Category Archives: Fishing Reports

Fishing Reports

Clear Creek – 08/07/2012

Time: 5PM – 8PM

Location: Hidden Valley Exit

Fish Landed: 4

Clear Creek 08/07/2012 Photo Album

Dan sent me a text message and suggested we go fishing one evening the week of August 6. We agreed to make it happen on Tuesday evening, and Dan’s roommate Adam agreed to join us. Dan and I constructed a wading staff for Adam after our camping trip to Lake Creek in early July, so we were anxious to present it to him.

I got off work a bit early, so I texted Dan to tell him I’d meet them in the parking lot at 5:45PM where the bike trail begins along Clear Creek off the Hidden Valley exit of interstate 70. I spent an hour fishing upstream from where we parked prior to their arrival. Initially I attempted to walk up the frontage road to the area just north of the I70 bridge, but a construction person stopped me and informed me that the road construction was taking place around the clock and creating hazards in the stream, and I wasn’t allowed to fish in that area. I reversed course and began fishing the deep run and pool next to the parking lot and then continued under the ramp bridge and I70 bridge and a bit to the north. I began fishing a parachute hopper trailing a beadhead hares ear and had several refusals plus one momentary hook up on the hares ear.

When I was in the shadows under the bridge I noticed quite a few small caddis flitting about, so I clipped off the two starting flies and tied on a size 16 deer hair caddis with a gray body. Just above a large boulder along the left side, I spotted a quick rise from a fish, and after four or five drifts, the fish came up and smacked my caddis. I was pleased to land one fish before Dan and Adam arrived. I continued working upstream but didn’t experience any more action, not even a refusal before I returned to the parking lot.

First Fish Landed Tuesday Evening

When I walked down the road to the lot, Dan and Adam were already there and nearly dressed in  their waders with rods strung. I presented Adam with his wading staff, and he was immediately quite taken with it, even suggesting he might take it to bars to pick up chicks. The three of us decided to head down the bike path and to go beyond our previous furthest point downstream. When we approached the wide shallow area, I decided to wade to the opposite bank next to I70 and then walk further downstream. Dan walked down below an island and Adam moved into the wide stretch.

My choice was fortuitous as I landed two decent browns in short order. The tiny caddis seemed futile for this work, so I tied on a Chernobyl ant for flotation and dangled a beadhead hares ear beneath. The hares ear did the work, as I found it in the lips of both browns. The second brown drifted under the Chernobyl for quite a distance and then opened its mouth so I set the hook. Much to my amazement the hares ear nymph was in the brown’s upper lip.

Monster by Clear Creek Standards

I continued working up along the right bank next to the interstate, and that involved much rock climbing and dodging auto and truck debris. There were audio cables, headlamps, clamps, and tools. At one point I picked up a screwdriver and stuffed it in my wader pocket. Foraging for forgotten highway debris proved to be much more successful than finding fish and I covered quite a bit of the stream with no action from 6:15 until the sun set at 7:45 or so. It was a very warm day in Colorado, and even at the elevation of Clear Creek, the high temperatures apparently caused the fish to be sluggish.

Dan Works on His Line

Once the sun dropped behind the canyon wall, it cooled a bit and I began to see more caddis activity. I swapped my polarized sunglasses for my regular lenses and moved upstream to find a crossing point. As I walked along I70 I found a long heavy metal bar and upon close inspection decided it could be used as a digging bar. I had inherited one of these earlier in my life from my father, but somehow in the process of making two moves, it disappeared. I could have used one several times as we did landscaping work around our house at 9026 E 35th Avenue, so I picked it up and lugged it down the steep bank and through the dense vegetation to the edge of the stream. I used it for stability as I crossed at  a fairly swift location.

When I got to the other side I challenged Adam to a wading staff battle, but he declined upon seeing the weight of my iron digging bar. I decided to mostly guide Adam in hopes that he could land a fish, but during one lull in directing him, I dapped my caddis tight to the bank in a small narrow slack water area and watched in amazement as a ten inch brown rose and sipped it in. I tried to get Adam to mimic this tactic, and he did experience one refusal next to a streamside rock.

Note Adam’s New Wading Staff Dangling Behind Him

Eventually it became so dark that we couldn’t even see our flies from close up, so we called it an evening and returned to our cars and then ventured to Tommyknockers’ brew pub in Idaho Springs for dinner.

South Boulder Creek – 08/05/2012

Time: 10:45AM – 3:30PM

Location: Downstream from last parking lot before Gross Dam

Fish Landed: 6

South Boulder Creek 08/05/2012 Photo Album

On Wednesday August 1, my Aunt Judy and Uncle Lee, who were visiting from Pittsburgh, Pa. took me on a train ride on Amtrak from Denver to Fraser, CO. Along the way the train tracks followed South Boulder Creek from Gross Reservoir to the Moffat Tunnel. From my vantage point in the observation car, South Boulder Creek appeared to be an interesting fishing location that I had never explored. In fact there were quite a few fishermen in the stream above Gross Reservoir.

When I returned to Denver, I pulled out the DeLorme atlas and found South Boulder Creek and discovered it was not that far away. Next I Googled South Boulder Creek and fishing and read about a great fishery right under my nose that I ignored. This peaked my interest and so when I decided to go fishing on Sunday, August 5 I chose South Boulder Creek below the dam. Jane agreed to accompany and we got off to a decent start by around 9AM. We threw Jane’s mountain bike on the rack, but we weren’t sure there would be a place that she could ride.

It took us longer than would otherwise be required as we stopped for gas and several times to tighten and adjust the mountain bike as it came loose from the rubber straps on the rack. Also we missed the turn off on Coal Creek Canyon Road for Gross Reservoir as I thought there was a closer road. Now that I know the route, I could probably be in the parking lot getting ready to fish within an hour from my home in Denver.

It was a very warm day in Denver with temperatures in the upper 90’s, so it probably wasn’t fair to evaluate the fishery based on my experience under adverse weather conditions. Jane and I hiked down the steep path from the parking lot and immediately intersected with the stream at the bottom. We hiked down the path along the north side of the creek a ways, and I entered while Jane continued hiking further along the path. We agreed to meet around 12:30 for lunch, and I gave Jane my watch.

