn’t draw interest so I tied on another store bought version with a light yellow body and again the fish told me my fly was a joke. What should I do now? Maybe my tried and true light gray comparadun would work on these educated fish today so I gave it a try. I moved up a bit toward the top of the pool and began relying on downstream drifts more and as I did this noticed several rainbows rising on a more regular basis along the current seam no more than six feet out and five feet below my position. I flicked some short casts to the seam up and across from me and then slowly raised my rod to take all the line off the water and then lowered the rod as the fly drifted below me. Smash! One of the rainbows tipped up and inhaled my comparadun and the fight was on. I quickly worked the rainbow back and forth and elevated it over my outstretched net and then carefully waded across the swift riffle to photograph on the bank while keeping an eye on the fishermen above and below me.

Nice Rainbow Landed from Upper Frying Pan Pool on Friday

It was now after 1PM and I was at the point of no return. Should I continue fishing from this hemmed in position or quickly adjourn to the spring area. Fortunately I’d just landed a nice rainbow, so I decided to give the jewel pool more time. I waded back to my same position in the riffle and observed more and more fish rising. In fact the scene morphed into one of those electric experiences where it was total mayhem. The clouds got larger, the light dimmer, the wind kicked up a bit, and the mayflies began to emerge and flutter and skip across the water. Trout noses appeared everywhere and I could spot at least twenty fish rising in the pool at any point in time. There were nice rainbows along the seam near me as well as several decent rainbows working the upper center area of the pool where the current created a small eddy. These fish were cruisers that worked in a small circle so it was difficult to judge where to place my fly. Meanwhile some browns were working from the midsection of the pool down to the tailout. Several fish rose along the current seam on the far side of the pool and a fine fish rose at the very top of the pool where the angled current fanned out toward the opposite bank. I would estimate that the jewel pool contained at least 50 fish if not more!

For the next two and a half hours I cast relentlessly to these feasting fish and landed twenty-two more beyond the initial rainbow described above. I was making perhaps ten casts and drifts for each landed fish, but there were so many flies on the water that I wasn’t surprised that my fly was often ignored. It was a matter of targeting a fish and making enough casts to finally match the feeding rhythm of the fish. I managed to land one of the cruisers in the eddy but never pricked the big feeder at the tail of the angled current at the top of the pool. Quite a few of my fish resulted from downstream drifts, and this was actually a suggestion from the sales clerk in the fly shop, although I normally use this approach on my own.

Dave Grips Nice Brown at Productive Pool on Friday

As this was going on two guides with clients moved in below me and another fisherman was fifteen yards above me. These fishermen landed a few fish, but I seemed to be eclipsing their productivity and couldn’t help feeling a bit smug after my guide encounter on Thursday. As this was transpiring my feet grew so cold that I lost feeling, and I felt like I was balancing on stumps. I tried to move only a step or two and almost lost my balance before leaning on my wading staff for support. When the sun was bright and adding solar energy to my body, I could tolerate the icy cold flows of the tailwater, but now the clouds were dark gray and the rumble of distant thunder rolled through the air.

The hatch continued but did wane a bit and the gaps between fish now extended so I decided to take a break and give up the jewel pool. I waded to the bank and placed my worn comparadun in the hook keep and returned to the car. I didn’t bother to look back to see how quickly the guides swooped into the prime pool. The wind picked up and some light rain began to fall as I stashed my gear in the car. I decided to  drive downstream to the area I fished on Thursday, but work upstream where the river splits around a long island. There were a few cars parked in the two pullouts but I found a space in the upper area and as I put on my backpacks, another white SUV pulled in front of me. Most of the fishermen seemed to be downstream in the area where I fished the previous day so I walked upstream along the shoulder to a path that angles down the bank and meets the smaller north braid between the island and the road. I added a fleece layer and raincoat to my attire and it was raining very lightly as I resumed fishing at the bottom of the long shallow smooth pool with my light gray comparadun.

I spotted a few dimples in the water and made some long casts and may have aroused a refusal, but experienced no success in the lower half of the north braid. When I reached the top area where the river narrowed and the velocity of the current increased I flicked my fly to the center of a small pool and a long rainbow sipped my comparadun. The sky was now quite dark and the rain was intensifying as I played and landed the surprise 16 inch fish to my net. I couldn’t end on this note even though some closer streaks of lightning lit up the sky, so I popped a cast to the left side and again at the lip a nice brown nosed up and engulfed my fly. Another brief fight ensued and I gently landed and released a nice 13-14 inch brown. The weather was now getting a bit scary as the wind kicked up but I managed to dry my fly and flick a cast to the right of the main center current and, wham, another brown mauled the money fly. I landed three beautiful fish within a span of 10 minutes in a fairly nondescript area near the top of the small left channel. Unfortunately the rain began to come down in sheets at this point so I retreated to the Santa Fe and jumped in the car, started the engine, turned on the heater and warmed my frozen feet. This all took place just before 4PM.

Meanwhile unbeknownst to me, Jane was able to depart Denver by 12:30PM and was approaching Basalt. She later told me that it was hot and 92 degrees as she entered the small town at the junction of the Frying Pan and Roaring Fork; however, as she drove east along the river she approached dark clouds with streaks of lighting and thunder and the temperature reading on her Forte plunged to 56 degrees. She scanned the parked cars along the river and when she passed mile marker 11, she located the Santa Fe in the pullout. This was just before 4PM and she claims it was raining hard with lighting and thunder everywhere and yet I was not in the Santa Fe. She became concerned and got out of her car in the pouring rain to look for me. As she did this, another fisherman emerged from the white SUV so she approached him and asked if he’d seen me. He responded that, “Yes, he’d seen me and thought I went upstream”. Jane then asked, “Why is my husband fishing in this terrible storm?”, to which the fisherman smiled and replied, “Because he has the DISEASE!”.

Jane Prepares Shrimp for Spinach Spaghetti on Friday Evening

I must have just missed Jane as I sat in the car and waited out the worst of the storm probably for 30 minutes or so. Eventually the rain slowed to a drizzle so I climbed out and geared up and returned to the top end of the left channel next to the island. At the tail of the nice run just above the point where the river splits, I landed a bright and colorful rainbow on the money fly to reach 29 fish on the day, and then had a shot at number 30 when I hooked a medium sized brown in the angled pocket ten feet further upstream, but the feisty fish managed to shed my hook.

I had now run out of decent water and it continued to rain lightly so I decided to call it a day and returned to the car and removed my waders and began to drive back to the campground, but as I approached mile marker 12 I spotted Jane in the oncoming lane. I pulled into the pullout at mile marker 12 and waited for her to U-turn, and then we caravaned back to the campsite where I was chastized for fishing in a thunderstorm. What a day it was on the Frying Pan River!

Time: 1:00PM – 5:00PM

Location: MM11.5 near downstream boundary with private water

Fish Landed: 14

Frying Pan River 09/05/2013 Photo Album

After spending 2.5 weeks in tropical weather I was anxious to return to the Rocky Mountains and some cool clear streams in search of fly fishing heaven. Jane and I spent five days in Hilton Head Island and had a grand time visiting family and enjoying the many activities available in this lovely resort island, but there is no getting around the humidity present at all times during August. I spent the last week of August working and then Jane and I flew to St. Louis, MO for a wedding on September 1. We did touristy things on Saturday, September 1 and you guessed it, St. Louis experienced highs near 100 degrees and the air was thick with humidity.

