Farewell Colorado, Frying Pan River, Basalt, Colorado

Date: July 13 - 15, 2012

Weather: Sunny with a few storms that moved in and out

Insect/Activity: Midges, small baetis hatch - very sporadic

Patterns Used: Blacktail Baetis, AB Tungsten Hare's Ear, Grey Midge, **Top Secret Pattern**

Flows: 170's

A Magnificently colored and spotted rainbow!

Farewell Colorado - we had a good 16 years! You will be greatly missed. On July 25th Michelle, Winston and I packed up the cars and began our journey across the country to make the Grand Rapids, MI are our new home. Having started a family, moving back closer to family has always been on our minds and we decided that this was the time to do it. 

Probably some of the best news is that I am now living 45 minutes away from Jay so you'll get to see a lot more posts with both the Allen Brothers in the photos, and we hope to start producing a lot more quality content in video format! Plus, we should be launching a new Allen Brothers website with our blog content rolled into the new site, so navigation, ordering flies and content should all get a lot more user friendly - but ... you didn't click on this blog to hear about website changes - so back to the Pan.

Ben Robb and I headed there for a combination birthday celebration and as a last hoorah! We had two full days on the river, with no thought of nap schedules, feedings or changing diapers! 

Ben with a great looking brown.

The fishing was superb! We were surprised to find not many folks on the river and we essentially fished the upper stretch just below the dam for both days. The flows were low, the water was clear and the fish were feeding. What more can you ask for? Midge was the most predominant insect, and we did a few seines throughout the weekend and never came up with any Mysis so I'm guessing it had been a while since they pumped any major water through the dam. Surprisingly, though, we caught almost all our fish on the Blacktail Baetis. I gave the size #24 grey midge with 7x tippet a try on a few finicky fish, but always returned to the Baetis for our success.

A few smaller fish came on the Hare's Ear, which was used as a point-fly (weight) occassionally, but most fish came on 7x with a micro-nymphing rig for maximium "stealth". 

NOTE: I have made NO modifications to the image color!!! Crazy!

Probably the fish of the trip was this rainbow. Arguably, the most beautiful rainbow I've ever caught, but it is hard to say when each fish has it's own beauty, merit and story behind the catching. This one was taken on a Blacktail Baetis, while sight-nymphing and fishing 7x. So, it's pretty hard to beat that story for pure joy, and a grin that splits across my face every time I think about it.

And then, there was the "flume" hole ... I'm not one for fishing deep water with tons of weight, but we showed up on Sunday morning at 7 AM with not a soul around  and we decided to fish right below the dam for an hour or so. I had a hunch on a pattern I wanted to try. I'm not one to keep secrets, but this is one I'm not willing to share - in the wrong hands, it could be used for ill and not good ;-) I tied on said secret pattern and spent the next 30 minutes watching my indicator shoot underwater with the ferocity of a midget out of a cannon at the circus. I have never hooked more 18" fish in my life with such ease and speed!

Flume hole cast #2 of the day.

Flume hole cast #6 of the day.

Flume hole, somewhere around cast #20 of the day! That is some crazy pigment on this fish!

The rest of the day was good fishing. Ben and I both had our best luck in the flats, sight-nymphing until about noon, then the high sun shut down most of the fish and we usually retreated to water a little further down the canyon for the afternoon. We even sucumbed to the "flume" hole once more on Sunday, mid-day, and didn't do as well, but were surprised to find most of our fish, again, taking the Blacktail Baetis over midge or mysis.

Throw in a breakfast at Cafe Bernard and some burgers and beers at night and you have yourself one fine weekend to remember Colorado by.

They call is a "morning bun". All I know is it's got a ridiculous amount of sugar and butter. You can get a "morning bun" at Starbucks, but it's not even in the same universe as this one. CRAZY GOOD!

No doubt, I'll be back for vacations, and to see friends, but for now I am turning my attention to consistent eastern hatches and looking forward to my first season of Steelhead and some Salmon fishing in Michigan.

Tight lines, see you out on the water :-)

-Jeff Allen

The food journey: Lunch in Buena Vista at K's Dairy Delite

The food journey: Breakfast at Cafe Bernard

The food journey: Breakfast Sunday morning ... in my car :-( It was stark juxtaposition to the rest of the fare we had that week.

Ben with another healthy rainbow.

Muskegon River, Newaygo, Michigan

Date: Saturday May 27, 2011

Weather: Sunny with a few storms that moved in and out

Insect/Activity: Few caddis in the air, few baetis emerging, Suckers spawning.