I tied on a parachute gray hopper and trailed a beadhead hares ear and waded across the creek at one of the few places where this could be done. As I worked my way up along the left bank just above a small island, I landed a small seven inch rainbow. I noticed a worn path on the left bank, so decided to climb up on the south bank and explore. I discovered a nice path and hiked down the path quite a ways until I found some nice slack water pockets on my side of the stream. I worked my way back up along the bank with the parachute hopper and BHHE and picked up two more rainbows. One was in the twelve inch range and quite colorful, so I photographed it before releasing. I was getting quite a few refusals in addition to the three landed fish, and this was frustrating me. In one decent deep narrow slot below a large rock I spotted a decent sized rainbow move from the bottom and inspect my fly, but it turned away as I held my breath.

First Nice Rainbow Trout in South Boulder Creek

When I reached the location of my initial crossing, I crossed again so I’d be visible to Jane and worked my way up along the right bank a bit. Once again I experienced three or four refusals, and just as I was switching out the parachute hopper for a Chernobyl ant, Jane arrived. I immediately met her on the north bank and we hiked back up the steep trail to the parking lot. We grabbed our lunches and found a nice shady area among some evergreen trees and downed our lunches.

After lunch Jane decided to take her folding chair to the waters edge. She told me she had hiked down the path and not too far below where I was fishing encountered a bridge so I decided to cross the stream again and hike to the bridge and fish back up stream. Unfortunately when I arrived near the bridge, several fishermen were occupying a beautiful pool so I went back upstream above them. I found a nice pool twenty yards above them and I could see three or four decent fish swimming about, but I could only extract a few cursory looks from these fish.

A Nice Pool

After fishing upstream some more with no results, I switched the Chernobyl ant for a yellow Letort hopper. I’d seen a golden stonefly fluttering up from the stream right after lunch and as I watched a bird swooped by and snatched the stonefly right out of the air. Perhaps the yellow Letort hopper would be taken for a golden stonefly. Unfortunately this theory didn’t materialize and after a bit, I clipped off both flies and tied on a bushy deer hair caddis. This fly actually produced three more trout, two rainbows and one brown. One of the rainbows was comparable to the one I photographed in the morning, so I snapped another photo while in the net.

A Second Speckled Rainbow

It turned out that I didn’t start fishing much below where I began in the morning, so I was overlapping my morning wade, and with an hour or so left to fish, I decided to hike back down the stream below the bridge and see what that water looked like. I found myself hiking up a trail a bit and then cutting back high above the river. A huge vertical boulder blocked further progress along the south bank so I dropped down to the river above it and fished my way back up along the bank to the bridge, a distance of approximately twenty yards. Along the edge of one of these shallow pockets an eight inch brown rose to my caddis and became the sixth fish landed on the day.

Pretty South Boulder Creek Below Bridge

When I reached the bridge, I retreated back the way I’d come and climbed a steep bank and hiked back upstream along the south bank trail. I crossed at the same place as I’d waded after lunch and found Jane in her shady retreat in her chair. I waded out in the stream next to her refuge and attempted some downstream drifts, but only succeeded in provoking a couple refusals. It was 3:30 by now and we were both hot and tired, so we again climbed the steep trail and quit for the day.

South Boulder Creek is a beautiful location not far from Denver, and I will certainly return when the weather conditions are more favorable. The water is very cold as it comes from the bottom of a deep dam, and it represents only an hour drive. There is also fishing upstream and downstream worth exploring.

Taylor River – 07/27/2012

Time: 10:30AM – 3:00PM

Location: Across from Lodgepole Campground upstream to large boulder in wide area

Fish Landed: 24

Taylor River 07/27/2012 Photo Album

Friday morning wasn’t quite as chilly as Thursday at my campsite at Lottis Creek, although the tent and tablecloth were covered with rain from the brief shower that took place at dark on Thursday night. I fired up the propane stove and made a cup of tea and ate my minimal breakfast. I was waiting for the sun to rise above the hill to the east so the tent would dry before I packed it up since I needed to be out of site number 8 by 11AM, and I planned to fish another day before returning to Denver.

I busied myself with packing the car with the storage bins and rolling up my sleeping pad and sleeping bag. Eventually I removed the rain fly and draped it over a picnic table at an unused site two down from mine, and then I removed the tent pad and draped it over the table one site over as it was also unoccupied. Finally I tipped the tent up on its side to encourage the bottom to dry. The sun appeared partially over the hill by 8:30, but there were quite a few clouds in the sky, and that prevented the intense drying rays I was hoping for. There was a light breeze however and that aided the evaporation.

As I waited for the drying process to take place, I removed all my fly storage boxes from my fishing bag and sorted through them looking for large caddis, as I planned to try fishing caddis dries along the north bank like my friend from Ohio had been doing on Thursday. I did some fundamental fly organizing and when I’d completed this task checked the tent paraphenalia covering three campsites. Fortunately the breeze and sun were working their magic, and I was able to pack up the dry tent and left the campground by 10AM.

I planned to drive down the road to Lodgepole Campground and park at the nice paved lot across the street. I was concerned that this was in the construction zone, and I’d need to wait for flagmen to let me through, but as it turned out Lodgepole was just east of the start of the construction zone. I actually parked upstream from the Lodgepole lot in a nice pullout adjacent to where the river spread out into a wide shallow riffle. I planned to ford the river at this point and walk down the north bank to a spot across from the Lodgepole lot. I felt that the fish on the north bank were not as pressured as it took quite a bit more effort to get there.

Everything worked according to plan and I found myself next to the river by a large rock moraine with my Loomis five weight strung and ready to fish by 10:30AM. As it turned out, another gentleman was directly across from me wading wet and fishing up along the south shore. The river between us was quite swift and noisy, so I didn’t feel that my presence would affect his fishing.

My first fly choice was a large royal stimulator. It worked in the hog trough so why not here? That was my thought process. I cast the stimulator repeatedly in the nice deep V-shaped pool behind a mid-stream rock, but nothing showed interest. I could see a nice brown hugging the light sand bottom, but the fish was showing no interest. I clipped off the royal stimmy and tied on a deer hair caddis with a palmered body. This also was ignored by the elusive fish of the Taylor River. I decided to forsake the pool and moved upstream along the bank and ten to twenty yards above my opposite bank companion.

