St Vrain Creek - Sept 25, 2010

Nadya, Stefan and I went for a ride in the mountains to see the fall colors.   Although we were a week late, it was still beautiful to see and be out in the fall afternoon.   We drove the Peak to Peak Highway from Nederland with intentions of making it up into The Moraine in Rocky Mnt National Park to see the elk herds strut their stuff.  Fortunately, we got sidetracked and never made it that far.

As we drove the twisty two lane highway across the tops of the mountains, viewing expanses of green dotted with aspen yellow we saw a road leading off the left and decided to see where it would take us.  With signs directing us to Wild Basin we discovered a previously unknown to us access into the park.   After about 1/4 mile we came upon Carter Lake and stopped to have a snack under a ponderosa pine watching the view of the lake with mountains in the background.  I got talking to a guy who was just finished fishing and he told me the road continues for a while more.

After a few miles over the dusty road were at a trail head walking along the upper reaches of North St Vrain river.  The air hovered at the autumnal inflection point between coolness and warmth as we moved between dark pine shadows and sunny bluebird sky.  Golden aspens, grey boulders, light green moss and a bluebird sky broke the evergreen dominance into a thoughtful patchwork of colors.

We shot off the main trail down toward the river, ducking under pine boughs and walking over soft needles, and found a likely looking spot for me to cast a line.  As Stefan and Nadya stayed on the bank building a fort and a dam I fished tiny dry flies to eager fish.  The first one, a brook trout in it brilliant  spawning uniform, took my #18 parachute Adams and was reeled in by Stefan.  I caught a little brown and a smaller brookie before moving up to a small waterfall.   Here, I tossed a long cast into a far eddy and watched a cutthroat raise up and examine the fly before refusing it twice due to drag.  After a minor adjustment the fly floated true and I had Stefan reeling in a cutthroat.

Tricos

I was out for a walk yesterday morning about 7:00 on the North Teller Lake trail where is passes over South Boulder Creek.  Stood on the bridge looking upstream and saw thousands of tricos swarming over the stream.  There were also some very very tiny midges and #22 baetis duns in a spider net.

South Boulder Creek - Walker Ranch

Hiked in a little over a mile starting at Walker Ranch trail head at 7:00 am today with my large backpack filled with waders, lunch and rod.   Fished downstream from the South Boulder Creek picnic benches.   It was a bluebird sky morning with temps in the upper 60s.  I caught about 6 or so browns, including two chunky and brightly colored ones.  Some on an attractor dry about size 14 of the Royal Humpy variety, and some on the #14/16 sunk bead head pheasant tail that was dragged behind it.  Lots of caddis on laying eggs on the surface.  Saw a small snake.  Ate a lunch streamside and then hiked for 35 minutes - all up and steep.  Water flows at 110 cfs and dropping like a stone to around 60.  As I sat on a mid stream boulder, I could see hundreds of tiny caddis worms wiggling in the wet algae left behind by the receding water.    Home by noon

Trout in the Classroom - Phase 2

Trout in the Classroom Equipment in Place

Crickets

The crickets have been out the last several weeks, and in the last few nights they have been very active.  We've been sleeping with the windows open nearly every night this summer and have had the pleasure of hearing these little creatures call to one another as the cool night air slowly wafts across the bed.

You all know the sound so I won't try to explain it, especially since I could not do it justice.  Let's leave it at the fact that these beautiful sounds are much more complex than can ever be described in a few words.

Cricket sounds are a gentle potion of both happy and sad at the same time, and remind me of the title of a Pink Floyd song, The Delicate Sound of Thunder.  At first, when you hear the crickets its often a small, faraway sound, and then it slowly creeps up closer to you until they are infiltrating your ears with that wonderful rumble...but you know from experience that the rain is not far behind.  As I listen to the crickets, I am thinking that this is one of the glorious sounds of summer, like the cicadas, the ice cream truck, and the joyful screams of kids playing in the sprinklers, yet it also means that autumn is not far behind.

Indeed, the air is cooler now and a bit more crisp than it was a few weeks ago and I am reminded that we must yet again brace for winter's grip on us.  Yet at the same time the crickets take me back to wonderful boyhood memories of scouting for deer prior to archery season, to a last fling with a small Wisconsin spring creek not so long ago, to Canadian fishing trips, and that childhood anticipation that came with the promise of another school year ready to begin.

Boulder Creek and Blue River

I fished Boulder Creek again on the way over to Breckenridge, where we stayed with some friends from Kansas City.  I arrived before 6:30 and started at Roger's Park area but found it to be not real productive, so I moved upstream to where I fished a few days ago.  It was a little better here, though the fish were not nearly as aggressive as last time.   I picked up a few small browns and rainbows.  Very small grey caddis were swarming, and a handful of green drakes were coming off. 

