Time: 10:30AM – 3:00PM

Location: Upstream and downstream from campground

Fish Landed: 1

Upper Taylor River 08/07/2011 Photo Album

The water near the campground looked just as attractive as the water I’d driven to on Saturday, so I decided to fish from camp. Jane and I had tasty oatmeal for breakfast, and after cleaning up, I headed upstream beyond the edge of the campground. I began fishing with a Chernobyl ant, but received numerous refusals. Next I elected to tie on a size 12 lime green trude. This brought a look or two, but no fish. The third fly was a royal stimulator, but again no interest. The last fly I tried before reverting to the tried and true Letort hopper was a size 16 olive body deer hair caddis which brought no action.

Typical Taylor Park Scene

I finally buckled to common sense and tied on the yellow Letort hopper. I added a BHPT and began catching some fish, but I was covering a lot more water between catches than had been the case on Saturday. By noon I’d landed three browns, two were around 12 inches and that seemed to be the upper end for this water. One nice brown grabbed the BHPT, and the other two hammered the hopper. Just before exiting for lunch I noticed another fisherman had driven back a rough dirt lane from the main road and was fishing above me. This cut me off from further progress, so I elected to return for lunch and then walk downstream for my afternoon fishing.

When I returned to camp, Jane had taken down the tent and was reading. I made a quick lunch while the food was still out, and then walked down the lane to fish downstream. I ran into the campground host who told me the folks that reserved 13 were early and waiting in site 10 for us to leave. When I said my wife was still there and planned to be out by 1PM, he said that is fine as check out time is 1PM. I later learned that Jane drove to another unoccupied shady campsite to read and wait for me to finish fishing.

I walked down the dirt ATV lane and crossed a pedestrian bridge to the other side and then continued downstream another 100 yards are so. I entered the water and fished hard for the next 2.5 hours back upstream until I ended at 3PM and saw Jane waiting by the car. There was a flurry of action from 1-2 when I caught five fish, a couple of which were in the twelve inch range. But after 2PM things slowed considerably as it was quite warm with sunny blue skies and I covered quite a bit of river and netted three more browns to bring my total to 11. I observed a fair number of caddis, but only one or two rises over the course of the day. I added a beadhead RS2 in the last hour and caught one or two on the small gray fly. I noticed a handful of small BWO –like mayflies, and that is what prompted me to try the RS2.

Near Beginning of Sunday Fishing

Time: 12:30PM – 3:00PM

Location: Downstream from Dinner Station Campground

Fish Landed: 12

Upper Taylor River 08/06/2011 Photo Album

With most of the stream flows closer to Denver still running high in early August, I had my eye on the Taylor River. We made plans to go to a Rapids soccer match on Friday night so we decided to gamble we could find a campsite on Saturday, always an iffy proposition.

Marmot Strikes Nice Pose

We got up nice and early and packed everything in the Santa Fe in record time and departed at 8:05AM. The drive to Taylor Park was 3.5 hours and we arrived at the campground near the bottom of Cottonwood Pass at 11:30. On the western side of Cottonwood Pass we spotted a marmot and two moose. When we arrived at Dinner Station campground we immediately noticed the campground host and asked him if there were any open sites. He told us 13 was open for one night, so we found it along the river with a few decent shade trees and laid claim. It was great to find a nice campsite at 11:30 on Saturday morning on the first weekend in August.

Our Campsite at Dinner Station

Moose Crossing

We unpacked the food bins and had some lunch, and I wanted to get some fishing in before it got too hot, so Jane accompanied me as we drove back down the dirt road a mile or so and parked in a makeshift lot. There was a tractor with a camper trailer already there, but they never bothered us. Jane took her chair and Kindle and set up along the river while I commenced fishing. I tied on a yellow Letort hopper and fished it without a dropper initially. I covered some attractive water and didn’t have any action, so I added a beadhead pheasant tail dropper. The combination began to produce and I landed 12 fish before 3PM when I quit for the day. Roughly half the fish took the BHPT and the other half rose to the hopper.

One of the Nicer Browns on Upper Taylor River

Jane on Her Chair Overlooking the Taylor River

I actually landed over 20 fish but many were too small to count. At three I walked back to the car as Jane was carrying her chair back. We returned to the campsite and set up the tent and had some beverages and hors d’oevres and eventually ate a Mediterranean dinner of pita bread, falafels, chopped onions, tomatoes, lettuce and a yogurt based sauce. Before dinner Jane got the idea that if I caught a couple trout, we could grill them and add them to the pita. I put on my waders and fished in the river near our campsite for an hour or so and had two hookups, but didn’t land any fish. There were quite a few caddis bouncing around, but my caddis imitations drew no interest. Eventually I went to a pair of caddis pupa with a strike indicator, and I managed one hookup on this combination, but did not land a fish. When I needed fish the most, I couldn’t deliver.