After casting to another sweet slack water area below a log with no results, I decided to go back to a proven producer and tied on the bushy purchased green drake. In a short deep pocket just above the log, a nice brown darted to the surface and inhaled my green drake. Why do I always over analyze? I continued and covered a fair number of attractive runs and pockets with no results before landing a second fish, a rainbow, on the green drake. Fortunately the green drake seemed to be more buoyant on Friday than Thursday and wasn’t requiring the frequent drying stops.

Friday Morning Chunky 12″ Brown

It was turning out to be a beautiful day for fishing with cool air temperatures and partly cloudy skies. The clouds were large and gray but quite high in the sky so they didn’t appear to threaten any heavy precipitation, but did create a nice overcast. Once again I seemed to be covering quite a bit territory between fish and by 1PM I remember thinking that I’d caught seven fish in 2.5 hours, and my catch rate was slightly above the two fish per hour norm. With this thought in mind and no green drakes observed, I decided to make a strategy shift.

I clipped off the green drake and tied on a gray parachute hopper size 10 and then attached a two foot dropper to the bend and added a beadhead hares ear. I was fishing near the bank so perhaps the trout were tuned into hoppers, and shouldn’t the all purpose hares ear attract fish subsurface? At the rate I was catching fish I estimated I’d end the day with twelve or so and that would be a nice accomplishment on top of the sixteen of Thursday.

Amazingly the strategy worked to perfection. Initially I began to catch browns on the trailing beadhead hares ear and fish were attacking the nymph in most of the places where I expected fish to be. I got in a nice rhythmn and moved along at a decent pace placing two to five drifts in all the likely spots, and more times than not a fish would grab the trailing nymph. Meanwhile the clouds were getting thicker and the periods of sun less frequent and eventually I could hear distant thunder. However I was largely oblivious and as a half hour or so flew by, the fish began to hammer the parachute hopper. This was even more fun catching fish on the top dry fly. I spotted a few PMD’s and considered switching the BHHE for a beadhead pheasant tail, but decided to stay with what was working until the success ended.

Typical Fish Landed on Friday

One detail I forgot to mention is that shortly after landing the first brown on a green drake, I snagged my net on a tree branch and as I took another step I snapped off the retractor cable. I couldn’t decide how to attach my net without my trusty retractor, but I eventually decided to stuff it handle first behind my back so it was pinched between my backpack and back as I was wearing a raincoat. This worked reasonably well, but I had to focus every time I landed a fish not to drop the net as I usually do when the retractor pulls it back into its proper position.

Well I was rolling along augmenting my fish count nicely when I hooked a twelve to thirteen inch brown in a very shallow riffle. I was very surprised at the non-descript lie that produced the fish, but as I raised my rod to net the fish it wiggled free. I no longer needed the net so I unconsciously dropped it. Instantly I realized the error of my ways as the net began drifting downstream away from me so I tried to stretch down to retrieve it, but it was already out of reach. I was now in panic mode and I took a step downstream and lunged for it. I successfully grabbed the net, but it was as my body began a downward trajectory, and I hit the water with my left side and temporarily went under and water trickled over the top of my waders and filled my left leg and foot. I also tangled my line in a dead overhead branch during this ridiculous process.

I climbed up on shore with my prize net still in my hand and managed to break off the dead branch and untangle my line. I was across the river from my car, but didn’t want to waste time wading back across, so I decided to suck it up and continue. My shirt, undershirt and underwear were all wet and water was sloshing around in my feet. Eventually the water inside my waders warmed up but the cotton undershirt and underwear continued to be cold and clammy particularly as the rain clouds continued to build. The best medicine for my condition was to continue catching trout, and that’s exactly how I got well.

Nice Brown Came From Eddy Next to Large Rock

I continued probing the pockets and runs with my hopper/dropper combination and landed more fish. By three o’clock the storm moved in and light rain began to fall. I was prepared with my raincoat already on, but my wet undergarments were causing me to feel quite chilled. I had reached twenty-four landed fish, and I was trying to make it 25, but I was moving further away from my crossing point and feeling chilled so I decided to wade back and return to the car. It proved to be a great decision as the rain began to descend in sheets as I unlocked the car and changed under the dripping hatchback door. I had clean dry clothes in my sack from camping, so eventually I was in the dry heated comfort of my car driving back to Denver. An energy drink and snack later, I was back in a pleasant state remembering my fine day on the Taylor River.

Taylor River – 07/26/2012

Time: 9:30AM – 4:00PM, 7:00PM – 9:00PM

Location: Across from Cold Spring Campground to private border below Lottis Creek; Lower Hog Trough

Fish Landed: 16

Taylor River 07/26/2012 Photo Album

I vowed to return to the Taylor River and this promise was kept. Would I encounter green drakes and PMD’s hatching like I experienced briefly in my two hour teaser session on July  20? Read on.

I worked at a furious pace Mon. – Wed. so I could take off on Wednesday and return to the Taylor River and snag a campsite at Lottis Creek as I completed the May package and left work at 2:30 and hustled home to finish packing the car. After stopping at King Soopers to purchase ice and two propane tanks on my way out of Stapleton,I hit the road by 3:15. I pulled into the Lottis Creek Campground at around 7:30 after stopping in Buena Vista for a dinner of Subway sandwich and had the REI two person tent assembled and up just as darkness descended. I elected to try the new loop at Lottis Creek, Union Park, and found a nice site with sparse trees on the outside of the loop.

On Thursday morning I ate my breakfast and took a brief walk while waiting for the sun to rise higher in the sky and warm things up a bit. It was probably 40 degrees and I wore my ski hat and down vest. Once the sun peaked over the hill east of the campground it warmed quickly and I shed layers just as rapidly. For the first day I decided to fish the stretch below Lottis Creek as I had done on the previous Friday, but I elected to start further downstream. When I reached the Cold Spring Campground, I noticed a wooden stairs that went up and over the fence so I concluded this was public water and chose this spot to begin my fishing.

I was on the river rigged and ready to fish by 9:30 and walked up along the bank away from the well worn path. There was a stretch of very fast water in a narrow chute so I skipped around this to the first point where the river spread out a bit and created some nice pools  and pockets along the right bank. Since it was fairly early I elected a tan Charlie Boy hopper and dangled a beadhead hares ear off the bend. I covered a reasonable amount of water with no success before I decided to switch to nymphs in this stretch of fairly fast turbulent water with periodic short pockets. It screamed out as stonefly water so I tied on an Arkansas rubberlegs and below that a beadhead prince nymph thinking this might imitate a green drake nymph. Nothing. I covered some very juicy runs with no results and then clipped off the rubberlegs and went with two flies plus a split shot and strike indicator.

