That's nearly/hardly sufficient. A mod incarnation of the Dead & Allman Bros, all in one night. So good. Goose — Anspach, Rick Mitarotonda (vocals, guitar), Trevor Weeks (bass),
Ben Atkind (drums), and recent addition Jeff Arevalo (percussion) —
play improvisational rock. They even made $ during pandemic with online shows - no dowl here. Click through image for concert.
April wanes and and the flows were low and technical still @ ~70cfs but the day was glorious in 11 Mile Canyon today. Kala and I arrived at the last bridge parking, after observing 34 cars parked, about 10:30AM. Midge sign was evident but we didn't hook up well till later mid-day as BWOs started popping. Kala caught three but "her guide" fumbled the landings. Dave caught a bunch on black ice weight, MHFBPT, RS2, Destiny's Child, and the Awesome Midge. The fish included many nice 18"-20" cutbows, some small spotted, some rainbow like. It was a blast in a narrow timeframe and limited fishing holes. Kala was nearby for the 20"er presentation. We were all Rodfathered today... I deployed the 3 wt Brookie and scored plenty with it - Kala used the venerable 4 wt Cutthroat and did well. It was my 1st "big" outing with a 3 wt here - sweet wonderousness - landing takes a bit longer but wow what fun.We hit Cerberus on the way home.
I have owned a number of pairs of G3 Guide Pants from Simms. The fit is awesome. However, I need to alert folks that reliability and longevity is not good enough for such expensive ($500) gear. Basically, through four pairs of these things I've determined that they begin to leak around 30-40 outings; that's less than 1/2 year for me... and I don't beat them up on these wearings either. When they begin to leak I ship them back for repair and use my backups (which typically have been a prior pair of G3 Guide Pants that have, or have not, been repaired to non-leaking). I sometimes do a repair myself but one is not supposed to repair the seam between the GoreTex pant and the neoprene booty, and that is where I often have trouble. So, on the 2nd or maximally 3rd trip back to Simms for repair, I get a return notice saying they are "beyond repair" and they are returned to me "as is," aka leaking. At that point I will buy another pair and move the 2nd best pair to backup. So, when I found this chart on the Simms site, intended to justify their high cost, and the standard measurement was 150 outings, I had to laugh - in a dark and misled kind of way. Despite their own chart suggesting 5 years at 30 outings, I get an average of ~40 outings before leakage and then need to do a hard replacement after 75, or 90 max, due to terminal failure. My version of this chart would show 2X the daily cost for a short period and I've payed $2000 to cover 5 years of service. I am now searching for alternative wading pants and will be trying the Patagonia Swiftcurrent Pants.
I became a bit antsy with no pending Rodfather builds, so I fixed that. My only current "in starting rotation" Sage build now is the 7'10" 1 weight TXLF. I bought a Chinese blank and some inexpensive, but light, hardware to mate with it. The blank even came with a sleeve. Everything included, the rod will be ~$80 and may rival the 2 weight recently built for small stream fishing. I'm hoping it can replace my Sage 1 weight - mine is the SageBuster 1.
I was able to craft a new custom grip for SB1. I just dove on my leftovers and made a smaller half wells grip. The weight of the glue is noticeable when comparing my custom grip with a single turned block of grade A cork - but worth it for the cool, IMO.
Kala & hiked again on this fine Sunday. We rambled around the AFA on some new and some known trails. We discussed unexpectedly not having seen any wildflowers thus far this year - and then we did. We then enjoyed a nice evening dining with Jim & Mary. We hit the new, and excellent, Ambli restaurant in College Park. It was excellent - highly recommended.
Pop rock lost a legend to Covid 19 recently, actually a year ago from complications... Adam Schlesinger, co-founder of Fountains of Wayne, a fav beyond measure, and a composer of so many more songs on Broadway and TV and elsewhere. Winner of awards. I might come back to this but Rachel Bloom put together a fine tribute reel but it's now private due to copyrights I imagine.
But you can dive on FoW and Adam's contributions here (click image to start video).
Now, in reverence and remembrance, some Fountains Of Wayne. Click images through to tunes.