Time: 10:00AM – 5:30PM
Location: Texas Creek from intersection with dirt road upstream; Upper Taylor River north of bluff and south of a dirt bike bridge; Taylor River from Five Mile Bridge upstream
Fish Landed: 14 trout

Upper Taylor River 08/07/2010 Photo Album

Hog Trough on Saturday Morning

With an additional day to fish now that I was sure Jane would not make the trip, I decided to explore. I was intrigued by Texas Creek after reading a brochure covering tributaries to the Taylor ten years ago. The fly shop recommended the Upper Taylor, so that was another interesting choice beyond Texas Creek. I set out nice and early Saturday morning and stopped at the Hog Trough, the public stretch of the Taylor below the dam, and snapped some photos. I then stopped by the marina and took a photo of the lake and gorgeous backdrop and called Jane from one of the few locations within the cell phone network.

Downside of Hog Trough

Taylor Reservoir

Next I crossed Texas Creek as I made my way around the lake. It appeared to be a decent volume of water, so I turned on to Texas Creek road. The two miles on the rough dirt road turned out to be quite a challenge in the old Sienna, but I made it to the intersection with the creek without incident. I geared up and grabbed my rod and started working my way up the creek. Texas Creek was largely wide and shallow with very few fish holding spots. In addition there were maverick campsites all along the way and a small army of dirt bikes and ATV’s in the area. I can only imagine ATV fishermen tossing bait into the few fish holding spots and then stringers of small trout feeding the nearby campers.

Texas Creek

After an hour of mostly wading and walking, I decided to abandon Texas Creek and head to option two, the Upper Taylor River. I carefully maneuvered the rough dirt road back to the dirt road the skirts the lake and drove beyond the inlet two or three miles. At the first rough spur that wasn’t occupied by campers, I turned in and parked and retrieved my lunch. By the time I was ready to fish it was around noon and the sky had become quite gray with bigger clouds forming in the west. I decided to hike south a ways in the sagebrush then cut over through the willows to the river.

Endless Sagebrush Next to Upper Taylor

When I reached the stream it was beautiful with many rocks and tumbling pockets and runs and ice cold clear water. I had the yellow Letort hopper as my top fly and a beadhead hares ear nymph as a dropper. I began casting to the deep runs and pockets and almost instantly began hooking fish. This was almost too good to be true. The next hour provided red hot fishing as I hooked and landed 10 brown trout, and these were not all small fish. Several browns were in the 12-13 inch range and one very memorable fish stretched the length of my net. This upper Taylor bruiser rose up and hammered the hopper with confidence in a deep cold slot between two strong currents. Of the ten landed in the first hour, half smashed the hopper and the other half grabbed the nymph.

Typical Stretch of Upper Taylor River

Largest Fish of Trip

After the first hour; however, the action slowed considerably. I don’t know if this reflected the time of day or heavier fishing pressure. I ran into another fisherman after an hour and worked around him and noticed the path on the bank was more worn from heavier use. I’m guessing heavier fishing pressure is the answer as the sky remained cloudy and in fact I had to put on my rain jacket due to a slight shower and chilly temperatures. Unfortunately I expected a hatch of some sort, but only saw a handful of small BWO’s and perhaps two PMD’s and no surface feeding.

Colorful Wildflowers

I fished on upstream covering a lot of water with many prospecting casts and picked up another three browns. Eventually I reached a single lane dirt bike or pedestrian bridge. Below the bridge was a beautiful long pool. I was skeptical that this would yield any fish as its accessibility probably meant heavy pressure. I had switched out the hares ear for an emerald caddis pupa and added a beadhead pheasant tail as a third option at the point. I half heartedly tossed the three fly combo into the pool on the far side of a current seam and as it started to swing at the end of the long drift, a trout grabbed the BHPT. I landed a nice 12 inch brown. Next I noticed a subtle rise across and downstream from my position. I swung the three flies near the sighting, but received no response. I clipped off the three flies and tied on a CDC BWO and put some nice drifts over the spot of the rise. I still had no response. Finally I removed the CDC BWO and tied on a light gray comparadun. This also didn’t solve the riddle, so I departed and hiked back on the dirt bike trail to the car.