My previous trip to the Frying Pan River was during the week, and Jane needed to work, so she could not accompany me, so we made plans to make another camping trip on September 5 – 8. I packed the Santa Fe on Thursday morning and made the drive to the Frying Pan River, and then Jane got off work at noon on Friday and made the same trip to join me Friday evening.

The last week of August and the first week of September worked out to be some of the hottest weather of the summer, so I was a bit concerned about the quality of the fishing on the Frying Pan River, although a cold tailwater is usually the best option during these heat waves. At least the humidity was much lower than either Hilton Head or St. Louis.

No Time to Remove Bikes Before Fishing on Thursday

I got off to a reasonably early start on Thursday morning after attending the Dodgers vs. Rockies game on Tuesday night. This meant I needed to pack everything from scratch in the morning. The drive to the upper Frying Pan River is approximately 3.5 hours assuming no traffic snags and that is about how long it took me. I arrived by the upper river at around 12:15PM and .2 miles above the boundary between the public and private water below the dam. I grabbed my lunch bag and walked down the road a bit and then sat on the shoulder overlooking the river to observe while I quickly munched down my sandwich, carrots and yogurt. As I was doing this, a silver SUV passed me, did a quick U-turn and then stopped across from the spot where I planned to begin my afternoon of fishing. A guide dropped off his client who proceeded to put on his waders while the driver parked the vehicle. Apparently this guide saw me and was pulling out all the stops to reserve his favorite stretch of water.

I returned to the car and grabbed my rod and walked down the road, but seeing the man putting on his waders, I went beyond him and crossed below the place where a large dead tree spans two thirds of the river at the tip of a small island. I waded to the midpoint of the island and then fished downstream to the bottom tip and then worked my way up the smaller south channel with a parachute green drake. This produced two long distance releases and then I landed two medium size browns.  Near the top of the island a large rectangular boulder protrudes in the middle of the braid and creates two nice small pools on either side. I looked up the river as I was considering fishing opposite the guide and fisherman, but by now the guide had arrived and crossed and was standing in the very spot I considered fishing. He made a funny motion with both his arms pointing downward like and umpire giving the safe sign on a play at a base. Was he saying that the spot was his, or was he saying it was OK for me to fish there? I assumed it was most likely the former, so I refocused on the nice little pools near the rectangular rock. I was annoyed by the guides tactics, but didn’t feel like creating a scene on my first day on the river.

The large rectangular rock had a nice ledge that was about the width of my boot so I edged my way as far as I could to the upstream point. This put me in a nice position to cast to the slack water and eddy directly across from me as a strong deep run separated me from the little pool. A nice brown began to rise but it ignored my green drake so I switched to a size 14 sulfur comparadun and this didn’t tempt the cruiser along the far bank, but more fish began to dart to the surface and snatch food. Several risers were right along the current seam not more than five feet across from me so I began to focus my casts on them. I could flick my fly to the top of the seam and then hold my rod tip high so that virtually no line was touching the water. While performing this technique a fine 15+ inch brown tipped up and sipped in my fly and I landed it and snapped a photograph.

A Fat 15 1/2 Inch Buttery Brown

Unfortunately as the hatch intensified, the fish became much more selective and I made many unproductive casts to the area until I ran through a series of fly changes including a light yellow and light gray comparadun. The light gray comparadun produced three small browns during the course of the heaviest hatch, but there were a ton of empty casts around these small successes. I did manage to hook and lose a sizeable rainbow and medium brown during this period as well.

As the hatch waned I finally gave up on my small hidden pool and crossed the small island and then fished a nice little run and pool below the dead tree. I decided to return to the green drake for prospecting and landed a medium size brown and then hooked a decent fish that dove under a submerged log and snagged my fly. I was forced to break off the green drake and then climbed the bank and moved to the position where the client fisherman was orignally putting on his waders. The guide and customer had by now vacated the tail of the run and pool that I so desired to fish.

I began prospecting the lower section with a new green drake and landed a nice brown and then proceeded up along the slack edge water next to the steep bank that bordered the road. This stretch did not produce any fish and the hatch had dwindled so I tied on a Chernobyl ant with a Craven soft hackle emerger and worked around the tiny group of islands. The Chernobyl attracted two fish, one a small brown and the second a decent rainbow that was in the right channel where a tree limb extends over the water.

Pretty Rainbow Liked Chernobyl Ant

The next nice area I reached is the thirty foot wide riffle and pool with a square rock containing a tree in the upper center of the pool. I worked this area from right to left and managed to hook a decent rainbow on the Chernobyl, but it shed the hook and escaped before my net could scoop it from the river. I slid over toward the right bank to the area where the current angles against the south bank, and began prospecting the seams and slack pools with the Chernobyl and emerger and this paid off with another very nice rainbow on the Chernobyl ant.

I finished out my day by moving up along the right bank, but this strategy didn’t result in any additonal fish so I retreated and crossed back to the road along the same path that I’d followed to reach the south bank. I could now see some streaks of lightning and heard distant thunder, but it seemed to be quite a distance to the east, so I continued walking beyond my car to the path that angles back down to the smaller north channel of the river. The north braid is typically more challenging than the south channel here as the flow is only 1/4 the volume and the bottom half is relatively shallow slow moving water. However, from past experience I know that it harbors some nice albeit difficult fish.

I worked my way up the bottom half with no success so I swapped the Chernobyl and emerger for a light gray deer hair caddis and eventually landed a small brown that mauled the caddis in front of a rock. That was the last fish of the day as the weather became more threatening, and I realized I needed to set up the tent, unload the bicycles and prepare dinner before darkness. It was a fine four hours of fishing on the Frying Pan River, but I was a bit frustrated with the fisherman competition and my inability to fish the water I targeted.

Rainbow from Campsite Thursday Evening

Time: 9:30AM – 4:00PM

Location: MM4 in morning and MM7 downstream from large White River National Forest sign in afternoon

Fish Landed: 9

Frying Pan River 08/16/2013 Photo Album

The Department of Water Resources chart for the Frying Pan River near Reudi displayed a straight line of 220 cfs for over a week and this stability generally bodes well for excellent fishing. I’d experienced a nice day on Thursday, but could I repeat that experience on my last fishing day before returning to Denver for the weekend? Also, should I fish the water between MM10 and the dam or drive downstream further in hopes of finding a heavier green drake and PMD hatch as they generally progress upstream? These were questions I pondered as I packed up my tent and camping gear on Friday morning and prepared for a day of fishing. I retrieved my large fly boxes from my fishing bag and took an inventory of green drakes and added a few more to my frontpack foam patch.

By 9AM I was packed up and ready to begin my day of fishing. The sky was once again a brilliant blue with no clouds in sight and the temperature was already in the upper 60’s. Dave Loch described some nice water near Strawberry Rock access on the lower river, and I’d never spent much time in that area, so I decided to sample it on Friday morning. I found a tiny pullout just below the MM4 sign and prepared to fish. My rod was already put together from the previous evening so all I had to do was remove the caddis and tie on a Chernobyl ant and beadhead hares ear.

Frying Pan Starting Point on Friday

The next challenge was finding a path to the river as the bank was extremely steep and some dense bushes separated the road and river. After a short walk I found a faint trail and carefully descended to the river. I wanted to access an area twenty yards downstream where the river fanned out before plunging over some rocks, but the only way to get there was to wade along the bank and through some fairly attractive pockets. I made some downstream casts to the pockets before disturbing them, but I wasn’t very optimistic that I hadn’t spooked the fish by being in their upstream field of view.

