Fishless in the Snow

I left early Saturday in no particular hurry headed toward Parshall to fish the Williams Fork.

I struggled picking a river to fish this weekend, but after hearing this little tail water has been fishing well I left with thoughts of egg sucking leaches tempting a few strong rainbows. As I drove up over Berthoud Pass I began calculating the benefits of hitting the Yampa River instead. Back and forth, pros and cons, time on the water vs time in the truck. Tick tock. Parshall was at 19F, I kept driving.

As I drove along the Colorado River in the early morning sunlit fog I, for the first time since moving here, began to feel part of this place. Not sure if it was the fact that I had no solid plans on where to fish or where to stay, or if it was the wide open landscape stretched in front of me, but something was working on me. I drove on. I listened to the Classic station playing BTO, The Allman Brothers and Janis Joplin. My mind opened up and I thought of new ways to spend quality time with Stefan and Nadya. A bit of Pirsig. Landscape changes from beetle infested pine forests to dry clay rock structures to low sagebrush mountains.

Up and over Rabbit Ears pass and down into the Yampa valley and I was soon in Steamboat looking for the local flyshop. By noon I was hiking upstream in 40F air, snowshoes keeping me above the thigh deep snow and 40F water. I fished for a few hours with no hits at all but enjoyed the solitude and wide open space. I even fished in town, where the locals said it was "hot" and I did not have a hit. About 4:00 I went back to the flyshop and they said the river shuts off around 11:30 these days due to snow melt off. Should have been there at 9:00. Didn't know that. New rules. I found a Holiday Inn and checked in for the night, comfortably exhausted.

Next morning I was up before the sun and drove out of town as the full moon set over the westerly mountains. 90 minutes later I was at the trailhead to the Williams Fork.

I strapped on snowshoes and hiked in for a mile and a half over a mesa, down and up a ravine and then, finally, down over the hill to the Fork. Sitting stream side sweating, waiting for the chill to set in, I basked in the solitude. A bald eagle flew up stream. I fished for 4 hours and did not move a fish, again. Midges everywhere. I hiked back out and drove home, thinking of the western fishing experience I had, the bighorn sheep, elk and mule deer I saw. With a trip like this, I'm fine not catching fish every once in a while.

Baetis - 2

So I am hours away from hitting the road.  The forecast is not ideal for a surface feeding frenzy - sunny and warm- and reports are indicating that sometime next week the bugs will pop.  Should be enough nymphs in the water column to get some action, though.

I am reminded of one of the better BWO hatches I have experienced.  I was on Wisconsin's Spring Creek, about 45 minutes north of Madison, in the early season. Cold, grey and windy.  Typical mid-western day when winter just isn't ready to give up.  About 11:00 I saw some aggressive rises and soon discovered the fish were keyed in on BWO duns that were being knocked over by the wind.  As they struggled to right themselves from the surface film the fish would whack them.   I caught a few and then, just as quickly, the hatch was over.

Or maybe the better hatch was that day on Timber Coulee....

Baetis

Ok, so the thaw is on.  I've heard the birds chirping some new melodies, and Nadya saw a bee in the window the other day.  I have two free bachelor weekends coming up & all this is making me itchy to wet a line.   This is the time of year when Baetis/BWO will be coming off on overcast mid-days.  A little cloud, a little sleet, and a little luck could create a perfect storm bringing these pretty olive bugs to the surface with their slate-grey wings pointing skyward like a flotilla of miniature sailboats. 

And I have options.  It could be a road trip exploration to the Arkansas River, lodging for a few nights in a chain motel, eating lunch in the truck as the heater thaws stiff toes, and penciling new notes in the margins of the Gazetteer.  Or it could be a trip up over Rabbit Ears Pass to Steamboat Springs to check out the Yampa River, a trip the local flyshop is sponsoring on private waters.  Four fishers, two guides, and probably a bottle of whiskey to help us tie better flies at a table in one of the hotel rooms late at night.

Stay tuned.

Deer Hair

This is not a blog about fishing, or fish, or even water.  Rather, wanted to let you all know that we spent a nice Sunday at home today, watching two mule deer lounge in the 4 acre vacant parcel across the street from us.   One was a very big non-typical buck, with points too numerous to count.  Seems they came over to stand behind a house and 10ft privacy fence to get some relief from the strong winds today.

Trout in the Classroom - Jan Update

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Stefan's steelhead fly

Time to put the rod way for the year

I concluded, after a successful one and a half hours on the stream, that its time to put the rod away for the season.

I spent nearly a week of holiday vacation in western Pennsylvania that was grey, cold and cloudy every day.  Driving home from DIA at 9:30 a.m., the brilliant sunshine started to slowly push the fog and ice crystals from my brain letting the first thoughts of fishing seep in.

It seem to be a classic winter day for fly fishing, starting out clear and cold with a warm afternoon on the horizon.  It seemed to hold the promise of a mid day midge hatch so, after getting home and unloading, I decided to spend a few hours in the water.