With the skies very dark and threatening, could BWO’s be emerging on the Taylor River tailwater? I decided to drive back down the valley to the Five Mile Bridge where Jeff Shafer and I had fished and check out the water below the bridge. I arrived around 4:30PM, but the weather here differed greatly from the upper Taylor. Skies were mostly blue and the sun was out. I sat on a rock by the river and observed. Nothing was showing, so I decided to prospect the nice deep run below the bridge with the light gray comparadun. This didn’t prompt any action, and I didn’t see any surface activity, so I recalled the words of the fly shop, “Go deep with small nymphs”.

I sat down on the rock again and added a strike indicator and split shot and beadhead pheasant tail and beadhead RS2. I worked the deep slot between some large submerged rocks below the bridge with the nymphs and hooked up momentarily on a single fish.

Saturday Evening Campfire

I moved above the bridge and worked my way up along the right bank with the nymphs to a point across from the boat launch. At 5:30 I was tired and not having any success, so I decided to call it quits for the day and head to the Three Rivers Restaurant in Almont for a BBQ dinner.

Time: 3:00PM – 6:00PM
Location: Beyond meadow/willow stretch perhaps 5 miles from Taylor River
Fish Landed: 14 trout

Spring Creek 08/06/2010 Photo Album

The fly shop had informed me that the river was dead from 3-6PM, and it didn’t look like any significant cloud cover was going to materialize on Friday afternoon. I was aching for some larger fish, but more importantly I was anxious for more consistent action. I drove slowly along the dirt road that borders Spring Creek after turning away from the Taylor River at Hamel Resort. The fly shop salesman had mentioned a meadow stretch where the stream meanders and contains numerous undercut banks.

Approximately five miles up the dirt road I encountered the area the salesman described. There were several fishermen and cars parked at the southern border to this area so I drove on to the northern edge. I found a small pullout and parked and scrambled down the bank to the stream where I ate my lunch. The stream was shallow here, but I could see a nice deep hole along a high bank below me. After finishing my lunch, I waded across a shallow stretch and circled down below the deep hole. I still had the Chernobyl and BHHE attached to my line, and on one of my casts tight to a log that ran parallel to the high bank, experienced a momentary hook up on the BHHE.

Spring Creek

Because there were fishermen downstream I moved upstream and as I progressed the stream grew narrower and more resembled a Colorado headwater stream. Also the sky clouded up somewhat as the sun popped in and out of cloud cover. I was getting refusals to the Chernobyl, so I switched to a yellow Letort hopper but kept the BHHE. This combination worked well, and I got in a nice groove over the next three hours, dead time on the Taylor, and landed 14 browns. I’d guess the flies yielded equally resulting in a 50/50 mix of hopper vs. BHHE.

Productive on Spring Creek and Upper Taylor

Typical Spring Creek Brown

The fish were mostly in the 7-9 inch range, but it felt good to have some success and catch fish from spots where one expected to find fish. Much of the fishing was casting a short line directly upstream with only of couple feet of fly line beyond the tip of the rod, and then holding the rod high as the flies drifted back through small pockets and slots behind boulders.

Time: 10:00AM – 2:00PM

Location: Between Almont and Five Mile Bridge just above private homes

Fish Landed: 7 brown trout

Taylor River 08/06/2010 Photo Album

On Friday I planned to test the waters further down the canyon near Almont. The valley down low widens a bit and consequently the river has wide areas that might allow a crossing. I was down river three or four miles from the location Jeff Shafer and I fished during August 2009. I parked in a pullout just before a fenced off private area with several residences. I made sure I was out of the circle used by cars pulling trailers for picking up rafts. I geared up and entered the water just below a small island and fished the nice deep run between the island and the bank by the road. I began with the double I still had on from the previous evening, but this wasn’t drawing any attention, so pretty quickly went back to the Chernobyl ant and trailing BHHE.

Hindrances to Fishing

I crossed the river next to the island and began methodically prospecting all the likely holding locations along the north bank. As I did this, quite a bit of river traffic cruised by…rafts, duckies, and a canoe. For the most part, they were in the center of the river, and I was tight to the bank, so I don’t think there was much impact. I began catching small browns on the BHHE on a fairly regular basis, but I was covering a lot of water and making many casts. At one point in a nice deep area of slower moving water between a deep run and the bank, I spotted a nice size fish emerge from the depths and sip the Chernobyl. I set the hook and felt the weight of decent fish. The hook set turned the brown so I could see it, and it was quite long, perhaps near the 20 inch range. But the hook set only held for a second or two, and the fish was off. Needless to say, after a day and a half of catching small browns, I was quite disappointed to lose this beauty.

More Traffic

At a location not too far from the close encounter with a monster, I spotted some monofilament line dangling from a tree limb. I reached over and discovered a small mouse fly attached to the line. As I unwound the line to recover the mouse fly, much to my surprise I discovered a second huge articulated streamer made from soft marabou fiber. I clipped off both flies and stuffed them in one of my boxes. The owner of these flies wasn’t messing around, fishing two flies that were bigger than most of the fish I was catching in a tandem rig!