Patterns Used: Blacktail Baetis, AB Tungsten Hare's Ear, Sucker Spawn

Flows: 2000 (?)


This one's an oldie but goodie! In the rush of life I never posted this blog and just kept pushing it back in favor of posting more recent outings. Over a year ago now, I got out to Grand Rapids, MI on a business trip and added in a couple days to stay with Jay and fish the Mighty Mo (Muskegon River).

It was a surprising day - we started out really hoping for some good caddis activity, but it never really happened and nymphing in the morning was slow. Jay hooked up with one late season Steelhead on a green caddis pupa. Then the afternoon hit and things changed ...

We aren't sure if the fish just turned on, or if moving locations and changing tactics was the culprit, but as we moved up river the Suckers were a little more intense on their spawn beds so we switched to fishing a sucker spawn pattern and the rest of the day was about as epic of a fly fishing day as you can have!

We spent from 4 PM until 10 PM bringing in more fish that were feeding hard in the shallows on sucker spawn than I can count. A lot of them were good healthy fish, and naturally (as fish stories go) the biggest of them never made it to the boat. I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story.


Tight lines,


-Jeff

Allen Brothers School of Fly-Fishing: Fly Design

Just something I wanted to get the word out on. Jay and I are putting on a fly fishing school called:

FLY DESIGN: From Classroom to River - A two-day course spent on the river and at the tying vise, taking a deeper look at entomology, and how to translate what you are seeing into REALISTIC PATTERNS THAT CATCH FISH!

When: June 9 and 10, 2012

Where: Michigan’s legendary Muskegon River (near Grand Rapids) at the Muskegon River Lodge

You can get more details by clicking here.

We are very excited about it and sure that no one will leave without feeling more prepared to fish any water.  If you or someone you know is at a place in fly-fishing/tying  where the basics in tying have been mastered but are looking to take it to the next level … this is it.  


Nothing has helped me more over the years than getting out and learning from others what I am really looking for out in the river.   This is a chance to do just that and HANDS ON.  You can read all you want but it never really locks in until you know what you are looking for and do it.  


Fly-tyers have a distinct advantage to fly-fishing but only if you break away from the generic pattern guides and learn it for yourself.  We will be sampling, identifying, tying, and fishing patterns hot off the vise.  All of that accompanied with the knowledge of when, where, and how to fish them.   On top of that, staying at the MRL will definitely put you in the  right frame of mind.  Please forward this on to anyone else you know that might benefit from it.


Tight Lines,


-Jeff Allen

Arkansas, Pueblo, CO

Date: Sunday February 19, 2012

Weather: Partly cloudy, warm, NO WIND :-)

Insect/Activity: Midges emerging from 11 AM until about 3 PM

Patterns Used: Blacktail Baetis, AB Tungsten Hare's Ear, Grey Midge Pupa, Olive Midge Pupa

Flows: 64

My parents were in town for a wedding on the weekend of February 18th. One of the great things when they come to town is there is no question that we will be going to the river. Dad says he prayed when we were growing up, "Lord, let my boys love fishing." He also says that his prayers were answered better than he could have imagined!

33 years later and it's not Dad baiting my hook anymore, or telling me where to cast, how to set the hook, or motoring the boat close to shore so we could retrieve a Mepps #2 that flew well beyond the borders of the lake and into the forrest beyond. Now, we fly-fish, as much as we can, and most of the time Dad is asking Jay and I what flies to tie on, where to cast and when to mend. Life is pretty awesome to be able to share all the great moments we've had!

Dad, with the first fish of the day

Another view of the same fish. With the glare not washing-out the photo it was  a spectacularly colored fish!

We made it to the river by 9:30 AM and headed straight for a spot I hadn't fished but had heard good things about. After hooking a solid, and gorgeous, rainbow in the first 15 minutes we figured it was going to be a good time. Then ... nothing for the next 3 hours. I didn't hook a fish, I didn't spook a fish, I didn't spot a fish. The worst part was I had a few outings to the Arkansas recently that were similar - great fish when you find them, but they seemed to be few and far between, which was a huge contrast to my winter experience on the Arkansas last year. Add in the crowds on the Arkansas this winter and I was just about to give up hope.

