On the River: East River, Gunnison, Colorado

Saturday, March 28th

Somedays, you get just what you needed. Any serious fisherman gets a little stir crazy near the end of winter, and even though I get out on the river a fair amount in the winter, I still find myself longing for those sunny summer afternoons where being on the river rejuvenates your soul and washes away your stress.

Today was like that, but in a different sort of way ... The temperatures didn't remind me of that warm summer day exactly (I don't think it ever got above 25 degrees all day), but lately I have had the same feelings as mentioned above, but they were directed at east coast fishing and a good hatch rather than the above mentioned feeling of summer warmth.

Today was that day. 

It's not often that you run into true hatches out west. Yes, there are the Green Drakes, the Caddis "Happy Hour", but they hardly ever seem consistent and predictable like a hatch out east would be, but today we rolled onto a pretty rare scene.

When we arrived at one of the deeper, slow pools on the East River we were met with large trout sipping grey midges and it was a phenomenon that lasted. Our good friends, Ben and Bree Robb, Michelle and I spent a solid hour fishing to risers and only left out of necessity, but they were still rising to midges even as we tore ourselves away from the river.

We took all of them on a size #24 single grey midge pattern (unfortunately, we don't sell them yet, we are working on getting them in stock for our next order, but in the meantime the link will take you to the tying instructions). It was pretty rare that we actually saw the fly, but as with tiny dry flies you just have to know the general area where it landed and watch for boils in the vicinity. All in all I landed three fish (on dries) over 13" and had at least six strikes that I missed. Michelle and Ben also landed some really nice fish too!

We also fished the standard hare's ear/trailing baetis rig (earlier in the day) and caught a bunch of other nice fish, a lot of which were in slow, shallower water It was a good day on the river. Great time to get out there and banish those winter blues.

Tight lines,

-Jeff