One of Two Flies Found on a Branch on Taylor

Second Fly - A Mouse

I continued working my way upstream in this manner eventually landing seven small brown trout. I landed quite a few dinkers too small to count as well. At 2PM I needed to make a decision. I could continue fishing the north bank the remainder of the afternoon and hope that some clouds rolled in to create some insect activity. Or I could retreat back to the car and explore Spring Creek. I chose the second option.

Wild Huckleberries?

When I returned to the parking lot, a fisherman was casting to the run where I’d begun. A woman was sitting in a folding chair in the parking lot next to a car reading a book. This was the fisherman’s wife, and she was reading and waiting for him. They were from Kansas, and she informed me that her husband had not done well on this trip so far. In fact, she told me he failed to catch fish on Spring Creek. With this revelation, I headed to Spring Creek. 

Time: 1:30PM – 5:00PM
Location: Upstream from Lodgepole then upstream from boat launch
Fish Landed: 9 brown trout

Taylor River 08/05/2010 Photo Album

Jane and I planned a camping trip to the Taylor River area for the first weekend in August. I expected to make the four hour drive on Thursday morning and snag a campsite at one of the many campgrounds along the Taylor before the weekend crowds arrived. Jane would leave work early on Friday and join me Friday evening. It never worked out that way. Jane needed to stay in Denver in case something came up on the new home purchase as we were trying to close on Monday.

I got off to an early start with the car packed and on the road by 8AM. The first campground is Lottis Creek, and I made a loop through the first area, and noticed more than half of the sites were open and available. I really preferred the Lodgepole Campground, so I decided to cruise down the road another three miles to see if anything was available there. I noticed one nice campsite among the lodgepole pines with an open placard, so decided to snag this one. I unloaded the containers and cooler and put a tablecloth on the picnic table. I started assembling the tent and was staking out the rain fly when the campground host arrived. She chatted with me a bit about the heavy rain received recently, but when I asked her if I paid her, she looked puzzled. She assumed I’d reserved the site and she was putting out reserved placards. Bottom line was I needed to move because the site had been reserved.

I was pretty furious and started pulling out the stakes from the tent and loading the containers back in the car. The campground host was apologetic and eventually offered me some free firewood. I decided to return to Lottis Creek and snag one of the sites I’d seen there. I put up my tent for the second time and ate my lunch. I’d lost around an hour of fishing time due to the campsite snafu. Finally I drove down the highway and stopped at a pullout approximately .5 miles upstream from the parking lot across from Lodgepole.

Tent Set up Second Time

I tied on a Chernobyl ant and trailed a beadhead hares ear. This produced on the St. Vrain, so why not here? The river was still on the high side and didn’t offer any decent places to cross and fish the north bank, so I made do with backhand casts on the bank next to the road. I worked my way upstream quite a ways and land five small brown trout on the BHHE. It was a pretty warm day with bright blue skies. I was doing a lot of casting for a few small fish, so decided to move downstream and try another location.

Taylor River on Thursday

As I drove along the river, I came to a boat launch parking area just beyond a private stretch of river. I decided to give this a chance as I could go upstream from the launch and avoid rafts. I caught two more small browns using the same flies, but it was quite slow. At around five o’clock, I called it a day and decided to drive to Almont and visit the fly shop there and buy some floatant. When I entered the young salesman showed me the floatant options, and then I began peppering him with questions about the river. While doing this, two more young gentlemen arrived that worked for the store, and they chimed in. They said the fishing was very slow from 3-6, and you had to go deep with small nymphs. They suggested trying the evening using a golden stonefly imitation on top and a caddis on the bottom and holding the fly line off the water and give the flies a dancing action.

I asked about some of the smaller tributaries, and they suggested Spring Creek and the Upper Taylor as the best alternatives to the big river. The white board showed BWO’s, and they told me there were decent BWO hatches on very cloudy overcast days.

Thursday evening after dinner and clean up, I drove to a stretch of open water just below the Lottis Creek campground where there are many deep pockets around large boulders. I tied on a yellow Letort hopper to imitate the golden stonefly and added an olive body deer hair caddis. I began casting the double and keeping my line off the water as suggested. I began around 8PM and ended at 8:45 when it was so dark I couldn’t see my fly. Amazingly it worked. I landed two twelve inch browns and had three or four other hits that I didn’t land. Eventually at the end of the evening I checked my caddis fly, and the hook point was bent excessively back toward the shank which may explain the failure to land quite a few trout.