When I got to the shallower area I moved to the middle of the river and then toward the south or east bank so I wasn’t looking into the morning sun. I began casting back toward the middle and roadside bank and after a half hour of fishing landed a 10 inch brown that attacked the Chernobyl ant. Prior to this I foul hooked two or three fish that apparently refused the Chernobyl and I snagged them with the trailing nymph. The hares ear once again wasn’t producing any results so I switched it for a salvation nymph.

As I moved upstream along the right bank I came upon a deep narrow slot along a red ledge rock and as my flies drifted tight to the rock wall the Chernobyl dipped and I set the hook and landed a nice 13 inch rainbow and photographed it. Next some fast water forced me back to the bank closer to the road and in a nice deep pool behind a current break I landed two very nice rainbows on the Chernobyl ant. The first fish was 15 inches and the second appeared to be 16 or 17 inches relative to the opening on my net.

Another Nice Rainbow Fooled by Chernobyl on Friday

I was perplexed by the fact that I was catching only rainbows and attributed it to the fact that I was fishing two attractors, so I once again exchanged the salvation nymph for the hares ear and this resulted in two browns under 12 inches. Perhaps there was something to my theory of attractor vs flies with a more natural appearance. By now it was 11:40AM and I was positioned directly beneath the Santa Fe, so I scaled the very steep bank and sat on the top rim to eat my lunch.

After lunch I resumed from my morning end point and proceeded around a bend and then through an area with a cluster of dead falls and fast water and then approached a huge wide pool. Another fisherman was stationed next to the attractive run at the head of the pool so I climbed out of the river and went around the pool. On the way I passed a host of fishermen eating their lunch or preparing to fish. The noon sun was now directly overhead and pounding down on everything below, and Friday was shaping up to be considerably warmer than Thursday.

Huge Pool Occupied

Above the large pool I encountered another inviting deep pool and as I drifted my Chernobyl and nymph combination I spotted a rainbow holding 4-5 feet below the surface. The fish showed interest several times in the Chernobyl by elevating closer to the surface and twitching its tail fin, but no take was forthcoming. I didn’t want to fixate on this fish as it was quite deep in the water column, so I moved along and fished some narrow slots next to the bank, but again I was not rewarded for my efforts.

By 1PM it was quite warm and no clouds were in the sky so I decided to move further upstream in hopes of a higher likelihood of encountering a hatch. I drove to MM7 and parked in a pullout that contained a large White River National Forest sign. I grabbed my gear and walked down the road to a point just before some private water and made some half hearted casts with the Chernobyl and nymph combination. This clearly wasn’t working so I resolved to change things up and removed the two flies and tied on a parachute green drake thinking that I was further upstream and perhaps close to where the drakes were still hatching or maybe in an area where the green drake hatch was a recent event. I selected the size 14 green drake with an olive hackle, but the hackle had become deformed and pressed back so that no fibers extended beyond the eye of the hook. The fly didn’t ride correctly on the surface so I clipped it off and replaced with a size 12 version and this resulted in a foul hooked brown.

I continued working up the left side of the river and began to see a few sporadic rises. This perplexed me as I didn’t see any insects riding on the surface or in the air above the river, so I paused to seine the water with my net, but this didn’t clarify the situation in any way. Much to my chagrin the mystery hatch intensified and the rises became more frequent. At a loss for an answer to what the fish were feeding on, I tied some tippet to the bend of the green drake and added a parachute ant with an orange wing post. I cast these two flies above the closest fish and most frequent riser and watched in dismay as the brown rose and pressed its nose against my ant without eating it.

As this transpired another fish rose five feet above the lower one so I switched focus and lofted a curve cast above the new feeder. The flies landed so that the parachute ant led the  green drake and a thirteen inch brown drifted up and consumed the ant! I was pretty excited to land this fish under very difficult conditions. Unfortunately the ant did not produce more action and the green drake was useless, so I clipped them off and tied on a rusty spinner from my Pennsylvania fly box but then added the ant back below the spinner. I attempted to catch the lower fish again with this new combination and actually pricked the fussy guy with the spinner.

This was enough frustration from this area, so I moved on upstream and began to see emerging PMD’s, but quite sparse so I switched to the light gray comparadun AKA money fly. I landed a medium size brown along the left side, but the intensity of the hatch increased although still not as strong as Thursday. I surveyed the river which was actually a wide riffle of moderate depth and observed more rises along the right side so I waded to the middle and then moved below the more dense cluster of rises. Unfortunately an hour of frustration followed as the regular risers showed no interest in my usually effective light gray comparadun.

I began a series of fly changes beginning with a yellow body comparadun and then a very light yellow sulfur version but still no luck. Four fish above me rose regularly but they ignored all my offerings. I finally conceded to these picky trout and moved back to the left bank and tied the proven light gray comparadun back on. The natural flies on the water during this hour of frustration looked smaller than my imitation so I probably need to tie some size 18’s before I return to the Frying Pan River. I now realized I’d gone fishless through the best hatch of the day, so I moved up along the left bank and spotted sporadic rises to stragglers as the hatch now dwindled.

Brown Was in Front of Tree Limb on Left

I was focused on an upstream rise when I spotted a subtle move and sip out of the corner of my eye in front of a tree branch no more than eight feet above me and to my left. I backcast and hooked a short cast above the rise and a large brown slowly appeared and sipped in my fly. This is the kind of visual action that keeps me addicted to this sport. After a strong fight and dogged head shaking I landed the 14-15 inch brown and brought my count on the day to nine.

14.5 Inch Brown Sipped Money Fly

Once again I moved upstream closer to a spot where I spotted a rise and as I prospected the general area I spied a decent rainbow holding very tight to some dead branches along the bank. I attempted to hook some casts to the rainbow, but could not get above the fish due to the branches and eventually shot a cast to far and wrapped the fly and line. This forced me to wade to my fly to retrieve it and in the process I disturbed the fish.

Another move upstream brought me to a sitiation similar to the last fish landed as I noticed a nice brown just above a protruding branch. This target however would not take my comparadun although it inspected and refused it. Next I tried a parachute ant with a yellow wing post and this provoked two or three refusals where the fish put its nose against the ant. I opened my patch and spotted the predator, a new fly I’d tied at the very end of the tying season. I only made two and it looked like a large realistic foam beetle. It went on to the end of my line and I plopped it above the brown, and the fish darted up and gobbled the foam creation. I set the hook and managed to prick the fish and then uttered a few expletives.

Next came a nice deep area below some dead logs and I spotted another brown lurking in the partial shadows. The predator was still on my line but I added a beadhead pheasant tail and launched a few casts in the vicinity of the brown and on the third or fourth drift I saw a bulge and set the hook. The fish took off instantly and I thought I had fooled the brown in the shadows, but quickly discovered the fish was foul hooked in the cheek area by the predator, so I either experienced a refusal or I was late on the hook set due to the difficult lighting.

At this point my progress was blocked by a jumble of logs so I climbed up to the parking lot and then found a worn path through the woods back down to a long deep pool with a vertical rock wall on the south side of the river. I covered this stretch to no avail as the water now appeared to be dead with no insects, not even stragglers present. Shortly after 4PM I reeled up my flies and called it quits with a long drive back to Denver ahead of me.

