Time: 11:30AM – 5:00PM

Location: Island below Bush Rock riffle to Jewel Pool at Guide Lot.

Fish Landed: 17

Frying Pan River 09/10/2014 Photo Album

For the last month I anxiously anticipated a trip to the Flattop Wilderness to camp and fish the White River. The second week of September fit my schedule perfectly, and during several previous visits at this time of year, I enjoyed much success. Unfortunately when I told my friend Steve Supple that I was planning this outdoor venture, he suggested that I check the weather on the western slope. Sure enough, as I searched the weather site, I discovered that the Flattops area and in fact all of the western slope were under flash flood advisories for Monday and Tuesday. I can survive some rain while camping, but flash flooding did not strike me as conducive to fishing. Getting to the White River from Denver entails a four plus hour drive, and I decided I did not want to risk a trip of that magnitude only to discover swollen muddy fishing conditions.

I delayed my trip a day to see if the forecast did in fact become reality. When I checked the western slope freestone streams on Tuesday from work, I noted huge spikes on the graphs for the White River, Crystal River and Eagle River. Apparently the forecast was accurate. I noted, however, that the Frying Pan was running steadily at 269 cfs. The Taylor Creek web site called these flows ideal and announced that green drakes, pale morning duns and blue winged olives were hatching with regularity between mile marker eight and the dam. Next I checked the weather forecast for Basalt for Wednesday through Sunday, and saw a series of dry days with highs in the low 70’s. This clinched my decision, and I decided to make the trip to the Ruedi Reservoir campground where I would stay and fish the Frying Pan River. Meanwhile the weather forecast for Denver was much more adverse with warnings of snow on Friday and a high in the 50’s. Could the western slope weather really be that much more favorable than the Front Range? I made plans to find out.

I got off to a reasonably early start on Wednesday morning and arrived at the pullout above Deadfall Pool between MM11 and MM12 at 11:15AM. There was another fisherman in Deadfall Pool so I jumped into the area characterized by a cluster of tiny clumps of grass and small islands. I began my day on the Frying Pan with a Chernobyl ant, salvation nymph, and RS2; and two small browns gobbled the salvation nymph in the small nooks around the cluster island area.

I broke for lunch at 11:50 as I hadn’t eaten since early before my departure, and I also wanted to be ready in case a hatch commenced. The flows were indeed at 269 cfs, and it was a cool dry day with lots of clouds, and the high temperature probably reached 65 degrees. I took longer than usual on my lunch break, as I organized my fly box and stocked it with green drakes and pale morning duns in case I encountered a hatch of these insects during the afternoon.

After lunch I began at Bush Rock riffle. Bush Rock has a large protruding rock at the top and center position, and the rock has a bush growing from it. As I began casting, I spotted a nice brown trout on the left side of the rock and just below, and I dwelled on this fish. I tried a green drake comparadun with no success and then went through a series of PMD comparaduns of various colors including cinnamon, gray and yellow. None of these brought any interest from the brown so I eventually moved on to Angled Pool. Angled Pool is above and across from Bush Rock riffle and consists of a diamond shaped pool created by a current break where half the river flows toward the opposite bank and then deflects into a deep run. As I began to prospect Angled Pool, I began to see more green drakes and yellowish mayflies.

I returned to a green drake comparadun with a maroon thread rib, and this fly magically produced two beautiful rainbows, and then I added a small brown that rose at the top of the pool. I was pretty encouraged by this early afternoon action on the Frying Pan as I moved upstream to the very attractive deep pool directly across from where the Santa Fe was parked. The heavy current covers half the river and runs along the bank that borders the road. The other half of the river consists of a deep run along the main current and then a tapering slower moving pool. I stood at the tail of this pool at 1:30 when things got insane in a good way.

Suddenly the river came alive with a crazy hatch of green drakes, pale morning duns, and blue winged olives concurrently. I even saw quite a few caddis bouncing around in the midst of the three mayflies. Early during this hatch I landed three medium sized browns at the lower end of the pool on the maroon ribbed green drake comparadun size 14. But then frustration became the norm as my green drake was suddenly ignored. Fish were rising frequently through the length of the pool, but I was unable to find the secret. I tried a parachute green drake and another comparadun with a lighter body that I tied to imitate the flavs, but these were also regarded with scorn by the trout. I went back to the original maroon ribbed green drake version and managed to hook what felt like a bigger fish, but it wrapped my line around something in the middle of the stream and broke off the fly. As you can imagine, this provoked some choice words.

