Favorite Family Pastime, South Platte River, 11 Mile Canyon, Colorado

Date: Monday March 12, 2012

Weather: Partly cloudy, warm, Breezy

Insect/Activity: Not much

Patterns Used: Blacktail Baetis, AB Tungsten Hare's Ear, Grey Midge Pupa
Flows: 92

I spent some quality time with the family today doing our favorite activity! Yes, I am a blessed man to have a wife that loves to go fly fishing with me, and I love doing it with her. However, for the last 8 months I've been trying my hardest to see how early you can take an infant with you. Turns out 4 months was a little too early, and crazy as I am, I just couldn't subject a 6 month to the bitterest winter fishing. However, when the forecast for Monday was a balmy 55 degrees and the sun was shining, I played hooky from work and we set out to 11 Mile to test the infant fishing age.

Do these sunglasses make my face look small?

It was really a great day all in all. The fishing was not epic, there was a fair amount of winter lethargy hanging about the fish, but we found them and they would take a well presented drift of baetis or midge. Really, the hardest part is that a boy of Winston's age only has short windows of time between naps, so we did a lot of driving for a little fishing but it was worth it. Especially, to get Michelle hooked up with a few fish because it had been a long time since she was last out on the river.

Michelle wasn't happy about her hair in this photo, but she was quite happy about the fish!

Winston was a champ, even helping me strip in some line when I need it. His first fish (while he was awake anyway) was a pretty exciting moment. He had no clue what it was, but definitely wanted to grab it, and most likely would have tried to put it in his mouth if that were possible.

Winston, working on his line stripping technique.

First fish!

I'm looking forward to many more days like this :-)

Tight lines out there!

-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, 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

On the River: 11 Mile Canyon, South Platte, Lake George, CO

September 5, 2010

It was high time I got Michelle on the river all to myself! The summer had been crazy from moving, adjusting to new jobs, getting together with friends. I certainly got out to the river my fair share, but all too often Michelle couldn't come along for one reason or another.

So, on our first full day off in a while, we headed up to 11 MC. The day was great, water was running a little high, so it made for fishing hanging out in some difficult-to-drift locations, but we managed to find pockets here and there of fish hanging out on gravel bars, taking midges like it was their job.

We ended up at one spot that I have found to be a consistent gravel run where the fish can hide, almost invisibly, and a depression in the gravel. To paint the picture, we were looking at a 30 foot wide gravel run, with moderately fast water, and it appeared to be a uniform depth of 14". As we slowly advanced upstream we would see a 14" trout dart out from it's invisible location. After a few more steps we realized that there were micro-pockets where the gravel bottom went from 14" deep to 18" deep. This "break in the current" was enough to allow 2 - 3 fish to hold.

Why we couldn't see them ... I don't know, but sure enough we started spotting the depressions, fished to them, and started hooking up in numbers. It has been a while since I've encountered such an awesome fishing scenario. I was taken back to spring creek fishing in the east. It made me smile!

Sadly, with the increased flows our landing rates were about 1 in 5, but we had a great time.

I ended out the day by spotting a 17" brown, hooking and fighting for a solid 5 minutes until he pulled out. Another day, another day.

Tight Lines,

-Jeff

On the River: 11 Mile Canyon, South Platte, Lake George, CO

July 31, 2010

August 7 and 14, 2010

It had been years since I fished 11 Mile Canyon (aka 11MC). Really, I had only fished it once, when I first moved to Colorado for college at Western State in Gunnison. It was more of a stop in really, and my memory of it was not that impressive. We caught fish, but I don't remember anything too massive. I certainly don't remember anything about a catch-and-release stretch. So, when I blogged about moving to Colorado Springs and one of my blog readers, Jim, mentioned he fished it all the time and would show me what he know, I was excited to say the least.

And so it was, on July 31st that Jim, his son Kevin and I hit the water and they introduced me to a river that I was amazed me. First off, we met at the river at about 6:30 AM to catch the tricos. While we didn't hit an "epic" day, we certainly weren't short of rising fish taking the falling spinners. When the spinner fall ended, most of the fish just kept rising to midges. We spent the morning making delicate cast after delicate cast, and enough rejections to make you crazy, but in the end a rods were bent and smiles were not lacking.

In fact, one of my favorite things about the day was the realization that there were a lot of fish in that river, and they were educated. They act as proper trout should - snubbing a fly if the drift was off, but greedily taking it if the presentation and imitation were accurate. I feel like most Colorado rivers have the X-factor of fish that will take anything that resembles a nymph, or slurp down your indicator leaving one baffled as to "why that happened". Not so with 11MC.

After the hatch was well over, I moved to midge pupa and baetis patterns. One of the first sights I was greeted with was 14" fish sitting in shin-deep gravel just waiting to be stalked, and then picked off by my favorite style of fishing - micro-nymphing.

I spent a large chunk of time walking the river, getting a feel for it and spotting fish. Probably even spent less time actually fishing then I usually would. By the end of the day I had caught my fill of fish and was convinced that this was my new home.

On the 7th, I returned with my wife and some friends of the family. The trico spinner fall was present, but not as strong and the fishing was a little tougher (mostly, I spent the morning trying to help our friends put one on the line).

On the 14th, Ben Robb (his good buddies Matt and Chris) and I headed up to give it a go. The tricos were still a force to be reckoned with and Ben landed this spectacular Brown that had decided to gorge on tricos just 25 feet upstream of him. I spent a lot of the day getting acquainted with some deeper nymphs and did very well in the seems and pocket water using a tungsten hare's ear trailed by a grey midge pupa.

I also discovered that there were Snake River Cutt's in the river and as is my habit to prove that there is something mentally wrong with them, I tied on a large Power Ant and had a nice 15" fish take it on the first cast. (Side note: Jay lived in Jackson for a number of years and we learned if a Chernobyl Ant won't get a SRC to rise, then just tie on a Power Ant. None of those food source made much sense so I concluded that these fish had brain issues. In my years since then I've never cast to a SRC, in any river system, that wouldn't rise to one of those two patterns! It works without fail from about May until Sept. I guess they are just opportunistic fish at heart.)

In the end, my Shan-gri-la view of 11MC was jaded a bit by realizing that the river is a zoo of fishermen, tubers and campers. Though that won't stop me from going back!

Thanks to Jim and Kevin for showing me the ropes. Now I've got to just get back out there with them in the winter!

Tight Lines,

-Jeff