The temperature on the dashboard in the Santa Fe was in the mid-80’s as I began to drive back along the Frying Pan River to Basalt. I probably should have spent the day or at least the afternoon above MM10 but at least I had the water to myself and did have an hour of hatch action. Unfortunately I couldn’t convert my opportunity as completely as I would have liked.

Time: 7:30PM – 8:30PM

Location: By inlet of small stream that runs through the campground

Fish Landed: 10

Reudi Reservoir 08/15/2013 Photo Album

After an enjoyable day of fishing I returned to my campsite and put up my tent and ate my light camping dinner. After cleaning up my dishes, I glanced at my watch and noticed it was only 7PM so I decided to get some more exercise by taking a walk to the lake below the campgrounds. Little Maude where I was camping is situated in the first loop that is closest to the main road and the next campground below Little Maude is Mollie B which borders on the lake. I hiked through Mollie B and followed a path through some willows and across a small stream and then came out on the rocky beach just above the marina. I strolled down to the edge of the water and found a flat rock to sit on. The water was extremely calm as most of the boating activity had ended for the day, so I took a photo and relaxed in the gorgeous scene before me.

As I gazed around the lake and admired the beauty and the reflections on the water, a few rings appeared in the inlet next to me. In ten minutes while I rested on my rock I noticed four or five sporadic rises. Was it too insane to return to the campsite and retrieve my rod and reel and make a few casts to these fish? Absolutely not. This was my camping/fishing trip and I could choose to do whatever I wanted to.

I hustled back up the path and gathered my frontpack, net and rod and reel and bounced back down to the inlet area. I quickly tied on a dark olive size 16 deer hair caddis and began to make casts in the proximity of visible rises. Initially I experienced a few refusals and then a momentary hook up, but it wasn’t long before I set the hook and landed a small eight inch rainbow. The current from the small stream continued along the shore across from my position, and it seemed more fish were rising in this area than in the still water of the lake in front of me.

Water Level Higher Than 2012

I spent the next hour flicking casts to the site of various rises and hooked and landed ten rainbows. Three were chunky specimen that were twelve inches in length and the remainder were in the 7-10 inch range. I’m guessing these were stocked fish, but perhaps they were resident fish that migrate to the inlet where they feed on insects that wash into the lake from the stream.

At any rate, it was an enjoyable hour of fishing and icing on the cake after a great day on the Frying Pan River. I probably experienced as many refusals as landed fish, and there were numerous long distance releases mixed in. As darkness descended I reeled up my line and turned on my headlamp and carefully made my way back to the campground.

Time: 11:00AM – 5:00PM

Location: MM10 to above spring

Fish Landed: 20

Frying Pan River 08/15/2013 Photo Album

The Frying Pan remains my favorite stream in Colorado, and Thursday I was planning to make my first visit to these hallowed waters in 2013. Everything about the Frying Pan is magical beginning with the fishing centric town of Basalt, the 14 mile road that follows the river, the red rock cliffs and walls, Reudi Reservoir, the campgrounds, the spring, and of course the fish. The river is actually more like a creek yet in these intimate surroundings there is a high density of trout in the 14 – 20 inch range. Let one not forget the hatches. I enjoy prospecting hopper/droppers but I’m still partial to match the hatch fishing to rising trout and I can’t recall ever visiting the Frying Pan without experiencing some decent dry fly fishing to a hatch.

West Side of Independence Pass on Thursday Morning

Dave Loch, a new friend from Air Products, paid the Frying Pan a visit in July and this only served to make me more anxious to visit and fish there. Finally on Thursday, August 15 I would fulfill my wishes. I was up early at the Lakeview Campground near Twin Lakes and began my journey over Independence Pass and through Aspen, CO and then on to Basalt. I stopped in Basalt and purchased a new bag of ice for the cooler and then stopped at the spring near MM 10 to refill my water container. From here it was on to Little Maude Campground by Reudi Reservoir where I quickly snagged site number 6 and then unloaded a few items to make it obvious that the site was taken. Next I reversed course and drove back down the road and parked at the large pullout by the spring.

It was another warm day with clear blue skies, and I was concerned about how good the fishing would be. Most of the good pullouts on the upper two miles of the river were already taken, but no one was visible between MM10 and the spring, so I guessed that I could propsect the pocket water and work my way up toward the attractive water across from and above the spring. I had no idea whether green drakes or PMD’s would hatch in this area.

I walked down the shoulder of the road as a steady stream of cyclists passed me on their way to Reudi Reservoir and stopped at the downstream border with private water as indicated by no trespassing signs. My starting point was just above a small island where the river widened to create some shallow riffles that I could wade across to get to the opposite bank. My strategy was to prospect the south bank and eventually arrive at the nice deeper pockets and pools across from the car.

I was getting a bit of a late start as I entered the water at 11AM and of course I tied on a Chernobyl ant and beadhead hares ear. I probed some deeper slots and pockets on the side near the road with no success and then waded to the oppposite bank as planned. Here I was frustrated by a couple refusals to the Chernobyl ant, but then I extended a long cast closer to the bank to some nondescript water that was no more than three feet deep and I was surprised to see a buttery golden brown smash the Chernobyl ant. I carefully played the strong fish to my net and then carefully released it in some slow moving water to aid recovery.

16″ Rainbow Gulped Chernobyl Ant on Frying Pan

The beadhead hares ear didn’t seem to be adding any value so I exchanged it for a salvation nymph, and then in response to visible midge clouds, I added a third fly, a zebra midge larva. Eventually I switched the zebra midge for a RS2 and WD40. The Chernobyl, salvation and RS2 or WD40 became my workhorse combination as I worked up along the right bank and landed a 15 inch rainbow and another nice brown. I was amazed at the unspectacular locations that were yielding nice fish. By 1PM I’d landed seven fish and I decided to cross at the top of a second small narrow island and return to the car for lunch. Of the seven fish landed, one consumed the salvation nymph, two fell for the RS2 and four crashed the surface for the Chernobyl ant. All of my diverse trio of offerings generated some interest.

I took my lunch to a large rock next to the river across from the spring and munched it while observing for visible fish or insect activity. I didn’t really spot anything of interest so I returned my lunch bag to the car and prepared to resume fishing. As I walked up the road before lunch I passed a guide and customer going the other way and noticed that they entered the river where I had just exited, so after lunch I decided to begin across from the spring and fish up along the right bank. This was really the attractive stretch of water I desired to be in and it was already close to 1:30PM when hatching activity might begin. As I began fishing another guide and customer appeared along the left bank 30 yards above me, but they weren’t close enough to create any interference of my fishing or vice versa.

Frying Pan Looking Upstream from Across from Spring

I began prospecting the same trio of flies that produced seven fish before lunch, but they were not longer favored by the fish. It’s amazing what a change of location and thirty minutes can do to fishing success. I hadn’t spotted any green drakes, but 1-2PM is generally the time when they appear, so I thought perhaps the fish were tuned in to them, or perhaps one could serve as a large attractor. I clipped off the trio of flies and tied on a size 14 parachute drake with a natural grizzly hackle. I’d used this same fly on the Taylor River and Big Thompson with success, but it was a bit mangled and the hackle was climbing up the wing post.

The used fly did not seem to bother the fish as I landed a bunch of medium size browns. The first two came on downstream drifts in some deep narrow slots when I flicked the large parachute drake to the top of the lane and kept the line off the water and allowed the fly to slowly float the length of the slower moving water. As the fly reached the tail it was attacked aggressively by medium size brown trout.

