Time: 10:00AM – 4:00PM
Location: Eleven Mile Canyon
South Platte River 04/17/2017 Photo Album
It was a beautiful day with the high temperature in the sixties and overcast skies for much of the day, although gusts of wind were a significant negative. The flows were up a bit at 90 cfs compared to my two previous trips to the South Platte, but the river remained nearly perfect for late April. I departed Denver at 7AM, and this enabled me to reach a parking space along the South Platte River by 9:30, and I was in the river fishing by 10AM.
My Starting Point Along the Dirt Road
I walked down the road and entered at a point that was farther downstream than I ever previously fished in this segment of the Eleven Mile Canyon area. I began fishing with a yellow fat Albert and trailed a beadhead hares ear nymph and an ultra zug bug, but I switched out the ultra zug bug for a mercury black beauty after twenty minutes with no action. In the early going I experienced a refusal to the yellow fat Albert and two momentary hookups, and I suspected the temporary connections were a function of the tiny size 22 midge larva.
Zoomed a Bit Closer
Between 10:00 and 11:30 I covered a significant amount of water and managed to land five trout, four browns and one rainbow. All the morning fish were in the twelve inch size range, and I was pleased with the steady action. Halfway through the morning I swapped the mercury black beauty for a salad spinner, and the move paid off, when a brown and rainbow snatched the small midge imitation in a deep narrow slot, just before I returned to the car for lunch.
More Rocks Equals More Pockets
After lunch I endured thirty minutes without any action, and I spotted a couple blue winged olives, so I removed the salad spinner and replaced it with a soft hackle emerger. Unfortunately the BWO emerger was not what the fish desired, so I reverted to the salad spinner, and that change rewarded me with some great action, as the fish count increased from five to eleven. I estimate that five of the eleven landed fish consumed the salad spinner, and the others crushed the beadhead hares ear nymph.
Macro
One again I endured a lull, as I moved through several attractive pockets, so I snipped off the salad spinner and replaced it with a beadhead pheasant tail. The size 18 pheasant tail produced one nice brown trout from a deep seam, but for some reason the fat Albert suddenly became a more desired commodity. During the afternoon time frame four trout crushed the fat Albert, and all seemed to materialize from slow moving slack water along the bank. The hares ear continued to provide steady production, and between 2:30 and 4 the sky clouded up, and I noticed a few more small BWO’s in the air. During this overcast period I exchanged the pheasant tail for a size 22 RS2, and three brown trout attacked the small baetis nymph imitation, as it began to lift and swing at the end of long drifts.
Yummy Deep Run Ahead
By 4PM I was quite weary, so I decided to call it a day. I landed twenty-three trout in 5.5 hours of fishing. The largest trout measured twelve inches, and only two of my catches were rainbows. Despite the relatively small size of the South Platte trout, I enjoyed the day, as I covered a large amount of stream mileage, and I moved quickly from pocket to pocket. The hares ear was my most productive fly; but the fat Albert, salad spinner and RS2 also earned their time on my line. After a couple hours on the river I learned that the most productive locations were long pockets and runs through moderate riffles. The fish seemed to relish places, where they could spread out in water with moderate depth and moderate current velocity. Large deep holes and slow moving pools did not produce, and I learned to skip over these sections of the river.
Fish Landed: 23