Colorado on the Fly

2009-04-27T08:43:00.004-06:00

Finally got some fishing in this weekend. Hit up the Blue up in the high country on Friday. Didn't do great but managed to land a few nice rainbows. Hooked into one nice one near the shops at Silverthorne and he broke me off.

Blue Rainbow

Below Green Mountain Reservoir

On Saturday Brendan and I made it up to Clear Creek for a couple of hours and we couldn't have plan it any better. The Blue Wing Olives were coming off and the fish rose for about an hour to an hour and a half very consistently. We probably landed around 30 or so fish in a 50 yard stretch. It was pretty sweet.

The season is getting started pretty good so far this year. Hope to get out for a long lunch sometime this week and hit up Clear Creek again, hopefully on a foggy, rainy, snowy day so the BWOs will be hatching again.

Winter 2009

2009-01-11T20:32:00.006-07:00

I've gotten out a couple of times already this year. Fished Cheeseman Canyon on the 2nd and got down to the Deckers area again this weekend.

The 2nd was pretty nice, it got up to around 60. Had a lot of hook ups but only a few landed. Below are a few pics from the trip:

Josh with a nice canyon rainbow

Cheeseman Rainbow close up

Yesterday fished the Deckers area. It was much colder and the action was pretty slow. Landed a couple.

Jake with a nice rainbow

Usual occurrence on the way to Deckers

Fished with tiny midges both days. By tiny 24s and 26s on 6x tippet. Can't wait until things start warming up and I can use some bigger bugs.

Slacker

2008-09-17T08:50:00.002-06:00

Well I've been a slacker at reporting my summer fishing trips. Let's see. Floated the Roaring Fork a few weeks ago but we did not do that great one rainbow and one white fish in the boat. Hooked quite a few, but since it was my first float I wasn't very good at landing them. Fished Clear Creek quite a few times at various places and caught some nice browns. Fished the Dream stream 2 weeks ago hoping to have an awesome experience with the trico hatch but it really didn't happen. Saw some nice fish but didn't hook a fish. Besides that a few times on Bear Creek and that's it. Hopefully this fall I'll get out more and have more pics. Anyway just to have a picture on this post here's one from last years salmon run at the Dream Stream.

5 Hours and 1 Fish

2008-07-03T09:22:00.002-06:00

Went to the favorite spot again this past Sunday. So tons of fish but only caught this guy, he's a beauty though. I love getting up in the high country.

18 inch Cutty

Crazy gill plates on these fish...

Upper Bear Creek

2008-06-28T15:10:00.001-06:00

Fish up in the Mount Evans State Wildlife Area today and did really good. Nothing huge but ended up with around 20 brookies, missed more. Hopper with a bead head prince was the key. Pretty fun place up there. Sections of it remind me a lot of placed I have fished back in NC.

Bear Creek

2008-06-28T15:06:00.002-06:00

Took Kate out a few weeks ago and she caught her first fish on a fly rod. We mainly caught browns but we did land one small rainbow. It's so nice having a great fishery so close to home.

Clear Creek and Deckers

2008-06-26T22:03:00.005-06:00

My dad was in town for a few days and we fished a few spots on Clear Creek and the South Platte. Caught some nice chunky, caddis filled browns and rainbows on the Platte and some cutthroat in the head waters of Clear Creek. Looking forward to heading back to CC and looking for some more cutts, I think there may be some greenbacks in there.

Clear Creek Cutty

Another Cutty

Nice platte river brown

Platte Rainbow

Hooked up!!!

Secret Spot - June 14

2008-06-14T14:37:00.005-06:00

Most of you know the spot but I don't want to say. Brendan and I decided it should now be referred to as the dream lake. The spawn is about to happen up in the high lakes of Colorado. Fished from 8:30 to around 12:15 and saw quite a few fish. Fish pushing 20 inches ignoring everything we threw. I did land 2 nice ones. Only have a photo of the bigger one. I'm starting to think these are big Greenback Cutts but I'm not sure. My DOW friends will have to confirm with the fish guy.