First Fish on Thursday

I tried a beadhead bright green caddis, beadhead hares ear, and beadhead pheasant tail in the two fly nymph set up to no avail. I’d now fished for an hour or so with nothing to show for my efforts so I decided to revert to the dry fly tactic that worked for me the previous Friday. I clipped off the nymphs, removed the split shot and strike indicator and tied on one of the bushy green drakes I’d purchased on the Conejos River. Wham! A nice brown rose and sucked in the green drake in a nice run along the bank above me. It was a nice chunky 13 inch fish so I photographed it and moved on. Either the fish were sluggish, or the green drakes had passed, or my fly wasn’t a perfect imitation because I covered quite a bit of additional water with no takers, and I was about to change flies again when a nice chunky 13 inch rainbow rose and slurped in the green drake at the deep tail of a nice run. Again I photographed this fish and moved on.

Nice Rainbow Is No. 2

As I worked upstream the bushy green drake became waterlogged and I was spending a lot of time pressing it against my shirt and dipping it in the dry shake to enable decent flotation. I decided to try one of my comparaduns to see if they would float better. They did, and I continued working my way upstream catching seven more before breaking for lunch at 1PM.

The Wild Taylor River Below Lottis Creek

After lunch I landed one more brown on the green drake, and it was starting to require frequent drying as well, so I decided to experiment with something different. I tied on a Chernobyl ant with a beadhead hares ear and then added a beadhead pheasant tail as well. I was covering my bases in case a pale morning dun hatch evolved. A sparse emergence did in fact occur as I spotted several duns fluttering skyward and a rare random rise. I stuck with the dry/dropper strategy believing that the two nymphs would imitate the PMD nymphal stage, but managed to land one small brown on the pheasant tail. I did, however, land a nice colorful rainbow that was duped by the Chernobyl.

Nice Rainbow Landed on Thursday

When I no longer noticed PMD’s and hadn’t caught a fish for quite a period of time, I decided to return to the green drake comparadun. I was near the top of the stretch where a wide pullout is present along the paved road and from this location to the private water I landed two more browns on the green drake. I retreated from the no trespassing sign to the wide pullout just as another fisherman who had been working the opposite bank emerged. I asked how he did, and he informed me that he did pretty well with stimulators and caddis. He showed me his caddis and they were quite large with a dark body and light dun palmered hackle.

I decided to call it quits and return to the campground for an early dinner that would hopefully allow some time for evening fishing. After dinner and cleaning up the dishes, I jumped back in the car and drove to the hog trough below the Taylor Reservoir dam. The stretch is only .2 – .3 mile long and constantly crowded with fishermen trying to land one the football size trout that reside there. The trout pig out on mysis shrimp that pass through the dam and reach outlandish proportions. Unfortunately they are extremely educated and this is a very difficult place to catch fish.

I parked in the second unoccupied pullout on the north side of the road and much to my amazement the large wide and long pool near the western border of the public water was open. I decided to tie on a caddis initially and worked my way up along the bank at the tail of the massive pool. I was spraying casts from the bank to the middle of the river which covered a distance of approximately 50 – 60 feet. I wasn’t getting any action, so I decided to tie on one of my royal stimulators that seem to work well in the evening hours. It has a white calf body wing, and that makes it very visible in the evening light. Some blotchy gray rain clouds were blocking the setting sun and making it darker than normal for 7:30.

Since the top of the pool was open I moved pretty quickly to the prime area and made a few casts to the nervous water at the top of the run. While doing this I spotted a rise in an eddy behind a protruding rock. I worked my fly in this area and held the rod tip very high to keep my line off the water and spotted a swirl or refusal to my fly. I continued trying for this fish, but as is usually the case, it didn’t respond after the initial refusal.

Again I noticed a rise further down the pool five feet inside the center current seam toward the bank I was positioned on. I was above this rise, so I began making casts across from me, executing a big mend to put the fly line above the fly, and then performing stack mends to feed out line and let the fly drift downstream toward the area of the rise. I did this perhaps five or six times when I noticed a sip on my fly and set the hook. A rainbow trout immediately jumped from the water and demonstrated a strong fighting spirit before I could contain it and bring the battling rainbow to my net. It was a chunky thirteen inch shiny fish, and I photographed and released the fish.

First Fish Landed in Hog Trough

The dark clouds were now overhead and it began to rain lightly so I pulled my raincoat from my backpack and pulled it on under my wader straps. I continued fishing and alternated between the middle section of the pool and the nice pockets and run at the top of the pool. The remaining light was getting quite scarce, and now I saw a cloud of spinners in front of me bobbing up and down. I swiped my net through the cloud of insects and spotted a captured spinner, but before I could examine it closely, it fluttered away. Once again I made a swipe and noticed a spinner clinging to the fine webbing in my net. This mayfly had less energy, and I was able to pinch its wings and inspect the dark rust colored body.

I pulled my fly boxes from my front pack and found a cornuta spinner of a similar size, but it had a dark olive body. Lacking any dark rusty spinners, I tied the cornuta spinner on to the size 14 royal stimulator as a second fly. I figured the leading stimulator with the white wing would allow me to locate the difficult to follow spinner, and this theory largely held true. I later discovered that I had a fly box in my backpack that contained four dark rusty spinners.

At any rate I began working the two flies across and letting them drift downstream to the middle of the pool. As I did this, several rises took place, and the frequency suggested that perhaps some of the spinners had fallen to the water. Finally near 8:30 I spotted a rise in the vicinity of my flies and set the hook and played and landed a nice thirteen inch brown. I was quite pleased to have landed two fish in the hog trough. A bit after landing the brown, I spotted a swirl in the vicinity of my flies and set the hook; however, this fish was foul hooked. Apparently it refused the stimulator and the spinner caught the fish on the hook set.

By 8:45 it was virtually impossible to see anything and the small amount of rising fish had now subsided so I decided to pack it up for the night. I was pleased to have landed 16 trout on the Taylor River including three or four in the thirteen inch range, and twelve using large green drake dry flies. What would tomorrow yield?