As I worked across the river I encountered a spot where the current angled against the far bank and then deflected and ran for another ten feet along the grassy bank. Here I landed another three browns that pounced on the green drake, and as I played and landed these fish I observed a nice sized fish rising and working in a shallow cushion of water just in front of a submerged rock next to the bank just above the deflection point. I made some accurate casts above this fish but it ignored my green drake yet continued to rise to something. I was now observing the occasional PMD in the air, so I clipped off the green drake and tied on a light gray comparadun and placed some nice drifts over the area of the rising fish, but apparently casting the green drake had alerted the fish and it no longer rose nor was it visible with my polarized sunglasses.

I moved on and decided to revert back to the green drake but received several refusals so I swapped it for a fresh version with a dyed olive parachute hackle.This fly was slightly smaller than the bedraggled speciman I started with, and it also produced some fish. As this was transpiring several periods of overcast skies caused by some large clouds blocking the sun initiated a light PMD hatch, and this provoked another switch to the light gray comparadun but once again the fish ignored it.

Again I reverted to a green drake but this time I decided to go large, and experimented with a size 12 parachute drake with a dyed olive hackle. Much to my surprise as I lifted my rod tip to recast when the fly was five feet in front of me at the lip of a small pool, a 16-17 inch rainbow snatched the big drake! What a thrill to pound up such a large fish that I hadn’t spotted just a few feet in front of me. After releasing the large rainbow I resumed casting to rising fish in the deeper runs, but again I couldn’t generate any consistency. Once again some clouds moved in and another overcast period ensued thus provoking another wave of PMD emergence, and again I followed suit with a switch back to the comparadun.

Ahead of me was a sweet 8X10 foot pool and as my comparadun drifted through the center of this area, a monster brown jumped on my fly. When I got a good look at the fish as I carefully played it, I was certain that it would measure in excess of 15 inches. Luckily I was able to get a close look at the fish as I landed it and spread it out on my net for a photograph and it was easily 17 inches if not 18 inches. I clearly remember that this was fish number 18 on the day, and I was shaking with excitement as I resumed fishing. Once again however the clouds moved on and the sun reappeared and the PMD hatch waned so I again returned to the size 14 olive hackle green drake.

17″ Brown Was Highlight of Thursday

I prospected this fly through some smaller pockets as the river narrowed and offered fewer attractive spots, and added two more small browns to my count to reach twenty. It was now 5PM and I’d run out of juicy spots and I still had to put up my tent, so I retreated back along the south bank and then crossed back to the road, and called it a day, and a fine day it was. Twenty fish with four or five in the 14-18 inch range was certainly a satisfying effort. Catching fish on my parachute green drakes that I created over the winter was very gratifying as well, and being able to prospect and fool educated Frying Pan fish on the Chernobyl ant before lunch was an added bonus. I returned to the campground in a very happy state of mind.

Avalanche Ale

Time: 10:30AM – 5:30PM

Location: Downstream from spring; within one mile of dam; across from the spring.

Fish Landed: 23

Frying Pan River 09/14/2012 Photo Album

Friday brought frustrations other than the picky fish that I experienced on Thursday between 1 and 3, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I woke up Friday morning to a fresh coat of frost on the tablecloth, stove and windshield. It was quite cold, but as soon as the sun rose over the eastern ridge at 8AM, things warmed up quickly. After a quick breakfast I retrieved all my various fly boxes from my fishing bag and spread them out on the picnic table at the campsite (after wiping off the water from thawed frost). I selected all the imitations of green drakes that were dispersed among three or four boxes and then grouped them into a large size 12 pile and a smaller size 14 pile. I put four size 14 comparaduns in my front pack patch, a couple size12’s, and three Wellerfish paradrakes. I was now prepared for whatever green drakes the Frying Pan River could throw at me.

Frost on Camp Stove Friday Morning

I decided to drive down to the spring area to begin my fishing in the morning as there was a lot of pocket water that was ideal for the hopper/dropper technique and that area was further away from the ridge and therefore would warm in the sun more quickly. Once again I began with a Chernobyl ant and beadhead hares ear combination and once again this yielded only refusals and no fish. I exchanged the Chernobyl for a parachute hopper and this yielded one small brown on the BHHE. As I was working up along the bank next to the road I began to observe quite a few midges zooming up from the surface of the water so I added a zebra midge beneath the beadhead hares ear and fished three flies.

Frying Pan Across from Spring on Friday Morning

I was optimistic that the midge would yield some action, but in a short amount of time I snagged a stick and in the process of trying to free the flies, I broke off both the hares ear and zebra midge, probably as a result of an aging knot. This forced me to replace the hares ear with a new model, and as I looked at the midge section of my fly patch I decided to try an olive colored beadhead midge larva. This combination brought me some decent action between 11 and 12 as I built my count to six with three hitting the beadhead hares ear and two hooked on the midge. I also had perhaps five or six hooked but unable to land presumably on the tiny size 22 midge hook.

At the top of a tiny island I momentarily hooked a rainbow that appeared to be in excess of fifteen inches, but it made a quick turn of its head to the left and the fly popped free. To say the least I was quite disappointed by this turn of events. During this time I discovered that I generated more action by casting directly across from my position and allowing the flies to drift downstream and then swing. As the fly was drifting downstream I made quick jerky mends that gave the trailing flies action, and quite a few of the fish hit the nymphs on the lift or swing.

At noon I broke for lunch and drove back up the road to a favorite spot close to the dam. The river angles toward the bank and creates several nice runs of moderate depth. After lunch I positioned myself at the base of one of the angled runs and began to fish with the three fly combination still in place from the spring. Not much was happening however until 1:30 when I noticed the fisherman across and down from me landing several fish. I stepped back toward the bank a bit to gain a higher vantage point and noticed he was nymphing, so I invested time in going to a strike indicator, split shot, beadhead hares ear and beadhead pheasant tail in hopes that the fish would be tuned into PMD nymphs prior to a hatch. It was a great thought process, but it didn’t yield any fish.

Shortly after going to the trouble of converting to deep nymphing I began to see light yellow colored mayflies and sporadic rises. I was in a precarious position sitting on a raised boulder with my legs on each side similar to riding a horse with a deep chasm between me and another large boulder anchored to the bank. While balanced in this position I clipped off the nymph paraphernalia and tied on the sulfur comparadun. Using this fly I landed a small brown from the small run and riffle above me, but then I noticed a single rise twenty feet below me beneath an  overhanging branch that came within 18 inches of the surface of the river. I began making downstream drifts by simply feeding out line and letting the fly drift down along the current seam. On the fifth or sixth downstream drift a fifteen inch brown smashed the sulfur from beneath the branch. What a thrill!

Beast Taken on Downstream Drift Under Branch

I spun around on my rock and focused my attention on the small triangular pool sandwiched between the surrounding runs above me. Two or three nice fish were visible and had now begun feeding actively, but they were ignoring my yellow comparadun. They showed slight interest as evidenced by a slight move up toward the fly or a tail wag, but that was the most energy they would expend on my frauds. I decided to halt my frantic casting for a bit and watch the water and much to my surprise I noticed a dense hatch of small BWO’s on the water! I quickly switched to my CDC BWO and on the first cast landed a nice 14 inch brown from the triangular pool area.

