Time: 10:00AM – 4:00PM

Location: Downstream end of Eagle lease; Horn Ranch open space above the route 6 bridge.

Fish Landed: 7

Eagle River 07/10/2015 Photo Album

All a fisherman seeks is opportunity. On Friday July 10 I would have numerous opportunities on the Eagle River.

The sun was bright and the sky was a deep blue as Dave G. and I departed from the Gaboury house in Eagle Ranch at 9AM on Friday morning. Despite the sunny sky, the air temperature was cool and in the sixties, although the warming effect of the sun would quickly have an impact. We decided to investigate the Eagle lease above Eagle, CO first before moving farther upstream. The section of water we were interested in fishing was quite turbid on Thursday as a result of the day of rain of Wednesday, but we were hopeful that the lack of precipitation on Thursday allowed sufficient clearing to enable edge fishing.

When we crossed the river at the first bridge after the circle at Eagle, we stopped and checked the water clarity. The river remained a milky olive color and flowed at 1,000 cfs, but we banked on enough edge visibility for the fish to see our flies. We both agreed that it was sufficiently clear to allow a trial run, so we continued on to the western most access point to the Eagle lease. Dave G. called Todd to inform him of our decision, and within ten minutes we were all geared up and prepared to fish. We each used the metal ladder to climb over the barbed wire fence and then crossed the meadow until we reached the river at its western most edge. Dave G. elected to fish the bottom of a nice side pocket that began as a narrow deep run and then fanned out into a small pool.

I meanwhile moved to the deep narrow top section and began with a Charlie boy hopper, beadhead hares ear, and salvation nymph. Dave G. hooked up very quickly, and then I saw a pause in the hopper and set the hook and found myself attached to a spunky streaking thirteen inch rainbow trout. I skillfully played the energetic fish to my net and snapped a quick photo before I released it back into the olive stained river. Next I dropped some casts into the small pocket above the triangle pool, and once again I was pleased to see a dip in the hopper. I reacted with a solid hook set and battled a second mirror image thirteen inch rainbow to my net. The cloudy state of the water did not seem to be affecting our fishing success, so I was quite optimistic about our prospects on the Eagle lease.

The three of us worked our way up along the left bank of the river over the remainder of the morning. Unfortunately the good fortune of my first thirty minutes did not repeat over the remaining 1.5 hours. I did manage three solid opportunities; there is that word again, but I was unable to convert any of them. The first missed chance came when I cast my flies to the mid-section of a long narrow deep channel next to the willows. As the Charlie boy drifted back toward, me a huge pink sided mouth appeared, so I set the hook. The owner of the large mouth reacted immediately and bolted to the heavy nearby white water. All I could do was allow the fish to streak down the river. I attempted to follow it for a couple steps, but the round slippery Eagle River boulders made this quite a challenge. After ripping out line at an alarming rate, the fish accelerated even more and snapped off my two subsurface flies. I surmise that the rise was actually a refusal, and my hook set resulted in a large angry foul hooked rainbow trout.

The other two opportunities of the morning were matching experiences. In both cases the hopper paused during the drift, and this caused me to react with a hook set. The fish on the other end of the line demonstrated some aerial acrobatic skills, and I maintained tension and fought the fish for a couple minutes when somehow the rainbows managed to slide free of the hook. Both fish were probably in the thirteen to fourteen inch range, and both amounted to lost opportunities. Adding insult to the situations, in both cases the pent up energy of the arced rod released when the fish escaped resulting in a massive snarl of my tippet and three flies with the expected curse words in response.

As noon approached I realized that I had fished the prime edge water that yielded quite a few nice fish in 2014, and I could see Todd and Dave G. wading along the edge of the river 100 yards ahead. In addition some dark clouds were rapidly rolling toward me from the southwest and the wind kicked up to the sound of thunder claps. I decided to hustle and skipped the remaining water which my fellow fishermen waded through. Just as I came within twenty yards of the retreating Todd and Dave G., some waves of rain blew sideways and instantly soaked the back of my arms. I quickly caught up and turned up a path and followed the other two fishermen to the car, where we quickly shed our gear and took our seats sheltered from the brief rain shower.

We used the brief period of rain to drive upriver to a new spot called Horn Ranch. Apparently the Eagle County conservation fund along with some other grants secured a nice stretch of land between the route 6 bridge downstream from Milk Creek and the I70 bridge crossing. This was new water to us, so we parked in the dirt lot before a railroad crossing and finished our lunches and then progressed through some tall weeds to the edge of the river. Just as we left our cars, the rain subsided, and the sun reappeared, and it became quite warm and muggy. The water in this area was still below Milk Creek and therefore the clarity remained compromised.

Dave G., Todd and I spread out along the left, north bank and worked our way upstream between 1 and 2:30PM. Early on in this period I hooked a fourteen inch rainbow on the ultra zug bug. I was still fishing with the dry/dropper combination of the Charlie boy hopper, beadhead hares ear, and ultra zug bug. The rainbow was a tough foe and put up quite a bit of resistance before I brought it to my net.