More photos of some of these awesome cutthroats to come in the next few weeks....I hope!!!

16" Female (she was full of eggs)

The release...

Cheesman Canyon/Deckers - May 23

2008-05-24T14:44:00.012-06:00

Had a great day out on the river yesterday. Flows were perfect and the river was clear. Started in Cheesman Canyon and ended in the Deckers area. Hooked 3 or 4 in the canyon and landed one nice brown. Hooked one rainbow that took me on a long walk down the river but he broke off, probably around 18 inches. Move on to Deckers and ended up hammering them. Caught around 12 and 7 of them were 18 inches or better. Just an FYI the opening of my net is 18 inches so that should give you an idea of the size of the fish.

Owl in the canyon...This guy paid me a visit when I started fishing...

Shot of river and owl

Geese in the Deckers area...

OK here are the fish...

Buchanan Ponds in Evergreen - April 19th

2008-04-19T15:04:00.003-06:00

Fished the trout ponds this morning and afternoon. Caught quite a few rainbows ranging from 14-18 inches. Pretty fun place to fish. Here's a shot of one of the more colorful guys.

South Platte and Deckers - April 5th

2008-04-07T10:53:00.001-06:00

We started the day fishing the S. Platte from the South Platte Hotel down to Strontia Springs Res. It was pretty slow. Only a few hits and only a couple fish landed. There were 6 of us and we hit every good looking hole. I guess that section still has a lot of recovering to do from the fires in the area.

After lunch we went do to Deckers to try to make it a good day and land some nice fish. It was packed but we found some open water and we were able to land a few nice fish.

Dawson casting into a nice hole

TC with a nice bow

Nice colored rainbow

Same fish just another shot

Fly Box

2008-04-04T08:34:00.000-06:00

Well finally rounding up another week, that means fishing tomorrow. We are planning to head down to the Deckers area on the South Fork of the South Platte. There could be a few big rainbows roaming the waters as it is now spawning season. Report to come.

On another note here's a look at my stocked up fly box for the next few weeks. I try tying a few flies every night or so.

Frontside - Midges and more midges, various emergers, and a few dries (that I didn't tie)

Backside - San juan worms, variety of eggs, and some indicators

Frying Pan & Roaring Fork - March 18th

2008-04-02T07:45:00.000-06:00

I'm a little late getting this post up, busy times. Jake, TC, and I hit up the Pan and Fork a few weeks ago and had some great fishing. We started on the Pan looking for the big guys that were gorging themselves on mysis shrimp. Finally started connecting around 11am and killed them. Early on Jake lost a real nice one in the toilet bowl. Then I hooked into one of the biggest, if not the biggest trout I have ever hooked on the fly rod. I don't have a picture, sorry, but he broke off as we were trying to get him in the net. Sometimes that's how it goes. TC estimated that is was probably around 25-30 inches, that's a BIG fish. Next time.

The Toilet Bowl

Jake with a nice mysis fed Pan rainbow

Nice fat brown

Jake with another bow

Nice double-Jake makes mine look like a minnow

Partners in crime

Charlies Mysis

The Fork fished well also. Completely different fishing than the Pan. We caught quite a few 14 to 16 inch beautiful rainbows.

The Fork

Little Smiling Rainbow from the Fork

Cheesman Canyon - February 23

2008-02-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

The first fish of the year were caught today down in Cheeseman Canyon. I went down with Jake and TC. The morning started off slow with some snow but we found some fish in the afternoon that were cooperative. We had a crazy snow/thunder storm roll in and the fish turned off. It was pretty cool having heavy snow and thunder at the same time. We ended up with seven total; 5 rainbows and 2 browns. A great start to a new fishing season.

Jake and Tippet & TC and Drake

15" Rainbow
(notice my sling, left handed casting and landing, not that easy)

Fishing in the snow