This Beauty Fell for BWO

It was around this time that I was distracted by a man and woman who arrived and waded into positions no more than 10 yards above me. I immediately yelled, “Hey! Hey!”, but the man either didn’t hear me or chose to ignore me. I later discovered that the woman was likely the man’s teenage daughter. I was pretty irate about this turn of events as I was now hemmed in to a small area after arriving two hours earlier and staking my claim to the space. There wasn’t much I could do at this point short of confronting the man, so I refocused on the fish in front of me. Another fish continued to feed at the very tail or point of the triangle just above where currents merged, and I needed to run quite a few casts over him, but eventually I convinced a 13″ brown to chomp on the CDC BWO.

Meanwhile I continued to see a sparse hatch of PMD’s, and I thought perhaps the fish would switch to these larger morsels, but I stuck with the tiny BWO imitation. I had now taken two nice fish from the triangle area and disturbed the water a couple times and wasn’t seeing any more feeding activity. Just above me was another small riffle where a side current ran almost perpendicular to the main river and deflected off the bank and then continued along the bank to the rock I was sitting on. Unfortunately between me and the run was a large branch that extended over the water by five feet or so. I began to hook casts to the run above the branch, and as I did this I spotted a barely visible sip in front of the branch. Because this water was very riffled, I was having great difficulty seeing the tiny gray tuft of a fly, but I began dropping casts further to the left and closer to the rise. On perhaps the third such cast the rainbow moved for my fly and smashed it and shortly thereafter he was in my net.

Fine Rainbow Sipped CDC BWO

I was pretty much hemmed in now with nowhere to go but up the bank, so that’s what I did, and then I had the evil idea to return the favor. I found an opening in the dense vegetation between the road and the river and decided to explore as I couldn’t really see how much above the intrusive pair it would take me. Unfortunately I appeared only five yards or so above the girl. I was on a long fairly flat rock that protruded out in the river, and this created a nice little pocket where the river curved from the bank and rushed around the rock. I began dropping extremely short casts into the tiny pocket, but I wasn’t very confident this held a fish. Amazingly on the fifth or sixth cast a chunky 13″ brown emerged from the current seam and sipped in my CDC BWO. I took the time to be obvious about my nice fish and placed it on my net on the large rock to photograph. I still couldn’t coax a look or remark from the father who stoically fished and faced the main river.

Now I was truly out of decent water so I retreated to the Santa Fe and decided to drive downstream and check out the area that I fished on Thursday. What a shock I was in for. On this pleasant Friday in September apparently a lot of fishermen decided to take a long weekend to fish. All the pullouts were full and there were guides with multiple anglers near bush rock riffle and in fallen tree pool. There was a fisherman positioned in the pool below large rectangular rock. Before I knew it I was out of the public water and driving along the private water and beyond mile marker 11. Fortunately there was no one at the spring area so I pulled into the pullout there and geared up to fish.

I was really fuming at this point as I’d been forced out of my prime spot just as I solved the hatch riddle. I’d landed six very nice fish in a very confined space, and the last four sipped in my CDC BWO with confidence. It was tough to accept the fact that I relinquished this favorable situation.

I began wading across the river to reach the opposite bank as I planned to fish up through the series of runs and pools that had produced for me in late August. The crossing was quite challenging as the flows were roughly 50 cfs higher than August. Since I still had the CDC BWO on my line, I gave that a try initially and landed a small brown, but I wasn’t seeing many rises and the tiny BWO was very difficult to follow in this faster more turbulent pocket water.

I switched to the money fly and landed another medium sized brown, but the quality of this fishing experience really suffered compared to the enjoyment I had just experienced closer to the dam. I was consoling myself that at least I’d now landed 14 fish on the Frying Pan, and even if I quit now, it was a decent day. Just as this thought ran through my brain at around 3PM, all hell broke loose. I saw BWO’s and PMD’s (some yellow and some gray) and green drakes simultaneously popping off the water. When I noticed quite a few green drakes tumbling in the surface film and trying to lift off, I decided to take advantage of my earlier fly sorting and tied on one of the size 14 comparaduns. My fly search paid huge dividends as I landed another nine fish over the remainder of the afternoon on the smaller green drakes. Three or four of the fish in this mix were strong 14 – 15 inch fish including a hard fighting rainbow that demanded quite a few casts but eventually succumbed to the allure of my green drake.

During this entire period a heavy PMD hatch was taking place, and I considered switching but stuck with the green drake, and didn’t regret this decision. By 4:30 the green drake hatch had largely fizzled out, but I observed a continued fairly strong PMD hatch so I tied on the money fly and prospected some attractive spots. I wasn’t able to entice any fish during this last half hour and saw minimal rises in spite of the fairly decent ongoing hatch. I can only conclude that the fish had full bellies by this time late in the afternoon.

Patchwork of Colors on Hill Above Campground

As I carefully waded back to my car by the spring I could only thank the father and daughter team and all the other fishermen and guides for forcing me downstream to the spring area where I had the entire stretch of river to myself while PMD’s, BWO’s and green drakes hatched in dense numbers simultaneously. For some reason I get all the tough breaks.

Time: 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Location: Downstream border with public and private water between mile markers 11 and 12

Fish Landed: 21

Frying Pan River 09/13/2012 Photo Album

Jane wanted to camp at Reudi Reservoir near the Frying Pan River in 2012, and she had not yet realized that goal. Who was I to stand in the way of such a simple request? We planned to make the trip on the weekend of September 15-16, but Jane needed to work through Friday, so I planned to drive west early and snag a campsite and do some fishing.

Originally I hoped to make the drive on Wednesday evening and be in position to fish on Thursday and Friday; however, some wet weather moved through Colorado on Tuesday evening and extended through most of Wednesday. Along with the wet weather came a trailing cold front with lows in the mountains dropping below freezing. I didn’t relish a wet cold evening, so I decided to pack everything on Wednesday, sleep in my bed in Denver, and get an early start on Thursday morning. This worked according to plan and I arrived at the Little Maud campsite by 11:30AM. It was a cool day as forecast with temperatures never rising above the high 60’s. I immediately paid for three nights for campsite 5 at Little Maud and prepared a quick lunch and then drove back down below the dam to the pullout above fallen tree pool. This is roughly .2 miles above the private water. The fishing pressure seemed uncommonly light and initially I had the entire stretch from the private water to mile marker 12 to myself.

I walked along the shoulder of the road as far as I could go before encountering the private water no trespassing sign and dropped down to the river. There was a hops vine with creamy flowers surrounding a reflector post where I entered the river so I stopped and took a couple photos in memory of my friends who were gathering the flowers to make beer during the first night of my previous visit to the Frying Pan.

Hops Along Frying Pan River

When I got in position I tied on a Chernobyl ant and beadhead hares ear as I wasn’t seeing any hatching activity at noon. I fished this combination along the bank upstream to the point of the small island just below the fallen trees and received only looks with no takes. At this point I crossed the channel closest to the road and circled below the bottom point of the small island and explored the right braid. Near the top of this channel tucked behind the island and hidden from view from the road was a nice little pool roughly 10 ft X 15 ft in size. A log extended across the top 1/3 of the pool and as I stood and observed the pool some mayflies began to emerge and fish began to rise. I could see at least five rising fish in this small pool and the mayflies appeared to be the variety with a light yellow body and light olive hued wings.