By 12:30 I was stream side in Boulder Creek near the CU practice fields.  It was in the upper forties with nice winter sunshine reaching out into the river which made me feel like being selective.  I walked up the stream in no particular hurry, one hand balancing my 2wt rod and the other pushed down into a pocket to keep the chill off.  I stopped at the likely looking places, peering into the clear water looking for a pod of fish lined up poking their noses up at midges.  None here, none there, none anywhere.   It may have been a little early, I thought, and although I did see a few midges there were certainly no feeding fish to be seen.

After discarding the romantic notion of placing very small midges in the surface film upstream of feeding fish, I tied on a triple rig of Yellow Roayal Humpy dry fly followed by a #18 grey CDC emerger and a #18 olive bead head hunchback nymph of some sort.  Setting up at below a plunge pool I tossed the rig maybe 15 feet.  Some fish were feeding at the bottom, including some nice sized fish for this stream, but not interested in my offerings.  After putting one split shot on I caught a few 6-8" fish.  I put on a second shot and the dinner bell rang.  In an short time I landed 7 fish including a few 14" browns, all on the green thing, without moving from the spot on which I was standing.

At 2:00 I stopped and sat on the bank for a few moments to soak a few rays.  Now the midge spinners were really starting to thicken up.

Content, I decided that 7 fish in a few hours was good for a winter day and a great way to close the season for the year.  It's a good thing it was Dec 28, and that January is a fishable month .     

Salmon Fishing

I’ve been thinking of salmon fishing lately.  Not salmon fishing the tribs off of the great lakes, although that, too, is special. I have some fond memories assembled in my mind of fishing on both sides of Lake Michigan with good friends and the Lake Erie feeders with my dad.   But no, lately I’ve been thinking of the more traditional form of hunting the king of fishes, the Atlantic salmon.

The thoughts first crept into my mind the other day as I was packing my gear bag for a day trip to the local trout waters.  For various reasons, some of which I don’t yet fully understand, I have around eight boxes of flies that that I juggle around each time I go out after the salmon’s smaller cousin.   This past weekend I was fumbling through them again as I packed.  By this time of year they are essentially a disorganized mess.  I can usually find a few split shot rolling around in a few of them and a couple strands of tippet still attached to the dry-droppers (as if I was planning on re-using that 7x again). I think there is a broken fly in there somewhere and certainly some mangled ones, and maybe a gum wrapper that should come in useful sometime, somewhere.  The useful flies that are in there are certainly not lined up all nice and pretty like they were at the end of the fly tying season, lined up like polished fighter jets on the aircraft carrier waiting to get called into action.

In general there are a few dry fly boxes, a few sub-surface boxes and usually a few specialty boxes.  The funny thing is, of all these flies, I probably use only 5% of them throughout the season.  And even then I usually go for the same few patterns.  There’s the bushy dry with a highly visibly wing used to hang the dropper fly in rough water, there is some sort of tiny thread midge with a bit of flash on it, a bead head pheasant tail, and a black wooly bugger.

All of this chaos brings my thoughts to salmon fishing because one of the reasons I love salmon fishing is its relative simplicity.   One box of flies tucked into the inner wader pocket, forceps and clippers hanging from a boot-lace lanyard, a spool of tippet in the shirt pocket, a wading staff belted around the waist and a net.  Add a double-handed spey rod and large arbor reel and that is all that is required.

I also love salmon fishing because of the fly box, singular.  The fly box is really one of the two forms of color brought to this game of chase.  It’s lined with beautiful flies of a decent size in oranges, bright greens, blacks and purples.  There are usually a few rows of tube flies, a few rows of doubles, and a few of singles all in size small, medium and large.  Together with the fly line it is interesting that these are the main forms of color that link the fish to the fisher.  All else - the water, the sky, the streamside and even the fish - are shades of grey in my memory.

I also love salmon fishing because of the casting.   One hand placed above the reel and one hand loosely cradling the rod from below.   Line held between the cork and the index finger as the rod is lifted back over one shoulder, across the chest and up over the other shoulder before being snapped forward.  Swish… swish….shoot.  Over and over the sequence is repeated as the line shoots across the river, leaving a trail of water drops falling behind it.  Cast….cast….step, step, step.  Over and over the sequence is repeated as the fisher works down stream.  Down and across and the line falls in loose wiggles.  A mend or two upstream controls the flight of the fly in the water column.  It seems like a ballet of sorts and it’s all a rather meditative experience.  So much so that, many times, I have been so totally mesmerized by the casting sequence that it really did not matter if a big salmon slowly pulled at the color at the end of the line or not. 

My mind quickly reverts back to today’s reality as I snap the fly box closed and toss it into my over stuffed gear bag.  Disorganized or not, I love trout fishing just as much.

Trout in the Classroom Fry with Egg Sacks

I week after hatch - Alevin (sac-fry) stage - with egg sacks attached

October 2, 2010 - Boulder Creek

Got my October fish.  On Saturday, I had a few hours suddenly present itself around 2:00.   I quickly got my gear loaded and pushed through 15 minutes of traffic across Boulder to get a mile up into Boulder Canyon.   By 3:00 I was in the water with my 1 wt.  Low & clear with boulders making it a pocket water game.   Had at least six strikes on the surface that I missed.  Landed three browns between 8 and 12 inches - two on attractor dries and one on a golden caddis pupa dropper.