 

Taylor River – 07/20/2012

Time: 11:30AM – 1:30PM

Location: A mile or two downstream from Lottis Creek Campground

Fish Landed: 9

Taylor River 07/20/2012 Photo Album

Why does it seem that the fishing is best when one has a limited window of time to fish? This was my situation on Friday, July 20, 2012. Amy and Dan were members of the Runny Noses Revival, a running relay team that started in Canon City on Friday morning at 8:30AM. The twelve team members would run 36 legs, three per person, and cover 195 rugged miles until ending in Crested Butte, CO.

The team needed to provide three volunteers so Jane and I provided our services and selected a 7.5 hour stint at exchange 33 near the end of the course. Since we needed to be at our station at 7:30AM on Saturday we decided to drive across Cottonwood Pass on Friday and secure a camp site near the Taylor River. We did a lot of packing on Thursday before hosting the team carbo loading party at our house, so we were able to depart the house by 7:30AM and arrived at Lottis Creek by approximately 11:15. We both wanted to drive back east over the pass and meet up with the Runny Noses, but I convinced Jane to allow me to fish from 11:30 until 1:30. I helped Jane unload much of the camping gear, and then she drove me down the road and dropped me off at a spot near the river.

I’d read on the Willowfly Angler web site that green drakes and pale morning duns were hatching between 10AM and 2PM, so I was anxious to see if this was true. I’d called the fly shop to find out what stretch of the river was most likely to produce hatching mayflies, and the man at the shop suggested the public water between Lodgepole and the dam.

I was right in the middle of the 10AM – 2PM time window as I strung my line through the rod guides and then hiked through the woods to the river. I emerged next to a beautiful deep pool that would actually be the nicest water I’d fish on Friday. As I pushed the loop of my fly line through the rod guides, I kept an eye on the water, and sure enough noticed one or two green drakes slowly fluttering up from the river. Surely the fish would be tuned into these juicy size 12 morsels. I elected to tie on one of the bushy green drakes I’d purchased at the Conejos Angler, but unfortunately the fish didn’t agree with my choice and rudely refused my offering. Two fish darted to the surface but turned away at the last instant.

Meanwhile I also observed some smaller mayflies, probably PMD’s, as I followed my rejected green drake. Could the fish be ignoring the big guys and focusing more on the abundant PMD’s? The only way to find out was to clip off the green drake and tie on a money fly, a light gray comparadun. The comparadun looked very life like to me, but the fish didn’t even refuse this fly. I pulled my fly up and observed the water, and noticed more green drakes and PMD’s emerging. I decided to go back to the green drake comparadun that I tied myself for the Frying Pan River. I plucked the smallest one I had in my patch, probably a size 12 2XL, and knotted it to my leader.

At last I had a winner when at the very tail of the deep run a fine twelve inch rainbow rose and confidently sipped in my green drake. I paused to wade to the bank and photographed the rainbow before releasing. I pressed the green drake against my shirt sleeve to absorb the moisture and then dipped it in the dry shake cannister. I shot some casts higher in the run and picked up a smaller brown.

First Fish on Friday on Taylor River

Over the next hour and a half I covered the pockets and runs along the right bank with the green drake comparadun and landed seven more fish, all browns. I also experienced numerous refusals, so my fly wasn’t a perfect imitation, but nine fish in two hours was certainly productive fishing. Of the nice fish landed three including the initial rainbow were in the foot long range with the others being 8-11 inches long. It was fun to flick the large green drake upstream and watch fish rush to snatch it from the surface. Unfortunately I needed to call it quits at 1:30PM and there were still mayflies emerging and fish rising.

I pledged to return at the end of the next week, and climbed up the bank and walked to the pullout where I’d agreed to meet Jane. At least the limited time window forced me to focus on my fishing and be as efficient as possible. If everything came easily, fly fishing wouldn’t be the challenge that keeps me coming back.

Brush Creek – 07/14/2012

Time: 10:00AM – 12:00PM, 5:00PM – 7:30PM

Location: Eagle Ranch Rd bridge to Brice’s land, Undercut bank through private water to Eagle Ranch Rd bridge

Fish Landed: 6

Brush Creek 07/14/2012 Photo Album

Dave G. called the landowners of a private stretch of Brush Creek and obtained permission to fish through it on Saturday, so that was part of our gameplan. Dave suggested that we fish Brush Creek from the Eagle Ranch Road bridge upstream to the southern end of the Eagle Ranch property in the morning, and then fish the private water in the evening, and I readily agreed to the plan. After a hearty breakfast with Beth and Jane, Dave and I prepared to fish, and Beth drove us to the bridge where we began fishing. We once again employed the hopscotching method and built cairns to denote where the upstream fisherman entered the water.

I began fishing the water closest to the bridge while Dave changed his flies from the previous outing. I decided to go with my standard starting pair of flies, a yellow Letort hopper with a beadhead hares ear nymph. I didn’t have any luck in the first short run so I moved up to a nice ten foot long pool. On the first cast I witnessed a refusal from a small fish and then on the second cast my trailing nymph snagged on a submerged stick. I waded into the pool to free my fly and disturbed it, so I moved on to the next stretch. This was very attractive water with a long 25 foot pool and the main current flowing along the grassy left bank.

I began casting to the lower part of the pool where it tailed out but didn’t have any luck, so I moved up a bit and was standing at the very bottom of the pool. I shot a few casts up higher in the slack water to the right of the current and again had no reaction. However on perhaps the third cast closer to the edge of the current a huge head appeared which engulfed my fly. I set the hook thinking the fish had taken the hopper, and the fish immediately arched above the water so I could see it was a nice football shaped brown. Next the brown shot to the left and headed for the undercut bank. I continued to apply side pressure and moved it away from the bank. By now Dave G. had come up behind me and was watching the ensuing battle. The brown kept trying to go under the bank, and I kept guiding it back out. After three or four of these episodes, the brown made an upstream run and then quickly stopped. I frantically reeled up line to maintain tension as I worked the fish back toward me, and then the torpedo shot by me and went five feet below. I could see by now that the fly was in the brown trout’s mouth. I pivoted around and worked the tiring fish back above me a bit and guided it up on some exposed midstream rocks and then slid the net underneath. I now noticed that the beadhead hares ear was lodged in the corner of the mouth. Dave G. hypothesized that the brown turned away from the hopper and grabbed the nymph on the downturn. Dave G. graciously snapped a nice photo of me holding my prize trout, and I returned it to Brush Creek to grow and be caught again.

