Time: 10:30AM – 5:00PM

Location: Town of Steamboat Springs

Yampa River 06/28/2017 Photo Album

I met my friend Steve at 10AM on Wednesday, and after we completed the necessary preparations for a day of fishing, we hiked down the railroad tracks until we were just above the hot springs. I chose my Sage One five weight, as I hoped to battle some high powered monsters from the Yampa River. During the course of our day on the river on Wednesday, Steve and I covered the south bank from above the hot springs to the 5th Street bridge. The flows were in the 400 – 450 cfs range, and the river was quite clear. The adjective ideal jumped into my mind several times, as it was high enough to enable close approaches, yet low enough to allow reasonable wading. Tubers were a bit of an issue, but the traffic seemed lighter than normal perhaps as a result of the midweek date. Unlike my visit the previous week, the fish were able to flourish in areas toward the middle of the river.

Steve Attacks the Yampa

I began my attack on the Yampa denizens with a yellow fat Albert, beadhead hares ear nymph, and salvation nymph. This combination enabled me to pick off four small fish that inhaled the hares ear. The catch rate was slow, and the size of the fish was disappointing, although Steve connected with a fish that felt more substantial in the first hour. Unfortunately he was unable to guide it into his net, before it made a sudden spurt and removed the end fly from his dry/dropper system.

At approximately 12:30 we began noticing sporadic rises. At this first sign of dry fly possibilities, I removed my dry/dropper set up and selected a size 16 light gray comparadun. The pale morning dun imitation enabled me to land three additional trout, and the highlight was a very nice rainbow that sipped the comparadun in the angled pool across from the noisy construction zone. This pool was the first one after another juicy spot where the hatches commenced the previous week.

Improved Lighting on the Morning Rainbow

Steve and I moved upstream and alternated casts in a narrow ribbon of slow water that separated the fast current from the streamside willows. After this stretch we ceased observing rises, and prospecting with the size 18 seemed futile, so I switched back to the dry/dropper method. Steve excused himself to return to the car to check messages and email, and I proceeded to the large eddy pool below a man-made structure thirty yards below the pedestrian bridge. My lineup now consisted of the yellow fat Albert, a beadhead hares ear, and a beadhead size 18 pheasant tail nymph. I substituted the pheasant tail, since I speculated that the pale morning dun nymphs were smaller than the size 16 salvation that was failing to attract attention.

I cast the dry/dropper flies near the deepest section of the eddy, and the vortex sucked the fat Albert backward. Suddenly the top fly disappeared, so I set the hook and connected with a seventeen inch rainbow trout. I know this because after a heated tussle, it created a deep sag in my landing net. After I released my best fish on the day, I returned to the gazebo and quickly munched down my lunch along with Steve who returned from his strong mobile signal retreat.

After lunch we resumed our upstream migration above the pedestrian bridge. I skipped most of this water the previous week because the strong current ran tight against thick vegetation making the area inaccessible. On Wednesday, however, the stream velocity subsided enough to allow us to proceed safely. By now the hatch was essentially over, but while Steve was absent, I noticed a significant flurry of yellow stoneflies. This observation provoked me to try size twelve and fourteen yellow stimulators as stonefly imitations with a trailing size sixteen gray comparadun in a two dry fly system. This approach yielded a medium sized rainbow that grabbed the trailing comparadun. As I moved on, the stimulator generated only refusals, so I reverted to the dry/dropper.

Great Colors

The dry/dropper lineup included the fat Albert, an iron sally, and a size 16 emerald caddis pupa between three and five o’clock. The iron sally was a response to the flurry of yellow stoneflies observed earlier, and the emerald caddis pupa was an attempt to attract attention with a buggy body color. The combination produced, and numbers nine and ten materialized from the nook of another nice eddy roughly two-thirds of the way between the pedestrian bridge and the 5th Street bridge. The ninth fish landed was a twelve inch rainbow, and the tenth fish to visit my net was a gorgeous sixteen inch brown trout. I witnessed the brown trout as it pivoted its head to snatch the emerald caddis pupa, as the emerger drifted along the current seam below the eddy. As this late afternoon action was unfolding, I moved a good distance above Steve, but then he reappeared, and we worked in parallel for most of the remainder of the day.

Happy Fly Fisherman

Not long after Steve joined me, he was sitting on the bank working on his flies, and I lobbed a backhand cast to a marginal run that sliced through a moderate depth pool next to the bank. The pool was just above Steve’s position. As the pool toy drifted toward the center section, I spotted a large subsurface figure that slowly elevated and then casually chomped down on the foam hopper imitation. What a sight! I set the hook in a reasonably controlled fashion, and then the fight was on. The noble foe displayed some head shaking and serious diving, until we reached a standstill. This created an opportunity for me to exert side pressure, and I coaxed a large brown trout into my net. What a surprise! I removed the pool toy, and Steve helped me capture a few photos, and then I released the brute. I estimate it measured out at seventeen inches.

Great Colors

We continued on for a bit, as we were both energized by the fortuitous interaction with the beautiful brown trout. Before quitting at five o’clock I landed one additional brown trout. Wednesday proved to be another fabulous day of fly fishing on the Yampa River in Steamboat Springs. In addition to twelve netted trout, I endured four long distance releases. One acrobatic rainbow went airborne twice, before it slipped free of my hook. The tubers were a nuisance, but for the most part they floated the center of the river or the north bank. A few were unable to steer and drifted through our targeted water. The traffic was a bit lighter than usual, and perhaps this was attributable to it being Wednesday or the fact that the air temperature was lower than the previous week. It was very enjoyable to have a fishing companion in Steve, who is relatively new to fly fishing but progressing quite well.

Fish Landed: 12