Then, the madness began, and hope was renewed. I approached a spot that I knew to hold fish in the late fall, but had not been seeing fish in the winter (usually winter fish get a little sluggish and move to deeper, slow runs). I was surprised to see a good sized trout holding in a thigh-deep riffle (a pretty typical summer riffle). It wasn't long before I had spotted a few of his cohorts, and within 15 minutes I was giddy as a school girl, and frustrated that I hadn't hooked one of these fine specimens. It was time to put on the thinking cap ...

Midge were in the air, so naturally I was trailing a midge behind a tungsten hare's ear and I still had on a large, fluorescent indicator from "deep nymphing" earlier. First thought, "ditch the mondo-indicator". After not much better response from the fish I decided it was time to get serious. I ditched the hare's ear and was now down to a micro indicator, 6x tippet, a micro-splitshot and a #24 grey midge (a classic micro nymphing technique).

My first cast had a fish turn and suck down my midge like it was candy! After landing him, I was feeling more confident, but 10 - 15 more drifts with only a few strikes from smaller fish made me think I was off the mark somewhere. Sadly, to my discredit, I had gone the route of laziness and not actually caught a midge yet. So, I decided to grab one out of the air and sure enough it was a deep olive color. I quickly switched out my fly and began hooking fish after fish for the next 2 hours (Dad and I trading off after each landed fish)!


It was a wonderful thing, only lessened by the fact that I lost all of the largest fish (I hooked 4 fish that were over 16", one of which was pushing the 19" mark) due to the strong current and the fish just running like crazy. All in all, though, we landed some really great fish, including a smaller guy that I have NO QUESTION was not a stocked fish, but born and raised in the Arkansas tailwater!

A smaller guy with some AWESOME color. I know the Ark is heavily stocked, but it's always good to see the stockers are making progress in the "bedroom" department :-)

We finished up the day by heading upstream to a spot Dad fell in love with last year, and I decided to stick with my micro-nymphing rig, even though the slow run we were in was deep. I set my depth to about 3' (the run was probably 5' deep) assuming that as midge were still emerging there was a good chance fish would be hanging up a bit in the water column to feed on the emergers. Right again! I lifted up on one very nice fish, a redemption of sorts from all the lost fish earlier. Then, 5 minutes later I lifted up on a very hefty rainbow. It turned out to be the largest fish I've landed on this stretch of the Arkansas and put a very large smile on my face!

A great fish, with a really thick girth! My best to date on the Arkansas below Pueblo Reservoir.

Needless to say, Dad and I left the river pretty happy campers! 


Tight Lines,


-Jeff

How to Make a Seine Net

Materials: Fine window-screen mesh, telescoping legs, heavy duty thread (I actually used 8 lb test firewire for spin fishing), needle or sewing machine

Cost: About $12 (more if you have to buy firewire from the store :-)

Time: About 1 hour for me to assemble. If you have a sewing machine it would probably only take 20 minutes or less.

I spoke in a recent blog how I wanted to get back to my roots of really studying a river. After so many years of fishing it's easy to just know what works, tie it on and start fishing. No doubt, the downfall to this approach is that you may miss some really awesome things going on when it comes to benthic activity. Plus, the reason I wanted to get back to my roots was the feeling that my fishing had become all business. I wasn't stopping to smell the roses, as they say.

In my quest, I decided to make a seine net that would easily fit in the back of my vest, but not be super flimsy like a lot of the commercially made ones you can buy. I began looking for telescoping legs and Wal-mart finally delivered for me (I have a personal vendetta against Wal-mart, every time I go in there to buy something I can never find it! How can such a big store not have what you need!!!!). I found this Targus, 42" tripod and the legs fit perfectly into the back of my Filson Vest. The cost for the tripod was $9.

Instructions: Once I chopped the legs off of the tripod with a hacksaw the rest of the operation was to take the window screen, fold over the sides and sew them (to create the pocket for the tripod legs to go in). Then fold up the bottom edge and sew it for durability and to seal off the tripod leg pockets so they don't go through (you could leave them open so they do go through, I can see some advantage to this).

Voila! You have a sweet seine net that fits easily into your vest. Here's a couple of other notes that may be of help.

1. In the picture, my net is about 24" tall. I don't think you need to go this high since it just creates extra drag in the current and puts strain on the poles. Probably, a 12" height is all that's necessary to capture what you're looking for.
2. The telescoping legs lock out when they are fully extended, then you twist the top of the leg until you hear a "click" and they are now unlocked and can be collapsed.
3. It helps to oil up the legs every once in a while. They tend to start showing signs of oxidization and that makes them a little hard to operate. 
4. Taking it to the next level, Jay's good friend Kirk used a fabric and heavy duty thread to sew the seams. I don't have an image, but it really made the seine net look "professional". I thought it was a cool addition.