Dave with Catch of the Weekend – 16 Inch Brown

Shortly after this experience I landed a twelve inch brown on the beadhead hares ear in a similar spot along a current seam near the left bank. I’d caught two fish within the first half hour, so I was feeling pretty optimistic about the remainder of the day. Alas, the action slowed considerably. I continued fishing and hopscotching for the next hour or so with no action. Dave G. meanwhile was picking up three or four twelve inch fish. Finally close to noon I hooked and landed a pair of seven inch browns, but then it became dead again. Much of the stream was shaded by cottonwood trees, but there were some long open stretches. The sun was now quite high in the sky and very intense, and I was perspiring as I walked the bank from pool to pool.

Upper Brush Creek at Eagle Ranch

When we reached another bridge, I asked Dave G. if we should quit. He had likewise experienced a long period of inactivity, so he decided to cast to a nice spot above the bridge and then we would adjourn to the house. I pulled out my camera and snapped a few photos of Dave working the stream, and then Dave G. called Beth on his mobile phone. We waited only ten minutes or so on a bench on a small corner park in the shade before Beth arrived and taxied us back to the house.

Intense

Some rain clouds moved in after lunch but we managed to enjoy a nice bike ride between 4 and 5PM. After the bike ride, Dave and I grabbed our rods and walked down the bike path to the stream above the first bridge to the visitor center and near a high cut bank. We began fishing the stretch of water next to a long undercut bank where I’d had great fun in July 2010, but I was unable to pound up any action. I had replaced the yellow Letort hopper with a Chernobyl ant and reattached the beadhead hares ear. Dave waited while I fished this usually productive stretch as he was certain I would need his services for photography. Unfortunately photo opportunities did not materialize and we moved on.

Not far from this starting point I ducked under a barbed wire fence running over the stream, and now we were both fishing the private water. Brush Creek makes numerous bends as it winds through this private land creating nice pools and runs in the process. We continued to leap frog over each other, but we did short stretches, therefore, no longer requiring the cairn building exercies. I spotted several rises so I switched to a bushy caddis and this prompted a smug refusal. Perhaps the fly was too large? I clipped it off and replaced it with a size 16 deer hair caddis with a light gray body. Sure enough when I placed the smaller imitation over the spot of the rise, I hooked and landed a twelve inch brown.

As we moved along, the sky remained overcast and I was certain we’d experience some fast action on the surface. At one point Dave G. wasn’t having much luck with the beadhead hares ear so he asked me what might be a good sufsurface fly to use as a dropper. He had showed me a box with numerous caddis pupa and larva flies on Friday so I suggested he try one of them since there were caddis present. This ended up being a great recommendation and Dave experienced some great action on the caddis pupa dropper including a 17 inch brown. The caddis pupa had a light olive body with a black thorax and white legs protruding from each side behind the head.

Meanwhile I spotted a rise at the very top of a run and close to the bank. I could see the side of the fish and it appeared to be a decent fish. I slowly moved closer and popped a cast a foot or two downstream from the location of the rise and immediately a twelve inch brown inhaled my fly. I quickly played it to my net and released. Was that the fish I observed? Perhaps I overestimated its size, but I decided to shoot another cast higher and above where I’d seen the fish. On the second cast a fish burst through the surface and grabbed my caddis dry. This fish felt heavier than the previous, but not as large as the 16 inch brown of the morning, as it shot downstream along the bank and then made a quick lateral move to go underneath. I held on and in a split second my line came flying back toward me with no flies attached.

The sudden force of turning had caused my surgeon’s knot that attached the tippet to the tapered leader to break. Dave G. had once again come up behind me and witnessed this dose of misfortune. I tied on another deer hair caddis and moved on but had only one more momentary hookup below some large beaver dams before arriving at the bridge where we’d begun our morning fishing. Dave G. continued to have decent success with his caddis pupa, but I was too stubborn to listen to my own advice and stuck with the dry fly under the mistaken assumption that a hatch would materialize.

It was 7:30 when we reached the bridge so we called Beth for another pickup and returned to the house for dinner.

 

East Fork of Brush Creek – 07/13/2012

Time: 1:00:PM – 4:00PM

Location: Sylvan Lake State Park Payment Location Upstream

Fish Landed: 19

East Fork of Brush Creek 07/13/2012 Photo Album

As has been the custom for the last several years, Beth and Dave Gaboury invited us to join them for the weekend at their second home in Eagle, CO. Dave and I were fishing buddies when he lived in Castle Rock, but eventually Dave moved to Kansas City for a position with an engineering firm there. For several years Dave would visit and we’d go on fishing trips, but in 2006 he and Beth purchased a home in Eagle Ranch in Eagle, CO. They visit fairly frequently and invite friends from various parts of the country to stay with them when they don’t have their family present.

Their house in Eagle Ranch is quite close to Brush Creek, a small tributary stream that flows into the Eagle River a mile or so below their house. It’s hard to pass up fishing Brush Creek because of the convenience of walking from the garage to the stream. Because of the drought and heat wave I was skeptical of fishing in the Eagle River and even Brush Creek, and the temperatures were forecast to be in the 90’s in Denver. Dave is a big fan of my beadhead hares ear nymphs, so I tied ten as a gift for him one evening before our scheduled visit. Jane needed to work on Friday, so I called on Thursday to let Dave and Beth know that I was taking off work and driving up from Denver on Friday morning. Jane would drive up separately after work on Friday.

I got off to a reasonably early start at 7:45 and arrived at Eagle Ranch at around 10AM. Unfortunately I called their land line in Kansas City on Thursday and they didn’t check it for messages, so they weren’t aware that I was arriving. When I knocked on the door, no one answered even though their car was parked behind the garage. I assumed they had gone for a bike ride or walk, and this proved to be correct. Within a half hour they both returned from a long morning walk and the three of us walked up to the town center and had a quick lunch at HP’s Market.

East Fork of Brush Creek

After lunch, since it was already approaching noon, Dave and I decided to drive up Sylvan Lake Road to the upper reaches of Brush Creek where we thought the fishing would be better in the peak of the warm day. It wasn’t as hot in Eagle as was expected for Denver and there was significant high cloud cover for much of the afternoon. I drove the Santa Fe so Beth could use her car to do some shopping and we drove the 10-15 miles to Sylvan Lake State Park and paid the day use fee and then parked at a pullout just above where the creek went under the road.

