On the River: Dream Stream, South Platte River

November 7 and 21, 2009

Michelle and I travel to Colorado Springs quite frequently to visit friends and family. Whenever possible, I try and sneak away for a half day or so and hit some of the great rivers in that area. The Dream Stream (South Platte between 11 mile Reservoir and Spinney Reservoir) has always had an allure to it.

Sure, it gets packed with fisherman looking for "the big one", coming to put a notch on their belt, and earn bragging rights with their friends - it's nice to do that every once in a while. In all fairness though, It is a pretty excellent river. Other than privately owned water, the state has a general lack of "spring creek" water, and while the Dream Stream, Cheeseman, Black Canyon and the Taylor C and R are not spring creeks, tailwater rivers do create a very spring creek-like environment.

I actually feel that is the main draw for me to go to these rivers. The monster fish are fun (and a typical, true spring creek does produce monsters as well because they are insect factories), but I really am there because they are finicky, small fly, hard-to-catch, sight nymphing (and dry-fly) fish.

Having said all that, when the opportunity arose, I jumped at a few chances to fish the Dream Stream, especially during my favorite season ... the late Fall, when crowds have diminished on the river.

To my sadness, the Dream Stream is definitely an exception to that rule. In fact, I think the crowds were stronger. We showed up at about 9 AM on both days and there were already 15 cars that had beat us, and that was just to the one parking spot, I could see glistening fields of cars at various other locations. In my limited experience with this river it does make sense, and I even think that the late fall, all the way through spring, is where the river gets its moniker.

Having fished the river in the middle of the summer, and not being too impressed, I am convinced that it is primarily a psuedo-steelhead river. There seem to be increased numbers of rainbows (most likely lake run) in the river starting in the fall, and they are probably bulking up for their spring spawning season. You will also find almost everyone on the river in this timeframe fishing an egg pattern, or bright fly, of some sort.

In these two outings we did well. The first trip was Ben and I, and we spent the morning targeting a couple of fish in the 24"+ range down in the lowest stretch, just above 11 Mile. We each hooked up with one of them. Ben tied into a brown that was pushing the 32" mark with his first cast on a Blacktail Baetis. The fish actually swung for the fly!!!! But, it was a short 3 second fight before the fly pulled out.

I also hooked a large Kokanee on a baetis pattern, picked up a few fish on the Poly-wing Baetis (the late fall on the Dream Stream can have EPIC baetis hatches if the wind isn't too crazy). The real stumper of the day was pods of feeding Cutthroat that I tried my hardest and couldn't get to happen.

Most of the Cutts were well over the 20" mark, and I would find them congregated together. They were definitely feeding, and I exhausted most of my patterns on them, pulling all the stops, fishing midge down to size #26 on 7x. I lipped a few here and there but never landed one of the bigger ones. I would run across the occasional riser, tie on a Poly-wing Baetis, land him and then move on, but none of the risers ever topped the 18" mark.

The second day was just Michelle and I and fished almost exactly like the day Ben and I were there. Being two weeks later, there were definitely more rainbows in the river, so our hook-ups were more frequent. We did take a few fish on egg patterns, but when possible, I still stuck to fishing the Gammarus Scud, Blacktail Baetis, Poly-wing Baetis and midge.

All in all, it was some pretty spectacular Fall fishing, except for the ever-present wind.

Tight lines,

-Jeff

Jackson Wyoming 2009: Part 3 of 7

October 5, 2009

Part 3

Day 2 is when the snow hit.

We went to sleep the night before and knew we were in for a bit of snow, nothing much really ... until we awoke at about 1 AM with the tent roof resting about 1 foot above our faces! It was quite hilarious really, Jay was the first to notice this abnormality so he woke up and proceeded to remove the snow from the roof of the tent by pushing up. Josh, who was sleeping the closest to the wall that the snow fell to woke up convinced that a large animal was attacking him (which is a pretty normal response to a very weird noise just outside the tent)!

All in all, we woke up twice more that night to relieve the tent of snow strain. When morning hit we were most concerned about getting our cars out of camp (a solid 2 miles from a paved road).

After a lengthy morning of shuffling gear, getting breakfast and tying some flies we decided to fish Blacktail ponds for the morning, and then spend a bit of time on the Snake. The weather was pretty miserable, which had our hopes up for baetis.

Unfortunately, we arrived at Blacktail Ponds only to find the Cutthroat population was pretty decimated. What was the true cause we don't know, though later in the week we heard rumor from some others that the spring creek had been heavily poached (very sad day). All I know is that a 1/4 mile spring creek that usually holds 200 fish, was at best holding 25. We made the best of what we could, but the saddest factor of all was that the baetis were rolling off like some sort of odd "reverse rain" (see the video, just before the camera ducks underwater and you'll see the blanket of baetis). Had the fish numbers been there, we would have no doubt been in baetis heaven!

We had a couple of fish on, landed a few, then we decided to head downstream to the main current of the Snake River. The Snake turned out to be a good time, mostly catching smaller fish in the 12" range on dries.

All in all, I wouldn't consider the day a loss. With the morning's events it took us until about noon to get on the river, so we mostly decided to make a day of fishing and testing out the camera equipment to see what it could do. While the fishing may have been pretty poor, we did get to see Greg's Canon 5D Mark II camera do some pretty excellent performing with the underwater camera bag.

