Time: 2:15PM – 4:30PM

Location: Ponds near Copper Mountain

Curtain Ponds 06/16/2026 Photo Album

As luck would have it, I would pass the Curtain Ponds on my return drive to Denver. I fished there numerous times with decent success, albeit small brook trout, but I was in need of a confidence boost, so I stopped there.

Near the Beginning

My rod was rigged with the slumpbuster and black leech, so I made a few casts with the double streamer in one of the ponds, but I was concerned that the flies would sink and snag in the aquatic growth, since the ponds are fairly shallow at many locations. I removed the streamers and moved to a double dry with a peacock hippie stomper in the first position and a size 14 stimulator trailing.

Riffled Surface

Once again the wind was gusting with abandon, and I had to position myself to avoid casting into the wind. The hippie stomper and stimulator enticed a wave of refusals, so I downsized the stimulator to a size 16 deer hair caddis. Once again refusals ruled, but I did manage to end the skunk and pulled three colorful brook trout of eight inches into my net. They all crushed the hippie stomper, and I was bewildered with why a few fish ate it, and the majority rejected it.

Lovely Colors

I speculated that perhaps a midge larva dangled below the hippie stomper might be effective with the constant wave action, so I replaced the deer hair caddis with a size 22 olive zebra midge. The olive midge never produced, but as I mentioned the hippie stomper yielded some positive results, allowing the fish count to reach three.

Along the Bank

I stood on the bank and pondered the situation. As I stood there, blue damsel flies fluttered about in great numbers. It seemed kind of early for damsels to hatch at the high elevation, but the evidence said that it already happened. I scanned the reeds along the pond for olive colored nymphs, but I never saw any. Nevertheless, I replaced the olive zebra with an olive balanced leech with no bead. This fly can also imitate a damsel nymph.

Spectacular Scene

I turned my attention to the next door pond, and suddenly I began to generate results. Over the remainder of the afternoon I landed an additional twelve brook trout to up my total to fifteen on the day. It was a much appreciated salvage job. For some reason the fish in the next pond were far more responsive to the hippie stomper than the first pond that I fished.

Easily Best of the Day

It seemed that a fish quickly reacted to my cast or the flies failed to attract attention. I adopted the approach of recasting in a fan from my position and ceased waiting and counting down and stripping. Two of the landed brook trout nabbed the trailing damsel nymph. I would have thought that they responded to movement via a slow hand twist retrieve, but that was not the case. They attacked the damsel, as soon as it entered the water. All the other brook trout hammered the hippie stomper, and of course refusals remained an issue, although the ratio of landed fish to refusals improved measurably.

Rich with Vegetation

Fifteen fish in a bit more than two hours of fishing is respectable. The wind remained a significant nuisance, and the fish were small with most being in the eight to nine inch range. I did land a gorgeous and colorful eleven inch brookie near the end, and that was very rewarding.

Fish Landed: 15