Fished the Big Thompson with guide John B. I have to say John was a great guide and a joy with whom to spend a day on the water.I started the day from Boulder around 6:00 am with a cup of coffee, banana, and bran muffin as breakfast on my drive up to meet John. It was gorgeous driving up Route 36, with the semi-arid foothills on the left side and the sun rising on the right. I met John at a parking lot along side Rt 36 across from the Black Bear Inn in Lyons where we hopped into his pickup for the remainder of the drive up to Estes Park, after which we turned down another valley on Rt 34..
We parked the truck along the road, geared up, and walked over the bank to the river. Here, the Big Thompson is about 20 ft wide, mostly fast pocket water, in a steep canyon. The wind was not our friend this day. The technique was to cast a triple nymph rig, hung under a floaty strike indicator, upstream and dead drift it down past us.
John showed me the first time and then I went at it. His first comment was, “Oh yeah, you’ve fished before”, which immediately put me at ease and reinforced my confidence for the rest of the day. Its great to fish with a guide when you don’t have to worry about him critiquing you.
At lunch we sat in a small park at a picnic table with the stream below us, watching the baetis come off. We caught a few on the surface with small baetis patterns.
Overall, we landed about 12 native browns/rainbows, had about 4 others on that got off, etc. The fish were not large, but man were they pretty.
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