I elected to tie on one of the size 16 comparaduns I tied the previous afternoon in anticipation of this very situation. There was a fast run between me and the pool but I countered this by flicking my fly to the pool and then holding my rod tip high to keep the fly line out of the fast current. In short order I landed a medium sized brown and then a very nice chunky brown that was feasting right along the edge of the current seam. There were more fish in the pool and they continued to feed, but before I could tempt them with my fly, two fishermen arrived on the road side of fallen tree pool. The first guy began fishing along the road, but his friend arrived and was making motions like he wanted to cross and fish where I was headed, so I quickly reeled up my flies and moved to the very tail of fallen tree pool to claim the spot I was targeting to ultimately end up at when a hatch might begin.

Nice 14″ Brown Using Sulfur Comparadun

I immediately spotted rising fish at the tail just above the dead trees, but as I looked up the river I could see fish rising sporadically throughout the run and pool. I stayed with the yellow comparadun and picked up a few small to medium browns, but then I began to experience rejections. With my polarized sunglasses I could see fish move toward my fly and then turn away. This was not encouraging. I switched from the yellow comparadun to the light gray variety that I renamed the money fly. The intensity of the hatch increased and chaos broke loose between one and three o’clock. There were yellow mayflies and gray mayflies and green drakes. When I saw the green drakes I immediately tied on my Wellerfish paradrake. It wasn’t receiving any attention until I spotted a nice fish actually jump out of the water six inches and eat a natural green drake. I made a drift over this area and the same fish made a beeline for my paradrake, and I landed a beautiful deep bronze colored Colorado cutthroat trout. It was a thrill to catch this rare beauty for the Frying Pan on my newly minted Wellerfish paradrake.

Surprise Cutthroat Went for Paradrake

Bright Slashes

This was a highlight, but the two hours were largely frustrating as I cast over many rising fish and managed to land only five fish over the two hour time period. This may not sound too bad, but you had to see the dense hatch of different mayflies and the number of aggressively rising fish to understand. A green drake landed on my hand for a short period and it was much smaller than I remembered and also smaller than the Wellerfish paradrakes that I tied. I had a couple size 14 versions that I tied in a previous year, and I tried one of these for awhile and landed one brown, but it definitely wasn’t producing in a desired manner.

By 3PM the hatch had subsided a bit, and I decided to relinquish my hard earned spot at fallen tree pool although one of the other fishermen along the road had moved on. I decided to return to the 10 X 15 pool for unfinished business. After realizing mixed results with the green drake, I exchanged it for the money fly so that’s what I began offering in the 10 X 15 foot pool. The hatch wasn’t as intense as between 1 and 3, but PMD’s were still floating up from the river at a decent rate. Quite a few fish continued to feed in a slow methodical manner in the small slow moving pool. Much to my amazement I landed 4-5 fish from this small area as the cold water residents rose and sipped in the money fly with confidence. One of my catches was another chunky 15″ brown.

Deep Coloration on This Brown

After fishing out my hidden pool I realized that the supply of gray comparaduns (money fly) in my frontpack foam patch were pretty mangled so I returned to the car to replenish with new money flies that I tied the past winter. I transferred three or four to the trash/refurbishment cannister and replaced with four fresh new comparaduns. I put on my fleece as it was a cool day and I planned to continue fishing into the early evening as the shadows lengthened across the river. Armed with new flies and extra warmth I stood on the shoulder of the road and gazed at bush rock riffle below me. I couldn’t spot any fish as had been possible on my last trip, but I moved into position below the end of the riffle and fanned some short prospecting casts of the money fly across the riffle and landed two medium fish, one rainbow and one brown.

I considered moving across the river to the triangular area where I’d experienced frustration and then success on my previous trip, but that part of the stream was covered in shadows and the slightly higher flows suggested a more challenging wade two-thirds across the river, so I opted to walk further up the road to the two channels around a narrow small island. I expected the left channel to remain in the sun, and in fact this was the case when I arrived at the bottom of the shallow smooth stream section. I observed several rises in the smooth water, but could only entice one small brown to my money fly. I slowly moved up the left channel prospecting likely holding lies with no success until I eventually reached the top of the island.

Rainbow Was in This Area

I could spot a rainbow flashing occasionally to feed in the area below where two currents merged to create a short run in front of a large rock. I worked my fly over this fish and also higher up in the pocket between the merging currents. On one of these drifts I lost sight of my fly and lifted to locate it, and I felt the weight of a nice 14″ rainbow. The small comparadun got submerged in the swirling current where the flows met, and the rainbow sucked in my dry fly as a wet fly!

Rainbow Taken at Top of Island

Next I decided to return to the bottom of the island and explore the right channel, and I was most interested in checking out the large rectangular rock pool at the top. However as I crossed the bottom of the slow smooth left channel again, I noticed several fish rising. For some reason I felt more confident in my fly and decided to give this another chance. It was a good decision as I landed two nice rainbows and one 12 inch brown with one of the rainbows taking the money fly after it sank. This may point toward using a light gray body wet fly in future situations such as this. Ironically I read an article in Fly Fisherman a couple days later that suggested that close to 75% of flies eaten during a hatch are cripples and emergers.

Shallow Slow Moving Left Channel

Well Fed Rainbow from Shallow Smooth Channel

By now I had landed 19 trout on this cool chilly Thursday and it was getting late in the day and I was tempted to hook my fly to the rod guide and return to the car to warm my feet. But I also felt this ridiculous desire to reach 20 trout, so I circled back to the bottom of the island, and this time fulfilled my intent and moved to the right channel and waded along the island side to large rectangular rock pool at the head. I made a prospecting cast near the tail of the pool and five feet away from the left bank and nailed a small brown to reach 20. I wasn’t quite satisfied with using a nine inch fish for number twenty so I shot a couple casts to the top of the run below and next to a large boulder on the left side and landed another brown of 10-11 inches in length.

No. 5, Little Maud at Reudi Reservoir

At this point I called it a day and returned to the car and eventually to my campsite where I put up the tent and prepared dinner. It turned out to be a another great day on the Frying Pan River, although I was frustrated by the 1 – 3PM period. Clearly I didn’t have the answer as evidenced by my sporadic success and usage of multiple flies with numerous refusals. On the other hand I demonstrated that persistence, stealth and pursuit of less obvious locations can yield great returns.

Time: 10:00AM – 5:30PM

Location: Mile Marker 11.5 area, began where dead trees span the river.

Fish Landed: 34

Frying Pan River 08/24/2012 Photo Album

When I returned to my camp site on Thursday evening there was a break in the weather that allowed me to prepare dinner, but as the sun sank behind the western mountains, it began to rain lightly again. Once again I adjourned to the Santa Fe and read by the light of my headlamp for an hour or so. At around 9PM there was another break in the rain, so I took advantage and hurried into the tent, but I woke up several times during the night to the sound of raindrops splattering on the rain fly.

Friday morning wasn’t much different from Thursday as the tablecloth was coated with water and there were heavy clouds and mist everywhere. Once again I took my time with breakfast and packing a lunch and took a 40 minute walk from the campground along the road that follows the perimeter of the lake high above. I snapped some photos from the high vantage point and returned to the campground. I decided to start a bit later on Friday as the air temperatures didn’t warm quickly without the benefit of sunshine and the fishing really didn’t seem to pick up until mid-afternoon.

Lowest Water Level I’ve Seen

My strategy for Friday was to fish the water at the bottom border of the 2.5 mile public section below the dam. Perhaps the green drakes had moved and were entering the coldest stretch of water. I drove to the downstream border with the private water and executed a U-turn and parked at the first pullout above the place where two or three dead trees spanned the river and formed a nice pool.

