Waning September Brings Warmth to the PT 29Sep15

I headed back to the PT today and arrived early enough at the Nature Center to approach on cooler water. Good thing as the AM was much more productive as to size than the PM. Best flies were the rainbow warrior and the silver surfer - I sensed the muck and off color green at 400 cfs would make "pearl" productive, and it worked. I caught plenty of rainbows/cutbows and scored 5 of great size - two even topping 20" perhaps... I know these look similar but believe me, the fish are different. I even caught a brown. though it wans't worthy of a frame. Nice day for me.

Streamer 301 Lesson Points 27Sep15

I learned stuff even from the class session on streamer fishing. Here are the key items IMO. Take 'em or leave 'em. The guys teaching moved almost exclusively to streamers in order to catch really big fish... sounds OK to me. That said, normal fly fishing will absolutely tend to catch more fish.

• Use the non-slip mono loop knot for nymphs and streamers - better action on the fly (I heard this too from a famous Gunny guide but never implemented it - I will practice it and employ it now).
• Vital to use a Type 3 sinking tip line (or sinking front section of 12'-15' called Rio VersiLine tied onto floating line) with ~4 ips (inches per second) sink to get the whole rig down fast and not have the streamer be too radically yanked up and down in the water (which is not natural). Rig after sinking section can simply be 4' of 2X (10# test) or even heavier; fluorocarbon preferred due to abrasion resistance) or 7 ft leader to 2X tippet.
• Employing the strip set vs rod raise set is key when using streaming (habits are hard to break though) - reason is that a rod lift will take the streamer up and away from the fish vs a full length strip will set the hook or just move the fly away fast and likely elicit a 2nd strike if the first was just a bump (which is very common trout tactic on prey supposedly).
• At some size (relative to the water and ecosystem but likely ~17"-19" in much of Colorado rivers) a trout becomes a much more aggressive predator in order to feed the bigger system - and often feeds from 3am to 8am but can be prompted to "strike" at almost any time.
• Good teacher online is Kelly Galloup (YouTube channel, etc.); great articulated flies and fly tying (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mI315iiRXA).
• SlumpBuster is excellent; Sculpzilla best articulated streamer;  brown Sex Dungeon is best crawfish streamer for PT; go big or go home.
• Hook sharpener and pliers needed as well as thermometer - really cold or really hot means slow retrieve else (50-60 degrees) go faster.
• Fish take prey head first not from behind; behind is just a bump or test.
• Bright day - bright fly and dark day - dark fly... use color sequencing on the water - take a pass with white, if nothing dark, if nothing light grey, if nothing dark grey/olive; sequence in till you find it. If fish chase but don't take, vary the retrieve then vary the color.

CoWW Fall Outing To The Arkansas 25Sep15-27Sep15

Some of the CoWWs and Tom Wilke stole 3 fabulous days in Big Horn Sheep Canyon of the Arkansas River Valley. We camped in the best spots in Hayden Ck CG (#10 & #11) and fished the Ark every day with good results supported by great fall weather. Highlights included Rob's swim and pole toss - though Dave found and recovered his rod downstream sans reel, Tom's 11+ mile hike up 4700 feet elevation past Bushnell Lks on Rainbow trail - recon suggests the middle lake had the largest cutthroats, the Sagittarius Astrophysicist, fall color on the aspens, custom totties and food prep, presentation of the tactical beverage entry tools from SuperFly and new white feathers to him for full membership in the CoWW, and a general sense of very well being among friends despite some being absent. A variety of fishing techniques succeeded and failed... we had decent BWO and PMD/Red Quill hatches on occasion which afforded dry dropper fun. We did well nymphing as well with dark stoneflies, red CJs and gray RS2s doing the biggest damage - Tom Wilke even fished with us one day and caught and landed (with a bit of help from Greg's net) the first fish on fly rod of his life! What did not work were stimulators and hoppers (whaaaat?). My big fish was a 17" brown (90% of my fish were browns) caught in the riffle just above Lone Pine... I caught a passel of fish daily and the whole team typically caught some. We also fished Chaffe Co line, Rincon (more rainbows here), and a good spot 5 miles below Coaldale (a simple pull off on the river side of the road). Colorado and our CoWW outings are so cool.

The One

Dave fighting The One 

Tom with his first 22 in Trout.

