Time: 3:00PM – 4:00PM

Location: West channel and then south shoreline

Pine Valley Ranch Lake 06/01/2023 Photo Album

I was pleasantly surprised to discover blue sky and a bit of sunshine, as I pulled into the Pine Valley Ranch parking lot. I added my Adidas pullover and billed hat with earflaps, and I immediately hoofed it to the lake. My rod remained assembled and featured a sparkle minnow.

I decided to check out the narrow channel at the west end of the lake first. As I approached, I witnessed a family dominating the east end of the slough, but more importantly, fish were rising throughout. There was one middle aged man and two high school aged boys who were fishing and three younger girls in the process of playing along the pathway. The man and one of the boys had spinning rods, and the other boy was fly casting from the side of the channel opposite the path. I cursed my luck to find a spot rich with trout, but I was beat to the punch by the occupants.

Lots of Fish in This Area

I moved to the far end of the narrow lagoon, and I spotted a cluster of trout. They were jockeying for position and sipping small insects on the surface with decent frequency. I was twenty yards from the fly fishing high schooler, so I decided to lob a few casts. I converted from the streamer to a small size 18 deer hair caddis with a tan body, and on the third cast a rainbow trout made an aggressive eat. I played the twelve inch stocker to my net and snapped a few photos. My line got tangled in the bushes during this process, and by the time I was ready to resume, the fly fishing youth moved within ten yards. The group was there first, so I retreated and circled to the south shoreline of the lake.

Deer Hair Caddis Fancier

I stepped down the bank at the midpoint of the south bank, and I tied on a peacock hippie stomper with an olive-brown body size 16 deer hair caddis, and I began spraying forty foot casts toward the middle of the lake. This approach lasted for thirty minutes, and I netted a small rainbow that mistook the hippie stomper for a live insect. A couple of refusals were in the mix, but then I suffered an extended period of boredom, as my flies sat unmolested. I tried stripping them and allowed them to sit motionless, but neither tactic was effective.

Black Mini Leech Eater

I pondered alternative approaches and opted for a beadhead black mini leech. I began methodically casting, and then I stripped and moved a couple steps, and in this way I covered a chunk of the shoreline. I felt two bumps that did not connect, but I also brought two stocker rainbows to my net. By 4:00PM some light rain began, and my neck was sore, so I called it quits in order to return to Denver in time to watch the Heat vs Nuggets in game 1 of the NBA finals. Go Nuggets.

Fish Landed: 4