Yellow Beginning to Show on Foliage

By the time I was prepared to begin fishing I discovered another fisherman with a guide had moved into the water on the south side just above the fallen trees. This was exactly the water that I was anxious to fish, but I’ve discovered patience is generally rewarded, so I decided to prospect around the small island just upstream and then check back closer to when the hatches typically begin. Once again I tied on the Chernobyl ant and added a beadhead hares ear dropper. First I worked the smaller left channel next to the road and landed a medium size brown near the top in a shallow run. I circled back to the bottom of the island and covered the water to the right of the island with no success. At the top of the island I prospected the 20 foot wide riffle/pool where a cube shaped rock protrudes and a tree is growing from the middle of the rock.

Here I hooked a rainbow on the Chernobyl to the right of and below the rock that hosts a tree, and then another rainbow smashed the Chernobyl just to the left of the rock. Late morning fishing was looking pretty encouraging, and the fisherman and guide appeared to do me a favor by forcing me to this area. I gazed across the river from the tree rock, and determined that I could probably cross at this point. There was some attractive water on the opposite bank where the main current angled to the left and then ran along the bank for fifteen feet or so before dropping into a swift channel. Between the rocks where the river angled and the bank there was a nice wide smooth area of water roughly three feet deep. I managed to wade across the tail of tree rock and then maneuvered to a nice position to the side of the angled pool just described.

I began casting the Chernobyl and hares ear combination to the pool area, and as I prospected this water I spotted at least five or six decent fish. Unfortunately they were quite selective. I could see them react to the Chernobyl ant as several moved a foot or two toward the drifting giant ant, and others twitched their tail when it came into view, but none would commit. I did see a rainbow rise and sip in a tiny insect a couple times so this began an hour of fly changing as I went through a pheasant tail nymph, zebra midge, griffith gnat, parachute ant, PMD comparadun, a gray caddis, and a CDC BWO. I finally landed a brown on a long downstream drift of the CDC BWO at the very tail of the pool just before the current smashed against the bank.

At 11:30 I decided to eat my lunch in case a hatch commenced earlier than Thursday. The air temperature was moderately warmer, but there were still quite a few large clouds with only infrequent appearances of the sun. I grabbed my lunch bag and water bottle and walked down the road to the fallen trees and discovered that the nemesis fisherman had departed.

Start of Fishing Friday Afternoon

After lunch at 12:15 I returned to the bottom of the pool where the fallen trees span most of the river and returned to the Chernobyl ant plus a beadhead phesant tail in anticipation of PMD activity. I tossed the pair eight feet out in the current just below a large rock above the angled trees and a medium sized brown grabbed the pheasant tail on the swing. Next I began prospecting the still water along the left bank between the bank and the faster main current. I began shooting casts upstream within five feet of the bank and in short order three nice 12-13 inch trout crashed the Chernobyl. Two were rainbows and one was a brown and I was shocked at this good fortune using the buoyant attractor as I now reached seven fish on the day.

Deep Creamy Colored Rainbow Took Chernobyl After Lunch

Upstream View from Fallen Tree Pool

At 1PM I began seeing rising fish toward the tail of the pool just above the fallen trees. The productive water along the bank had now been covered so I walked back to the tail and clipped off the two fly combo and tied on the money fly, a size 16 light gray comparadun. As the frequency of rises increased so did the refusals to my fly so I seined the water with my tightly woven net and scooped up two mayflies. Upon inspection I realized that they had quite yellow olive underbodies and they were closer to size 14 than 16. I searched through my fly box that contains quite a few tied for Pennsylvania including sulfur comparaduns and selected a size 14 and knotted it to my leader. The Keystone State fly proved to be a saviour as I netted seven fish mostly in the 11-12 inch range in the bottom 10-15 feet of the run/riffle/pool above the trees.

Nice Brown Liked PMD Imitation

I worked my way across the river just above the trees and began casting back to the middle from the right side facing upstream. The right side, which is actually the south side of the river, was actually more attractive with much more water of moderate depth that is typical holding water for trout. Unfortunately now that I achieved my ideal position, the fish began rejecting the size 14 fly that had served me well for the first hour or so of the hatch. I decided to switch back to the money fly, and that landed me a pair of medium sized fish, but my success was spotty.

I decided to abandon the fish rising in the faster water where the faster current fanned out over a rocky bottom, and began to work my casts to the shallower slower water upstream. This proved to be the answer and I landed another eight medium sized mostly brown trout by 3PM. It was an unbelievable sustained two hour hatch that yielded fifteen fish, but for some reason I felt like I could have done better. At this point I decided to continue working my way up along the right side as quite a bite of attractive water remained. However, as I attempted to make a step, my right heel got wedged between two rocks. My momentum carried me forward while my wedged foot remained stationary and I fell forward. I caught myself but for a spit second some water trickled over the top of my waders, and I could feel cold water seeping down my left leg. My feet were already cold from the icy temperatures coming from the bottom release dam and it wasn’t an extremely warm sunny day so I decided to wade back to the opposite shore and then go to the car and change.

I removed my waders and turned them inside out to dry and changed all my clothes for dry replacements. After a half hour in the direct sunlight, the wader feet felt dry enough to put my feet into. It was now probably 3:45 so I stood on the shoulder of the road and observed the area where I’d fished in the morning with the cube rock and a tree growing from the middle of the rock. The amazing hatch had clearly dwindled by now but I could spot a couple fish, so I decided to give them a try. I tied on the money fly and began prospecting and quickly picked up fish. Apparently the fish were tuned in to stragglers at the end of the hatch and they were jumping on my money fly with confidence.

First a small brown inhaled the comparadun next to the cube rock and then two nice rainbows devoured it in the nice faster riffle just beyond the rock. I moved closer to the bank and began shooting casts directly upstream above the cube rock and landed two more nice browns along the left edge. I could see one of the browns leave its station close to the bank and swim two feet to confidently sip in my fly. What a confidence builder that was. When I reached the point where the faster current was tight to the bank I retreated and planned my next move.

Great Success in Smooth Water Beyond Riffles

I gazed up and down the river and then across and spotted the triangular pool that frustrated me for an hour in the morning. Could those five or six nice fish be duped as well by my hot money fly? Brimming with confidence it was time to take on the challenge. I waded along the bottom edge of the cube rock pool and then along the top of the faster water to a point near the top of the triangle. I began casting to the closest current seam first. It was like feeding candy to a child. The trout leisurely glided up and sipped in the comparadun, and I landed four or five nice trout in this area. Once I fished the triangle out and disturbed the water with multiple fish landings, I moved up along the right bank a bit and landed another brown.

As the shadows began to creep over the river, I noticed an increase in mayflies. Was this another wave of PMD’s or something different? Once again I held my net in the water and scooped up a BWO. I switched the money fly for a CDC BWO, but the visible fish that I drifted over rejected my BWO imitation. By 5:30 my fortunes had waned and the shadows were lengthening and I was getting quite chilled so I retreated back along the bank and crossed below the cube rock.

It was quite a day on the Frying Pan River. I experienced two hours of an intense PMD hatch, but I actually enjoyed the aftermath period more when I could focus better on individual fish and had success doing so. The pace was less frenzied, but I caught as many fish, and the fish were on average larger. I still had Saturday to look forward to.