This is where my stubborn persistence personality trait got in the way. For some reason I fell into the trap of believing that if I worked hard and cast diligently, I could convince the fish to take my fly. Fish don’t work that way. When my green drake got ignored, I should have tested a pale morning dun or blue winged olive. In all likelihood, the trout sensed a greater density of one of these other forms of foods and switched their preference. Hopefully I can learn a lesson from this experience.

The hatch waned after 1.5 hours so I decided to move on. There was a terrible glare on the water by this time, but I did see a trout near my feet gulp some lighter colored mayflies that were a size in between the green drakes and pale morning duns. I had placed a pair of  light green comparaduns in my fly box, so I tied one of these on and moved to a short deep pocket along the bank just above the long pool that I just vacated.

I tossed the light olive comparadun to the edge of the faster water of the pocket and almost instantly saw a swirl and set the hook. A huge head appeared, and I was shocked to see a massive rainbow thrashing in the tight quarters of the small pocket. I maintained pressure, and the giant fish ponderously swam downstream into the larger pool, and I followed it until I could apply side pressure. I brought it around below me to the shallow water and extended my net to scoop and lift it for a photograph and a gentle release. Unfortunately my net proved to be too small. I managed to get the fish on top of the net so that it covered the opening and one third of the fish extended beyond the tip of the net. My net opening measures 15 inches so this arithmetic yields a fish in excess of twenty inches. The fish refused to collapse in the net, and instead executed a huge flop and crashed back in the river and then slowly swam farther downstream to some heavier current. As I started to follow it again, it made a sudden move and snapped off the point fly. What a beast! This was the largest fish of the season and perhaps the largest fish I ever landed in Colorado.

I was still shaking from the encounter with the Frying Pan goliath as I continued up along the south side of the south braid of the river where it splits around a long narrow island. This movement required quite a bit of bushwhacking, but I was anxious to reach the pool below the large rectangular rock near the tip of the island. Unfortunately when I arrived, I discovered another fisherman occupying the pool, so I continued around rectangular rock to the pockets on the south bank. I contemplated crossing at this point, but I quickly discovered the current was too swift. As I contemplated my next move, I returned to the Chernobyl ant, salvation nymph and RS2 as the hatches had essentially ended.

I prospected the pockets above where I attempted to cross and landed two medium browns on the salvation nymph, but now I faced a long narrow whitewater chute, so I returned to the bank and fought through some more bushes until I reached a small side pool below the large run and pool at MM12. Despite my certainty that the pool would produce a fish, it failed me, so I tossed my three flies into the next marginal pocket, and this yielded another brown trout. Between the juicy pool and MM12 I experienced two additional long distance releases, and when the fish shook free, the taught line snapped skyward and lodged in a tree adding more frustration to my day.

The large MM12 pool was mobbed with guides and fishermen, so I climbed back up the bank and skirted the area until I reached the tip of another island. Here the river was fairly wide and shallow, and I knew I could cross back to the road. Before doing so, however, I began working my way upstream and fished the pockets and riffles on the south side of the river. This tactic built my fish count to 15 as small and medium browns began taking the salvation nymph, particularly when I added movement to the flies. In two instances a fish attacked my fly when I purposely made bad mends.

As 4 o’clock passed by, the guides departed, and this created more space for movement, so I decided to visit Jewel Pool next to the guide parking lot. In this juicy area I landed two additional medium browns that grabbed the salvation nymph as I imparted movement to the fly.

The large rainbow was clearly the high point of the day and made up for much of the frustration that resulted from fish ignoring my flies during a dense mayfly hatch spectacle. A seventeen fish day is decent, but other than the large rainbow, the size was lacking compared to many of my previous visits. Despite this criticism, I have to acknowledge that I spent the morning driving from Denver, and seventeen fish in a half day of fishing is a fine accomplishment. I still had Thursday and Friday ahead of me, and the 1.5 hour hatch was rather exciting.