I took the Peak to Peak Highway from Nederland to I-70 over to Breckenridge.  Shortly after arriving and saying hello to Nadya, Stefan and our friends we had a nice lunch together.   Afterward, Kevin and I went on a recon mission.  We stopped in the flyshop in Breck and then hit the Blue River near the Colorado Mountain College.   A storm had just moved out, and the skies were grey with some intermittent sprinkles.  I caught two nice browns - one smashed a Trude dry fly in the margin of the near  bank, and the other I saw flash at the #16 bead head pheasant tail dropper as it quickly slid under some overhanging willows on the far side. 

We fished down stream to the beaver ponds where Kevin was standing below the dam, casting up into the pond.  I could see some blue wing olive duns sitting on the surface across the pond, and fish were rising to them.  Kevin hooked one and I netted it as it slid over the dam's falls.

Just upstream from the dam the stream widened with a long riffled run.  I saw a few fish rising in 3 ft wide eddy on the far bank that was partially covered by an overhanging willow.  A good sized head slowly and repeatedly popped itself up out of the water far enough that I could see its eye.  I missed the takes after many futile drifts.

On the stream side of the eddy,  I later saw another fish rising to emergers in the current, sticking its nose out of the water that was clear enough to see that it was a large rainbow.   I tied on a #18 BWO emerger and after a few drifts I had the pleasure of seeing him rise up to it, open its mouth, and retreat down as I set the hook into the 20" fish - one of those fish that had a mouth that looked too big for its body.

Kevin was working some fish downstream from me.  One was a nice rainbow that was cruising the shallows near him,  slowly feeding on midges.   Kevin's dry was sucked under on one of the passes, and quickly pulled out of its mouth without stinging the fish.  A few minutes later we watched the fish come back and move up to the fly, suck it in, and Kevin put the hook into flesh.  A few minutes later I netted the 22" rainbow for him.

That afternoon, we took the kids out to the upper part of Dillon Reservoir where the Blue River entered.   Us, the kids, and the wives walked a good quarter mile through a willow thicket that paralleled the river and then opened up into a cool little beach.   As the kids played on the beach Kevin hooked a rainbow on Powerbait hung under a bobber, and walked to shore with it so Piper could reel it in.  After that, we drove around for a bit looking for another place to fish, only to end up back at the reservoir but at another spot.   The kids were entertained on the beach and rocks, and I hooked up with a nice rainbow that I caught on a sunk Powerbait that Stefan soon reeled in.  Kevin landed another.   Piper was a trooper, rolling up her pants, wading barefoot into the lake with us and casting quite well for a long while.  

Later that evening, Kevin and I went back to the Blue River, and I caught two more fish in the willow lined run - a small one on the BHPT dropper, and a nice strong rainbow on a Royal Humpy dry.   We fished until dusk, at which time there were fish rising all over the place in the beaver pond, yet we failed to get a strike.  I did have a hit, though, as I dragged a big mouse pattern across the pond just after sunrise.    

Trout in the Classroom - Phase 1

I am leading the effort for a Trout in the Classroom project through the Trout Unlimited club here in Boulder.   We will be setting up this aquarium, getting trout eggs from the Dept of Wildlife, and having the students watch them grow.  At the end of the school year they will release them.  Over 200 middle school science and engineering students will be exposed to the program this year which teaches science and engineering fundamentals through this real life example.  The equipment, below, has finally arrived and I will be setting it up in the next few weeks.

Boulder Creek Triple Play - July 31 2010

After checking the stream flows at breakfast this morning, I changed my original plans of going to South Boulder Creek.   Flows at 200cfs are a bit high for that stream, and I didn't want to waste a 2 mile hike in for nothing.  So I quickly changed course and set out for Mid-Boulder Creek instead.   I drove about 12 miles up the canyon, to mile marker 32 or so, and pulled off a dirt frontage road of sorts that paralleled the river.   It was a cool upper 50's morning until the sun popped around through the canyon walls.

Water was quick and tumbly through this part of the canyon, but a bit more relaxed than other parts seemed on the drive up.   Almost immediately I was into my first fish, a small rainbow.   I worked my way up stream for a few hours picking off fish behind most likely looking places - behind boulders, along seams, under small plunge pools.  As I worked up stream, the rainbows changed into browns, and I also got a small brook trout.  As I climbed higher, the number and size of boulders also increased, creating swift channels and lots of pocket water.   High sticking techniques were in order here.

The trick of the day seemed to be a dry-dropper rig with a green Royal Humpy trailed by an amber caddis pupa.   Most of the fish were on the caddis.  Total count was about 12 fish. Flows were about 120cfs.  Moderate insect activity - mostly caddis and midges, a random green drake looking fly.  Home by 11:15am.

Natural Creativity

A future engineer inspired by being and creating outdoors?  Better then being in front of a TV or computer screen all day.  Check http://www.childrenandnature.org

The Kids

Spent a few hours with Nephew Alex and Niece Anna  yesterday at the Boulder kids Ponds, which are stocked with rainbows.  After a long while of no action, we finally found the fish stacked up at the cool water inlet.