'Twas a decent day expected in Pueblo, and it's still a weekday, so Jim & I headed south for an outing on the Pueblo Tailwater section of the Arkansas River. We had fine time but the vaunted BWO hatch didn't happen big. We caught fish both out of Nature Center and Valco. I landed my first decent brown on the PT this year, an 18" inch Scottish male. Other fish in the mix were cutbows like the thin (from previously carrying many eggs) 19" lady here or smaller 2nd year rainbows. For me the midges and Destiny's Child (during the BWO hatch) worked best. We traded rods at half time but again used Rodfather builds exclusively on the day.
It was most decent in Pueblo (rather than snow in 11 Mile) so I hit the PT @ Nature Center yet again - my 12th outing there this year. It was only 50° and featured a full day of cloud cover, so I was hopeful for a good BWO hatch. Flows were oddly way back down to 92cfs, making fishing pretty technical again. I started at 11am due to the cold AM and in hopes of just scoring the BWO hatch immediately... and I did. Plus, the clouds aided an extended hatch which came in 2 waves: one from 11:30 - 12:45 and another 1:30-2:30. Just when I thought it was over, and changed my rig @ 1pm, the starlings went crazy overhead again and I had to change back. Today I caught many med-sized fish, and not all trout, but just one 20"er. All cutbows but one were on some BWO nymph - either the RS2, MHFBPT or Destiny's Child. I did attempt the spinner fall when the fish were sippin' but I didn't tie on a 6X tippet and my 4.5X just can't float a dry clean - no takes and no wonder. The fish have definitely moved throughout the river and out to the riffles for the hatches, but I still caught the 20" behind a weir (it was a targeted "2 footer" which came in shy - looked bigger due to water optics). I also caught a couple of massive suckers via snagging by accident. Here's a small sampling of today's catch. Grey lenses are not the ticket for flat light - hmmm.
It was 12° this morning; I did not go fishing. What should I do? I've been fishing a number of rivers in Colorado for 20 years now. Below are my observed deadliest BWO mayfly imitations for some of the rivers I frequent. I typically tie #18-#20 for the spring and #20-#22 for the fall though I prefer #20 and #22 in most of these ties. This is not scientific data as I am biased to use these "matched ties" when fishing with mayfliy imitations on these rivers, though I do use others of course. The evidence was gathered from use experience. The MHFBPT and the grey MH flash wing RS2 are probably my most often used mayfly nymphs and use is somewhat suggested by whether it's time for an emerger. I often use a tungsten bead mayfly nymph as weight during mayfly seasons, especially a black ice variant (during BWOs) or the rainbow warrior (during PMDs). Anyway, here are my ties of the deadliest.
Tryin' to squeeze in another outing to the PT before the next snowfall - I made it several hours before the cold wind sent me packing after just 3 hours. I was doin' nothing early as I spent an hour fishing to four 2 footers and when one finally took my bug she leaped high, shook her mighty head, and broke off my rig. I moved on and the BWO hatch began and got some action which was quickly shut down due to howling chilly winds. I went back to midges and caught most of the bigger ones on Awesome Midge but others on Destiny's Child (I gotta tie more as I've been living off last fall's inventory). The 20'ers were a thick, strong male with whom I had a great fight to net and a strangely skinny lipless female. Fishing is good; there were plenty of other cutbows. The good news was that other fishermen read the forecast and stayed home - very few folks were at the Nature Center.
While it was pretty crowded (given a Sunday) and chilly & windy in the AM, the PT warmed up nicely to at least me. I caught more than a dozen nice medium-sized rainbows out of the nature center from 10am - 3pm. It was cloudless and sunny till mid-PM but there was bug sign throughout the day... mid-AM yielded small grey-brown #24 midges, mid-day moved to #20 BWOs, and after that back to black #22 midges. I was able to adjust as each hatch occurred and hookup were associated with what I observed. Best producers associated with these hatches were the awesome midge, the MH flash wing RS2, Destiny's Child, and the MHFB black zebra. I was target shooting all day despite flows jumping to 220cfs today - the earliest fishing was amongst debris but that subsided once the bumped flow was stabilized and the water cleared. I even managed three 20" fish today among the bounty of others, mostly 18"ers. All CutBows; they are all off the spawning redds and seemingly hungry. These are all different fish in different predicaments. Pretty fun.