The Horn Ranch section in this lower area was actually not my type of water, as it was a large wide smooth deep pool with few current breaks to signal likely fish holding locations. Because of the lack of visible structure, I began to doubt the efficiency of casting a dry/dropper and, therefore, after a lull in action following the rainbow landing, I converted to a nymphing set up. This consisted of an indicator, split shot, beadhead hares ear and bright green caddis pupa. I noticed a handful of surface rises to caddis while fishing the dry/dropper and actually debated employing a single caddis dry, so the caddis pupa was an attempt to take the middle ground.

After finally setting up my nymph rig, I made a cast to a deep trough just below a subtle current seam and immediately snagged bottom. I waded as close as I could, but I realized the snag point was too deep and too fast to risk further rescue efforts, so I snapped off my entire system. The only thing that remained was the strike indicator and tapered leader. This unfortunate incident resulted in quite a bit of wasted time extending the leader, crimping split shot and knotting on new flies. Eventually I resumed fishing, but I quickly grew bored with the uninteresting water and lack of action, so Dave G. and I found a path and met Todd and returned to the parking lot.

Dave G. suggested that we move upstream to the spot where an old concrete bridge spanned the river, so Todd and I agreed with his suggestion. We all walked out to the middle of the bridge and surveyed the new water. As I gazed downstream I salivated over the edge water along the east bank (road side), so I chose that as my territory for the remainder of the afternoon. Todd and Dave G. meanwhile liked the look of the west bank, as Milk Creek entered and created some side channels and structure.

I walked down the shoulder of route 6 until I was above a large drainage pipe, and then I carefully descended a steep bank to the river. A guide and client were below me on the same side of the river, but the intervening distance was at least 100 yards. The water ahead of me was much more to my liking with numerous large rocks forming current breaks and large side pockets and runs where the river either fed against the bank or reflected back toward the middle.

I prospected with the nymphs that remained on my line from the western end of Horn Ranch, but it was not long before I began to observe quite a few caddis dapping on the surface. The trout also seemed to become keenly aware of this new food source, and sporadic rises dimpled the surface upstream and across from my position. I quickly removed the nymph paraphernalia, and tied a size 16 deer hair caddis to my line. This paid quick dividends as I picked up a feisty and plump rainbow, but then I hooked a nice fish in the tail. This fish streaked downstream, and it took quite a while to tire it to the point that I could hydroplane it upstream across the surface to my net for a gentle release.

Once I was back in action, refusals became the standard, so I clipped off the gray caddis and replaced it with an olive brown version. Again this satisfied the trout for a bit as I hooked and landed a twelve inch brown and then a thirteen inch rainbow. Just when I felt I had the puzzle solved, I moved up along the bank a bit to fish to some steady risers, and the olive brown deer hair caddis fell out of favor. What did I have left in my bag of tricks? I scanned my velcro Simms fly box and spotted a muggly caddis. Charlie Craven designed this fly to look raggedy from the start, so I decided to give it a try. The fly has snowshoe rabbit foot hair as an underwing to aid buoyancy, but no hackle, and thus rides deep in the surface film.

The muggly proved to be a smart choice, and I landed another very solid chunky rainbow in the fourteen inch range. All the rainbows were robust fighters that made electric runs and performed aerial maneuvers in their attempts to escape. I attributed their energy to the fact that the river had just subsided to fishable levels, and therefore the fish had not yet been caught and released in the 2015 season. I also blame my high percentage of lost fish to the early season spunky nature of the fish.

I released fish number seven and looked upstream and once again observed some gulping rises just below an exposed rock where the current curled around it and toward the bank. I lofted a fairly long cast to this area and allowed the muggly to flutter down to the nook of the tiny eddy. Dave G. and Todd had just appeared on the concrete bridge above me, but I kept my focus on the recently delivered fly. Wham! A nice fish smashed the muggly caddis and the fight was on. Clearly this fish was hooked in the lip as it instantly made a strong upstream dash. I allowed my line to spin rapidly off the reel until the fish paused in its flight. I gained back some additional line, but then the silver bullet decided to make a second strong dash. The line screeched from my reel a second time, but inexplicably the rainbow reached some turbulent water upstream and made a sudden side move and snapped off the muggly. I rued another lost opportunity, and this one occurred with my friends as spectators on the bridge above.

I was now just below the bridge, and several fish rose sporadically in the squiggly current seam below the bridge supports. Todd and Dave G. saw them and attempted to direct my casts. I followed their guidance as best as I could, but after fifteen minutes of unproductive casting, I decided to yield to the fish and quit for the day. I did manage one very brief hook up during this time, but again the fish never made it to my net.

I landed seven very nice fish on Friday with all being rainbows except for one brown. The four nice fish that slurped my caddis imitations in the afternoon really salvaged my day, as it was great fun to spend 1.5 hours casting to an array of rising fish. Unfortunately I should have easily recorded a double digit fish count, as I lost nearly as many fish as I landed. I cannot complain about the number of opportunities, but I do need to improve my ability to capitalize.