Pigs From The PT 24Sep15

I took the afternoon on the Pueblo Tailwater of the Arkansas River... this is my first return to the PT in five months. With flows seemingly stable around 400 cfs the river is wadable though it was murky green and pretty warm. It had enough push still too that I did swim. Fish were in the deeper holes. I did have a solid day with a number of big fish including these fat 18-20+" rainbows. Unfortunately the big one broke off. It was tailwater nymphing and the most productive bugs (due to the murkiness IMO) was the rainbow warrior #22 and a red headed black emerger midge #22. I even caught a crayfish today; he was about the size of a softball! I'm looking forward to the CoWWs outing this weekend.

RMNP Stuff 15Sep15-17Sep15

From FB ya know Kala and I went to RNMP for some awesome days. In addition to the FB observations I did recon on Lake Arrowhead... supposedly one of the best cutthroat lakes in the park. I got the shot here from Trail Ridge Rd and while its 2.5 miles point to point, the cross country route from my viewpoint would be 5X that with serious vert. Fortunately there are multiple approaches but all hard. Also here's a cutty (with water on the lens) from Dream Lk taken on Adams (but others snagged my ant) and I caught browns on dries on the BigT in Moraine Pk. The opening pic is Kala & me at Lk Haiyaha - we were hiding from cold and very high wind - going was so rough I didn't fish it!

10 Mile Ck Browns 12Sep15

I hit 10 Mile Ck today near Officer's Gulch very briefly "on the way home." I caught some small but pretty browns like last year. I used a smallish royal stimi and dropped a variety of green or red nymphs. The water is pretty low flowing but cold and not super productive. When riding along the creek earlier in the week I did see larger brook trout upstream closer to the ponds but they were too long a walk for my time allowed.

The Double and Double Black Diamond in Summit 10Sep15

Kala and I were fortunate today to follow yesterday's ride up and down the dam and then down the Blue River to N Park Ponds on the rec-way (the Blue River rec path in Silverthorne has tighter turns and more folks than what we've encountered on the rest of Summit's rec path) with a hike into the Eagles Nest Wilderness. We strode Mesa Cortina trail for several miles into the wilderness and enjoyed views of Williams & Buffalo Mtns, Silverthorne, Lake Dillon and, well, the wilderness. The aspens are just starting to change and in this wilderness there's an amazing amount of new pine growth on the floor taking seed from their blown down, beetle fatigued parents. It's hunting season in CO and we saw a full camo bow-hunter, backpacker on the hike back to the car. We recently got new hiking poles for Kala - adjustable Leki carbon ultras - OMG so light, so rugged, so adjustable - 5/5. At lunch I met a pretty young couple on day 85 of traversing the CDT - they are of course southbound to Mexico - cool. After a brief respite I enjoyed a full single handed race lap with some 10 knot winds and whitecaps aboard Mon Ami. There's a reason Lake Dillon is called the double black diamond of sailing lakes - mountain winds change and gust. While I didn't film the unintentional 32° move 'cause I was kindof busy at the time - it was a rush shit was tumbling all around my cabin and I was also otherwise flying around the lake. Skipper Dave's skills are improving. This season's roller furler conversion on Mon Ami does allow me to quickly trim in the jib and try differently sized front sails (smaller typically thanks goodness). I also need to shout out to the Canon PowerShot D20 I recovered from the PT after it spent the '14-'15 winter months in the river - after it dried out it takes better images than the waterproof Fuji which replaced it. That said, I did get a new Canon EOS 6D body to replace my 2D; wow, a full frame, super-fast 20M-pix wonder. A simple shot from the fireworks deck of the aspen in the back yard is pretty good even in low light. I'm registered for intermediate photography classes starting soon to try to improve to its level.

Aspen Starting The Change 09Sep15

The aspen in the back yard are beginning the change to fall colors.

No Hits, No Bugs, No Fish @ Snake River 08Sep15

Posted conditions were good (3/4) on Snake River in Keystone and Gore Ck. With the Blue below Green Mtn flowing at 800cfs I stayed small and I hit the Snake since I'd never been. This is a supposed recovering mining issue from Montezuma and stocked with big 'bows by Keystone and supporting it's own brood of brookies. Near as I can tell, all of this is marketing. I fished 2.5 miles of the Snake River (supposedly it's prime) and got no hits, saw no bugs and caught no fish. Too bad as the location is super nice in Kosbab's back yard. I don't know what the conditions report was about - I scared up only two 6" brookies in shallow water and saw two other dead 12" rainbows - that was the extent of signs of life. The river is milky green in color with banks bronze from some minerals, and little vegetation on the bottom. It's a pretty setting at times, though among the condos, but not pretty enough for no fish - I won't be back.