We also took advantage of the nasty weather, and Greg got some great arial shots of Jay casting at the end of the day.

© 2009 Greg M. Cooper

Gotta make lemonade out of lemons right?

-Jeff

On the River: Taylor River C and R, Gunnison, Colorado

October 24 and 31, 2009

And again, I will say that I love Fall fishing! Michelle was itching to hook up with some big fish, and I was itching to get onto the river with some decent weather overhead. There's nothing quite like fishing for 6 days in some of the worst weather (Wyoming trip) that will leave you wanting a calm, sunny blue day.

Two weekends in a row Michelle and I found such days ... and we capitalized! I think for this blog, I'll just let the photos do the talking. If you've read my previous posts on the Taylor C & R there's not much more I can say. Tough, big fish, small tippet and a lot of loss. But every once-in-a-while you strike it rich and the winds are calm(er)(they never really stop), the sun is overhead, the fish are in spotting lies and moving pretty well for nymphs.

Day one produced a solid 10 fish, one of which was a 24" brown that Michelle lipped, had on for 3 seconds, and then pulled right out. She later redeemed herself with this rainbow that had some pretty serious "chunk" to it.

I caught a good number of fish, and near the end of the day spotted a "long as your leg" rainbow. I fished to him for a solid 45 minutes, changing out patterns constantly, and I think I hooked him one time, but it was so short I can't even be sure.

The next weekend brought the same fortune, but with even BETTER weather! We ended up getting out a little late in the day, but things were so good that even Michelle wanted to stay past sundown, so we fished until the light was so low that we could barely see the indicator.

It was near the end of the day when I hooked THE PLANET. Yes, that's right, THE PLANET. I've never dubbed a fish such a term before, but then again, I've never hooked a fish that size.

The light was fairly low, but we were up in some flats where the water was only 18" deep. I had a slight section of water that there was no glare on, and that's when I saw him turn a little bit. It was all I needed to see to know that I would need to spend some time fishing to that fish. It was such a large fish and in such a perfect lie. I was able to fish to him with my favorite rig (baetis, micro split shot and a micro indicator).

After 20 or so well placed drifts my indicator slowed ... my heart stopped ... and he took off. His first action was to surface (?#@? I'm not sure how to describe it, but he was too large to jump, so it was more like a submarine surfacing where the bow of the ship comes out of the water, but the tail of the craft is too weighty to allow it to come completely out of the water). It was at that moment that we realized he was not only 32" but as round as they come. I'm confident he was at least 20 lbs+

After surviving two quick runs he was just hanging out, no doubt regaining his strength, when ... nothing. No fast run, no jump, nothing. My line just went slack. I thought for sure the flies had pulled out because there was no reason for me to not have the fish on anymore, but he was gone and so were my flies. Must have had a knick in the line that finally gave way. It wasn't even that a knot had pulled out.

This is it folks ... The only evidence I have that the "planet" even exists.

Another day ...

-Jeff

On the River: Gunnison River, Gunnison, CO

October 17, 2009

Michelle and I got out Saturday afternoon for a little memorable Fall fishing. If you are one of those people who start winding down your fishing season after high summer I cannot express to you how much good fishing can be had in the fall and late fall (not to mention winter).

It is such a great time to be on the river. Typically, the crowds are almost completely gone and the weather is superb. It's the only season where you can be cool, wearing a sweater, but still feel like a sunny, warm, summer day (if that makes any sense).

It was a typical fall day for us too. The sky was a crisp blue, the water was low and clear, and the fish were in slow, shallow water. In Colorado, where baetis can pop off any day of the year, I personally think the fish respond better to the surface in the fall because of the low, clear, slower moving water.

And so, we found ourselves fishing blacktail baetis with a micro split-shot and micro indicator; and fishing poly-wing baetis to slow sippers (a lot of times we like to rig two rods, but we still just share one, then if you're fishing the nymph rod and see a riser ... switch out rods and you're ready to roll).

The day was quite pleasant but it wasn't until the later half that we came up on a long pool with about 10 fish steadily rising as baetis passed over them. The photo of the nice brown was the first fish we took on dries and Michelle hooked him in water that was about 6" in depth. It was a beautiful thing! We ended up landing a solid 8 fish on the poly-wing baetis anywhere from 6" to 14".

These are the days I live for!

-Jeff

Sincerest Apologies

November 13, 2009

Ah, the craziness of life. Posting has been slow as of late, not due to a lack of fishing, but mostly due to a lack of time. Currently, I am behind posting multiple days of the Wyoming trip, a Gunnison River day, a Taylor River day, and a South Platte "Dream Stream" day. I apologize.

But ... I take this opportunity to justify myself and let you all know that part of the craziness is a huge Allen Brothers push in marketing. If you are out there, across the country, and you go to fly fishing shows, you should try and meet up with us at one.

We've been working like crazy to get into shows this year, and a few magazines. We're planning on running ads in Fly Fisherman and Fly Rod and Reel in their January through April issues and if you can make it to one of the shows you should stop in and check us out (hopefully Jay and I will both be at all the shows)!

We are planning on stops at Denver, CO, Pleasanton, CA and Detroit, MI. If things go well enough, we may even add a few shows!

Hope to see you out there! Until then, I'll keep posting when I get a free moment.