Dave uses his tenkara rod for fishing the small high mountain streams so he was ready to fish quite quickly. We decided to do the routine of leap frogging each other with the upstream fisherman responsible for building a cairn to mark his beginning point. I fished the stretch closest to the road while Dave moved upstream. I began with a size 12 heavily hackled stimulator with an olive body and immediately experienced three or four refusals from tiny brook trout in the tail of the pool. However, as I moved up the stream I picked up a few 6-8 inch brookies as well as some tiny specimen that were below my counting cut off. I added a beadhead pheasant tail in hopes that a trailing nymph might attract some larger fish, and did manage to land an eight inch brown among the first five fish landed.

Size of My Hand

As Dave and I hopscotched our way up the small stream I landed five more brook trout to reach ten. Most of the fish were rising to the stimulator, but a couple grabbed the trailing nymph. When I’d reached ten I decided to begin experimenting with different flies. I clipped off the stimulator and pheasant tail and tied on a Chernobyl ant for flotation and added a beadhead hares ear. The buoyant foam ant does a nice job of supporting the larger hares ear and again I was hoping to attract some larger browns and avoid the tiny brook trout.

Large Brown for These Waters

This strategy did in fact work, and I landed another nine trout over the course of the remainder of the afternoon. Three were brown trout with two being in the 12-13 inch range. I also landed a couple brook trout that were nine inches, and that is large for the colorful species in a small stream environment. Dave G. meanwhile was having great action with his long tenkara rod and a stimulator/flashback pheasant tail combination. By 4PM we’d covered quite a distance as we were hitting only the deeper attractive pools and leap frogging each other. We decided to call it a day and return to the house for liquid refreshments and appetizers while we waited for Jane to arrive from Denver.

Brookie Took Chernobyl

Colorado River – 07/07/2012

Time: 9:00AM – 3:30PM

Location: Kemp-Breeze lease below Parshall and Williams Fork confluence

Fish Landed:3

Colorado River 07/07/2012 Photo Album

Usually in early July I’m checking stream flows and looking for any flowing water that might be at a fishable level. This year, however, I’m just trying to figure things out. Run off never occurred and most every river and stream in Colorado has been at a nice level for fishing throughout May and June and early July. But what of the hatches? Usually the hatches on the freestone streams take place as the rivers drop back to fishable levels. But what about this year? Are they early or will they occur in mid to late July?

I’ve been following several fly shop reports on fishing conditions, but these always tend to overstate the hatches as they are trying to attrack Front Range fishermen to their drainages and shops. As I considered where I wanted to fish on Saturday, I remembered reading on the Blue Quill Angler (usually one of the more reliable sites as the fly shop is not near one single river) that PMD’s were hatching on the Colorado River near Parshall. The weather was expected to be overcast on Saturday with cool temperatures and the flows on the Colorado River were slightly below 400cfs. The combination of all these factors led me to conclude this was the place to be. I had great success on the Colorado River in 2008 and 2009, but 2010 provided me with quite a few disappointing trips. I decided to give the Colorado another chance.

The reports mentioned that the hatches typically took place in the morning, so I got off to a very early start to make sure I was there in case this was true. Of course the report may have been referring to the extremely warm temperatures of the past several weeks and that was the case on Saturday, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I left the house at 6:30AM and reached the parking lot by 8:30AM and was on the river fishing by 9:00. The mosquitos were out, but not as intense as in the past, but I still coated my hands, neck and face with Off.

I walked to the handicapped platform and looked up and down the river. Of course there was a fisherman planted in the very spot that I love to start at above the platform, so I hiked down the fisherman path to the bridge, across the bridge, and then dropped down to fish along the south bank. I tied on a yellow Letort hopper and trailed a beadhead hares ear. I was not going to overanalyze the situation. I methodically worked my way up along the bank fishing ten feet out and then over close to the bank, but the fish were having none of it.

Eventually I approached the small island across from and slightly below the wooden platform and fanned casts over the beautiful deep run across from the dock. As I was doing this, I noticed two rises, one towards the top of the run and one in the middle area. After I’d covered the area with my hopper/dropper with no success, I clipped off the two flies and replaced with a light gray caddis size 16. Amazingly on a downstream drift towards the middle of the run, a fish rose but refused my caddis. It seemed like a larger fish judging from the sound it made. That was it, however, as I couldn’t entice any more interest from that fish or any others in the vicinity of the island and handicapped platform.

After quite a bit of casting I switched to nymphs and tied on a beadhead hares ear and below that a beadhead pheasant tail, which imitates the nymph of a pale morning dun. I focused hard on running my nymphs through the deep run, but no takes. I switched out the flies and tried a beadhead caddis of varying colors as well as a zebra midge larva. Finally I gave up on the run and my nemesis fisherman had by now moved across the river to the south bank and then up toward the top right side of the nice run through the center of the river.

It was eleven AM and I was bored with the lack of action so I decided to head back to the car and eat my lunch early in case a hatch emerged around noon. This would also give the other fisherman some time to clear out if he was headed up the river. I ate in the car to avoid the mosquitos, and it got quite warm as I didn’t want to open windows for fear of getting inundated with stinging insects. After lunch I headed straight to the spot where I’d planned to begin in the morning, and it was wide open with no competition.

I gave up on nymphing and returned to the Letort hopper with a beadhead pheasant tail. In the nice riffle water of moderate depth above the platform I finally landed a nine inch brown on the beadhead pheasant tail. Perhaps this was a sign that fish were moving to the nymphs in the drift prior to a hatch. I worked my way across the river casting the hopper/dropper upstream, but to no avail. Next I was sure I could coax some action from the attractive water between the middle current and the bank on the right side. I worked up along the bank but to no avail. I didn’t even see any rises, but as I got to the very top of the slow water I hooked and landed a pair of tiny brown trout that weren’t worth counting.

Colorado River at Parshall

I was pretty frustrated and tired as I retreated along the south bank and crossed back to my starting point. At least I’d seen a few sporadic rises in this area. I removed the hopper and tied on a Chernobyl ant for buoyancy and added the beadhead hares ear and beadhead pheasant tail. Surely this three fly combination would draw the interest of some fish. I worked the closer current seam below a submerged rock and then waded out a bit and cast to the next seam across from me. As the large foam attractor drifted to the tail, I began to lift and recast. Unfortunately as I did so a large mouth emerged and chomped down on the Chernobyl. There really wasn’t much I could have done. The force of me lifting vs the chomping of what seemed like a decent fish resulted in a break off. I lost the best opportunity for a decent fish along with three decent flies.

