Solid Day Again On The S Platte ~ Cold & Wind Had Folks Leave Early 29Apr24

With the PT still flowing heavy, I made another outing to 11 Mile Canyon today. Fishing was good. Flows are consistently 130cfs and there were 28 cars up to the last bridge area. It was cold and windy so despite the car count I had my favored sections mostly available. But my toes and fingers were pretty cold, especially "early." I didn't arrive till 10:45am. While it started slow in the cold waters from snowmelt. I again caught a passel of fish, including one near pure cutthroat, a couple of browns, and many healthy 16"-18" cutbows, but no 20"ers. The play remains maroon/brown midges in the morning and then a modest BWO hatch occurred at ~1:30pm. I went to two mayflies below the Perdigon (which also worked) before that and caught bigger fish then. Unlike my last outing, the egg did nothing today. The deadliest tie was my Destiny's Child. Fun with the Rodfather Diamond Blaze ~ it is the favored among my 4s (plus it is the one rigged and in the carrier). Here are the better or unexpected fish.

 

The #1 bug in April this year, for me, on the SPlatte, by a wide margin, has been Coffin's maroon Pop Top. Recipe: #22 TMC 2288H, red & black thread body covered in Sally Hansen's, UV2 rust thorax, and UV cinnamon ice wings (the pop top). I drop this behind Juan's money midge, which also does some scoring, but the emerger trailer has scored more. We are getting into mayflies now finally, and I also expect more green midges will soon appear and I'll flip mornings to my Blue Oyster Cult larva midge trailed by the olive Pop Top. Anyway...