Cult of the White Wing at 11Mile 27Apr14

Those who will now be known as the "Cult of the White Wing*" descended on 11 Mile Canyon after a Manningesque audible was made when agreeing the Arki BHSC caddis hatch trip was foiled by an increase to 1100cfs flows (that is, the Arki was blown out). Daryle, Bruce, Jim, Greg and I braved raging winds to make some casts, land some fish, lose some fish, drink awesome IPAs, and share some good times on the South Platte. Daryle joined for Friday and showed us how it was done - in a stellar move, as we pulled into stadium viewing to assess his technique, DD promptly hooked and deftly landed a big fish for us - cool. We dragged the camper into 11 Mile Canyon wondering what "closed" meant on the sign - we discover it meant closed as all the CGs were gated and locked. Undeterred we parked in a picnic spot for jambalaya (yum - thanks Greg) and GR8 beer (thanks Daryle) - JimY joined. We then went to camp in a Natl Forest CG, which was also closed and gated... so we went native on a horrid road but found level land next to a firepit and stopped the insanity - everybody's car navigated the road fine... we did not start the fire there for obvious reasons. The fishing was decent but challenging in 40mph gusting winds (multiple lost hat chases); Sat AM was so brutal that we lunched and split from the prime Spillway area seeking cover downstream. We found it and had a beautiful and mostly productive afternoon starting at the last tunnel and fishing both up and downstream. I had quite a few fish both days with most taking a sparkle RS2 or miracle midge... most were ~14" or so with one 17"er. Sat PM featured a really nice BWO hatch but switching to dry/dropper did not bring fish up for me. The water was gin clear running 100cfs. Daryle ruled Fri PM as mentioned but lost probably the biggest of the weekend; Greg had two good days as expected; Bruce caught 4 fish, including 2 browns on Sat PM.; and Jim had some on (we gotta fix that to keep "the bug" alive). Fajita dinner Sat eve was tasty as were the many varieties of  GR8 IPAs (thanks Jim and Bruce). Bruce made Sun breakfast and we all decided that the snow overnight, howling wind, and 37 degree temps made an early withdrawal the right plan.

He was that close.

* Daryle's Cult of the White Wing feather being held by Dave till next meeting.

New Day on the PT 19Apr14

Enjoy By with Kala capped a fine day on the PT. Flows were substantially up >400cfs today which made wading much more challenging but surely spread the fish out to the structures throughout the river. I recognized no hatches to speak of due to the increased flows on the day but I still did fine catching big rainbows when dropping tiny bugs directly in feeding lanes upstream from Valco parking. I only landed about 50% of the fish hooked up - causes were probably both my one-handed fishing and the heavy flows. The bummer was that right as I was planning to leave at 5pm I hooked a really big golden colored rainbow and fought her for 20min but she never seemed to tire (though I sure did)... I ultimately lost her with yet another mighty twitch and run. There were others with lost rigs, rock breakoffs and more. But the day was sublime... I caught two in a row in one structure which was then fished by a falcon who swooped down and snagged a 14'er right next to me - so cool. Here are some of the bigger ones... most over 16" and some over 19" today... all really healthy and strong. Springtime in the Rockies... Colorado is so cool.

What Is Brown? 11Apr14

I use a fountain pen to write in my lab notebooks. It's pretty retro but I never switched to note taking on pad, phone or even PC - though I own all these and use them for different things. It's probably some kind of character flaw. I prefer brown ink, which is also kind of weird I suspect. I've always used Omas Sepia but it has given me issues at times in consistency and runniness. So I went on the hunt for brown ink... I was looking for a pretty dark brown but not so dark as to tend toward dark grey or black. In addition to my Omas Sepia I acquired tsukushi  iroshizuku, Monteverde brown and Noodler's Ink #41 brown. Writing samples on HP bright white printer paper and the ink bottles are shown below. The results are in and I prefer the Tsukushi, which is a high end ink brand from Pilot in Japan. The Noodler's is very dark and my venerable Omas is too light and thin so it bled into the paper. I like the Monteverde too, which is a smidge lighter than the the Tsukushi. I used my limited edition Norman Rockwell Parker Duofold for the test as it is a converter load I could most easily change and clean. Anyway...

Epic Day on the PT with Browns & Fatties 10Apr14

Whoa... one of the best days fishing ever on the PT. The water was up finally to ~160cfs which is 2X my prior outing... the water was really turbid and all manner of things were coming down - especially in the AM after they raised the flows. I fished all day with AM upstream from Nature Center to the bridge and PM upstream from Valco parking to just past the hatchery. The AM was great with a BWO hatch and midge hatches but I was subsurface the whole time as it was working and I saw so few rises despite the hatches. I thought of leaving after lunch but I'm glad I didn't as the water cleared in the afternoon and I caught a bunch of big fish. I used a 4-fly long line nymphing technique good for this water and every bug worked... tung BH back ice mayfly (my fav weight), grey RS2 sparkle loop mayfly emerger, a variety of back and green midge larvae, and final drop to my Smethurst's variant (brown) or KF flasher (olive) midge emergers. The final midge worked best, especially on the biggest fish. Again in the AM I struggled a bit landing the big ones - I think I'm not so deft with the broken hand; especially disappointing was a huge brown which I thought was tired but mightily stole my rig as I bent down to net him. There were other big remote releases too - trying to horse the fish in too quickly wasn't wise so I eased up a bit in the PM and brought in oodles of huge, fat rainbows and one brown. Total weight on the day had to exceed 60 pounds and I had 4 fish ~20" or more and nearly all were >17"! I was lucky there was a family in awe when I landed the longest and heaviest fish so I got the hero pic below. I am very sore, my allergies are screaming but I am very satisfied with this first real epic outing of 2014.

Slow Fishin' The PT with DD 05Apr14

Fishin' was kind of slow but I got to go with DD so that was special. Daryle netted the first fish though she was no brute (took a pheasant tail). I personally must've been slow as well on this 50 degree cloudy day as I went 1 for 6 in the morning session and lost too many rigs! We both did. We fished upstream from Valco parking again and fortunately crowds were modest for a Sat. I had some nice fish on but did remote releases on many - even ones which I had close to net. Oh well. I was also attempting sub-surface movies and "need practice" is generous. The PM fared better for me with a 4 for 5 landing pace including one decent 17.5"er. While the fish were hard to see for us we got lots to look at at 3pm when a nice BWO hatch brought great fish up on emergers and duns... I tied on the requisite dry-dropper rig using my new hackle-stacker biot body BWO and an RS2 dropper but I must've had the wrong colors or sizes as I missed it all despite deft prestentation... it was exciting nonetheless to be mid-hatch on home waters in springtime again. What did work were sub-surface olive and grey-brown midges in several styles including my variants of Krystal flasher and Smethurst's midge as well as my flash loop wing RS2 in the PM.