This re-energized my efforts and I worked my way across and then up along the left side of the mid-stream current, but again I was simply wearing out my shoulder with no reward for my efforts. Finally near the top of this stretch, I hooked and landed a six inch brown barely worth counting, but I did. I decided to reverse direction and cast repeatedly to the edge of the main current seam as I waded back down to my initial starting point. The sky was still cloudy and I spotted occasional PMD’s and more yellow sallies, but nothing was coming to the surface in response to these aquatic insects.

I decided to sit down on a log and observe and take stock. I almost dozed off, but I did notice quite a few yellow sallies. They tended to make fast vertical plunges to the surface of the water and then flutter a bit and then take off. I assume this was egg laying. At the same time I noticed the sporadic steady flight of mayflies which I assumed were PMD’s. The PMD hatch was extremely sparse, but perhaps the fish had long memories and  tuned in to the mayflies. Finally I saw a fish rise across from my log and decided to resume fishing. I tied on a size 14 yellow sally and tossed it to the smooth area between two submerged rocks. On the second or third cast a fish darted to the surface and sucked down my yellow sally. My third fish of the day was another nine inch brown.

One of Three Small Brown Trout Landed

I sat back down on the log and looked for more such rises, but they didn’t materialize and even the sparse hatching activity of the PMD’s and yellow sallies subsided. There were some large dark clouds to the south and the rumbling of thunder, so I decided to head back to the car and call it quits. All in all it was a very disappointing day in early July. Was I too early for the hatches or did they already occur? I’ll have to keep searching for answers on the streams of Colorado.

 

Big Thompson River – 07/04/2012

Time: 1:30PM – 3:00PM

Location: Downstream from catch and release area just above town of Drake

Fish Landed: 1

I continued north from Wild Basin to Estes Park and traveled along the Big Thompson River downstream from Lake Estes. There weren’t many fishermen for a holiday so I probably should have taken that as a sign. Flows looked pretty decent from the highway and when I checked them later they were around 130. For some reason I decided to skip beyond the catch and release water and drove on until I was near the town of Drake. I remembered a time last year when the catch and release was crowded and I went below and had some great action, but this was much further downstream than the previous experience.

Very Red

As it turns out the gradient was pretty steep where I began fishing and combined with the somewhat higher flows, there were limited holding spots for the fish. Unlike the St. Vrain, the Big Thompson has very little foliage and trees to shade the water so I was standing in direct sun the entire time and temperatures were definitely in the 80’s. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the fish apparently weren’t very hungry. I tested all manner of flies and approaches including a royal stimulator, lime green trude, yellow Letort hopper with beadhead hares ear, Chernobyl ant and a pair of nymphs with a split shot and indicator. Finally near 3 o’clock I tied on a size 12 olive caddis or stimulator and managed to bring a small brown to my fly. I fished a bit further but as I advanced upstream the gradient increased and I was climbing over a lot of rocks to find small holding areas. I was hot and tired, the fishing wasn’t very good, and I needed to be back in time for dinner before going to the Rapids game so I threw in the towel at 3PM.

 

 

 

 

North Fork of St. Vrain River – 07/04/2012

Time: 9:30AM – 12:30Am

Location: Wild Basin in RMNP from first bridge upstream

Fish Landed: 9

North Fork of St. Vrain River 07/04/2012 Photo Album

Jane OK’d fishing on the Fourth of July, but I needed to return in time to attend the Rapids MLS soccer game at 7:30PM and the subsequent fireworks display at Dick’s Sporting Goods Stadium. I was interested in trying the Colorado River as reports indicated that pale morning duns were hatching, but that was a bit distant given the plans for the evening. I decided to try the North Fork of the St. Vrain in the Wild Basin section of Rocky Mountain National Park.

For some reason Jane got up extremely early so I was up shortly thereafter and consequently was on the road by 7:30. I took the route through Boulder and experienced minimal traffic thus arriving at the Wild Basin entrance by 9AM. Even at this early hour the parking lots at the main trailhead and the Ouzel Falls trailhead had already filled. This was fine with me as I planned to fish starting at the fist bridge above the beaver ponds.

I rigged up my Orvis Access rod and walked down the dirt road .2 miles to the bridge. There was a man and woman fishing below the bridge so I made a right turn and hiked up the path a ways to the first water that might hold fish. It was already getting warm, but the cold sensation of the rushing high mountain river felt good through my waders. I tied on a Chernobyl ant with a salvation nymph dropper initially, but this produced only refusals from tiny brook trout. I clipped off both flies and tied on a royal stimulator, and this elicited the same response. Next I tried a small size 14 lime green trude and this also resulted in splashy inspections but no takes.

Pretty Purple Wildflowers Along NF St. Vrain

I was getting frustrated as I tried a yellow sally and deer hair caddis with no better luck. Maybe they wanted something bigger, not smaller? I plucked a size 12 2XL lime green trude from my pouch and sure enough this began to produce fish, but only sporadically. Maybe the water was still too cold with no significant hatches so the fish were still tuned into nymphs in the drift? But what should I use to support my beadhead nymphs? I spotted the large olive stimulator that I tried for a while on the Conejos to imitate the local stoneflies. I tied on the stimulator with a beadhead hares ear dropper and guess what happened? The fish began to smash the large attractor. In fact they weren’t paying the slightest attention to the nymphs so after landing a couple fish I clipped off the extra leader and the nymph.

Another Decent Brown

For the remainder of the morning and up until 12:30 I prospected the likely pockets with the olive stimulator and landed a total of nine fish. Three were browns and these were the largest fish, although perhaps only ten inches at the largest. The remainder were brook trout with three being decent by brook trout standards. I also landed somewhere between 5-10 brookies beneath my six inch cut off for counting.

Brook Trout with Large Caddis in Mouth

By 12:30PM I grew weary of the tough wading and the lack of size of the fish. I was distracted by thoughts of lunch and larger fish, so I packed it in and drove north through Estes Park to the Big Thompson River below Estes Dam.