Hope this inspires you to try something new!

Tight lines,

-Jeff Allen

South Platte, 11 Mile Canyon, Colorado

Catch-up: This event occurred in the Spring of 2011

Date: Friday April 22 and  Saturday May 7, 2011

Weather: Sunny, beautiful

Insect/Activity: Small amount of midge and baetis activity

Patterns Used: Blacktail Baetis, AB Tungsten Hare's Ear, Grey Midge Pupa

Flows: 52

Fortune smiled upon Ben and I as we took to the river a couple of times in a two week period! I can't remember what stopped Michelle from coming, but I think it had to do with bridal showers, or baby showers!@?! Needless to say, upon hearing my tales after fishing, Michelle rued the day she was born a woman and "showers" became a required event for her gender.

That's a really long way of saying: Ben and I had two amazing days. The weather was amazing—sunny, calm winds, low flows, clear water and cool enough to wear a hooded sweatshirt—and the icing on the cake was the ridiculous amounts of fish we caught!

One of the beauties of late winter/early spring is the low flows and lack of fishermen on the water. It's a great time to get out there and catch fish that, in my opinion, are feeding recklessly because they are hungry from low metabolism in the winter and haven't been pressured for a few months.

With really low flows, it's easy to see fish too, and you can get away with fishing nymphs that aren't too weighted. It's one of the best times that nymph fishing feels like dry-fly fishing.

Here are some great photos that Ben and I got of the course of two days. Make sure to check out the rainbow with the spots on his eyes! I had never seen it before (in person). Really cool looking (though it's possible he took my fly because his eyesight isn't so good :)

Enjoy!

-Jeff Allen

Beautiful, dark colored rainbow. Notice the how his spots are covering his eyes! Amazing!

South Platte, Cheeseman Canyon, Co

Here's another blast from the past!


Date: Saturday April 2, 2011

Weather: Sunny in the mid 50's

Insect/Activity: Very little

Patterns Used: Blacktail Baetis, AB Tungsten Hare's Ear, Grey Midge Pupa

Flows: 75

Michelle strikes again! Really, a flawless brown ... amazing.

I've got a pretty good stock of these back-logged posts I need to catch up on, so you'll definitely see these popping into my blog from time to time :-) To make it easy on the reader, and my memory, they'll probably be photo heavy. Enjoy!

After the learning from my "upstream" mistakes of the past on the Cheeseman Canyon, Michelle and I were faced with the prospect of another late winter/early spring day with great weather. We took it. This time we stayed in the lower water of the Canyon and it paid off.

We had one of those glorious days where somehow the wind wasn't howling in April, and the temps allowed us to strip down to a light long sleeve shirt. The bug activity was lacking, but in Cheeseman Canyon there are always fish feeding on baetis and midge that are idling down the river. So, we fished one of my favorite low water rigs: 7x, micro indicator, micro splitshot and a #24 grey midge or #20 blacktail baetis.

-Tight Lines!

This rainbow also happened to be one of the most pristine, beautifully colored fish I've ever caught. Then again, I think I've said that about a lot of trout!

Another great photo of the same rainbow!

South Platte, 11 Mile Canyon, Colorado

Date: Sunday October 30, 2011

Weather: Mostly Sunny

Insect/Activity: None in the morning. Baetis hatch started around noon and became moderately heavy by 1:30 PM

Patterns Used: Blacktail Baetis, AB Tungsten Hare's Ear, Midge Pupa, Poly-Wing Baetis, Adams

Flows: 63

Fantastic day on the river! My buddy Chris and I rolled up at about 8:30 AM, a little too early. There was not much happening in the morning, the air was still about 28 degrees and the light was low.

Chris with a great looking rainbow.

We spent the first hour or so fishing a standard riffle/run that normally produces very well, but there didn't seem to be too much activity. Later on, when the light was higher, along with visibility into the gin-clear water was better, I would discover that there really weren't that many fish in that spot. 

That discovery is one good reason why I like to fish with my eyes as much as with my rod! No doubt, you can become overly dependent on needing to see fish, but I see a lot of fishermen out there hunkered down in one spot because it fished well for them in the past. Fish move bases on so many different factors. It's good to be aware of that and move with them.

I love the fall, late fall and winter fishing so much because trout push up into the shallows for a number of reasons. Once Chris and I got some sun on the water and had a bit better visibility we were seeing fish moving in VERY skinny water! This hefty rainbow came out of a 6" deep wide gravel riffle. He was holding tight to a seam of faster, deeper water and I wouldn't have known he was there but for a keen eye! It's fish like this that instill a deep sense of love for this sport!

A larger rainbow for the 11 Mile Canyon. More importantly, she took a #20 Blacktail Baetis out of 6" of water!

As the day progressed we moved into another riffle/run, this time the fish had moved back in - in force. The baetis hatch was on and there were 6 steady risers within casting distance. Fighting back the jitters from giddiness, Chris and I spent the next two hours casting dry flies at steadily rising trout. It was one of the best hatches I have hit in a while! Most of the fish were slightly smaller, but we picked up the occasional 14" brown or rainbow. I did great with the Poly-wing Baetis and Chris did equally well with an Adams pattern.

We had to leave early, around 2 PM, and that was the only sad moment of the day. Chris and Ben got out the next weekend and had the same experience - needless to say, I'm hoping to make the journey to 11 Mile again soon!

The sun and the clear water made for some cool underwater shots!

One note: the brown trout have moved up into the shallows. It looked to me like they were in pre-spawn mode, fanning out there redds. But keep in mind that if the gravel looks really clean that is there redd (aka - nest/bed). At all costs avoid wading through them! Walking through one trout redds can kill hundreds of eggs - not a good scenario. We want to keep those guys coming back year after year!

Have fun out there ... if you're willing to brave the cold!

-Jeff Allen

South Platte, Cheeseman Canyon, Colorado

Catch Up: This event occurred in the not to distant past ...

Date: Monday February 21, 2011

Weather: Sunny, High's in the 40's

Insect/Activity: Few midge in the air

Patterns Used: Blacktail Baetis, AB Tungsten Hare's Ear, Grey Midge Pupa

Flows: Low, can't remember, but probably well below 100 CFS


Michelle and I were chomping at the bit to get a break from the Arkansas River in Pueblo. So, the first day we had off that the temps were looking nice we headed to Cheeseman.

I actually made a mistake that I won't be duplicating anytime soon ... we went pretty far upstream and got bamboozled! Don't get me wrong, Cheeseman has fish all up that canyon, but the further you go the tighter the canyon gets. The tighter the canyon gets the more you are faces with deep holes and weird currents. That makes nymphing particularly tough since you can't get your flies down to where the fish are (sometimes 8 feet deep, sitting backward, facing a rock, because that's where the current is bringing them food), and even if you do the amount of weight used tends to make your drift pretty heinous.

All that to say, we had a FUN day, but it wasn't too productive. I did some seining for fun because I had just made a new seine net (I'll post the instructions soon!) and picked up a few fish on midge patterns. Had a couple of good hookups too!

South Platte, 11 Mile Canyon, Co

Redefining "Keepin' it Real"

Date: Saturday June 11, 2011

Weather: Sunny with a few storms that moved in and out

Insect/Activity: Few caddis in the air, few baetis emerging, Suckers moving into the shallows but not spawning yet.

Patterns Used: Blacktail Baetis, AB Tungsten Hare's Ear

Flows: 107

My 35 week, bursting with baby, pregnant wife redefined "keepin' it real" this last weekend. As we near the birth of our first born we knew she didn't have many fishing opportunities left this summer, so we headed out to the river with Ben, Matt and Chris to spend a day enjoying the river. Needless to say - Michelle is awesome!!!! She spent 8 hours on the river with a smile on her face (except when she was mad, and throwing her hat at me for losing a fish :)

It was a fantastic day on the water. Michelle and I had a bit of a slow morning, but still managed to put some nice fish on the line and even a few on dries. The afternoon really heated up for us though as I think the barometer dropped from a few "quickie" storms and the baetis were on the move.

Whenever the baetis are on the move you don't want to be caught dead without our Blacktail Baetis pattern (since it was designed to imitate emerging baetis). We never really switched up flies once the fished turned on. Not much need to when you are hooking up or getting strikes every time you put the fly in front of a fish.

Needless to say, that is one happy pregnant woman and I had a pretty fantastic day too!

If you are wondering, this is the time to fish 11 MC before they start bringing the flows up! Get out there and have a good time!

-Jeff