ACBF & More 10Nov18

My knee is still pretty bloated from skiing just 12Kft of vert on Friday. I think I can go without surgery but will be challenged to do consecutive days... grrr.

The knee did hold be up all night at the All Colorado Beer Festival. Yoho and I returned from Summit and hit the ACBF and actually got to every booth in the house. I focused on IPAs of course but also tasted all the pumpkin variants available. We even saw acquaintances we'd met just days before at Aurum manning their booth of a micro-brewery and restaurant in Florissant, Funky Town I think.

I've been trialing Deezer, a music streaming service comparable to Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, etc. I am interested as the UI is super simple and has received good grades and they support streaming FLAC (on some devices, though not yet on Win10). It's good ~$20/mo for the full FLAC service.

GR8 Opening Day 09Nov18

While we may have missed the unplanned opening day of skiing at Keystone two days prior, there were still lots of chances at surprisingly good snow. Yoho and I enjoyed early tracks on Ambush/Powder Cap and other ungroomed stuff off North mountain. Of course we capped the very fine ski day at Outer Range and discovered the Goggle Sag, a collaboration with east coast brewer The Other Half - an excellent hazy DIPA for which they are known. Notably we dined well on Thu at Aurum and Fri with Pho and were graced on Fri eve with a visit from DD.

Shocking Outcomes On The PT 05Nov18

I was excited that the flows at the Pueblo Tailwater had increased to just over 100cfs, excellent for the fish and fishing. Since the weather too was great I headed down with enthusiasm. I fished the Nature Center first and did nothing in the the first two holes - then I arrived at a raft trailering vehicle from CoPW. Timing is everything on the PT and while I had flows and weather and season right - I did not account for the electro-shock inventory event. Catching fish was abysmal as I followed the shock. I caught one decent 17" rainbow; I did have a huge ~24"er or so on the line (in the pig & log hole above Valco parking) but lost him quickly above when he jumped and shook his 6# body and broke the rig at my surgeon's knot. Grrr. I saw clear evidence of the brown trout pre-spawn behavior preparing redds but none were occupied. Visability is improving too and I saw some big fish but could not make the required casts in those situations. I caught plenty of fry.

Denver Film Fest With Yohanans 04Nov18

We enjoyed a cool weekend downtown Denver with Yohanans... they have a cool condo there with all the amenities. On Sat we hit ChoLon for Vietnamese food and totties and caught two good films from first time directors In A Relationship (realistic romcom) and Cam (Internet Porn Sci-Fi). Both were 4/5 IMO and it was really cool seeing the directors and actors explain stuff after the shows. We will definitely attend again. We also scored keen deserts and choco-tinis at a boutique desert restaurant. We used the jacuzzi on Sat AM - yeah, overlooking Denver and the front range on the 5 floor and then partook of good dim sum from Empress Seafood. So good. GR8 time in Denver. We did not stay with our Badger buddies for the Packer loss.

Tying The Silver Surfer 02Nov18

Sometimes bright flies save the day - for me this is especially true when a river has poor visibility and is turbid for whatever reason: rain, lake effluent seasonal turnover, construction upstream or other; if I am not catching anything with "normal" flies I may go to silver, pearl or opal like the Rainbow Warrior or the Silver Surfer. This fly is intended to be a fall quasi-baetis and therefore I do tie it smallish (#20-#22). I tie them with and without a cobalt glass beadhead and find both effective. I also really like a bit of blue in my flies so the wire and head here are bright blue - especially in low viz, this works for me. Here we go...

DRC's Cobalt Silver Surfer Fall BWO

Recipe/Ingredients:

• Hook: #22-#20 TMC 2487
• Thread: Dark gray (blue dun) #70 UTC UltraThread
• Head: Optional cobalt glass bead
• Tail: ~8 gray soft hackle fibers
• Body: Silver 3D mylar (size M) with blue wire (size S) overwrap
• Thorax: Silver ice dub
• Legs: Gray soft hackle feather

Add cobalt glass bead and set in vise.

Bind on thread; tie in tail fibers (adjust to allow
fibers at shank length from bend point). Bind on
wire and wrap to bend. Tie in mylar at bend then
trim tag of tail fibers and wrap thread forward
covering all bindings smoothly.

Wrap mylar forward and bind in.
Overwrap blue wire ~6X, bind in and helicopter
tag off.

Spin on silver ice dubbing and wrap on a thorax
about the size of the bead (but leave a bit of
space between bead and thorax for legs.

Select small gray hackle feather with base fibers
about equal to shank length. Strip "duffy" fibers
from base of feather and bind onto the fly (2 wraps
over stem and then pull base stem back and tie once
in front. Trim off stem.

Wrap legs feather 2-3 times in the gap then
bind in. Wet fingers and pull back legs to
whip finish and trim.
[this fly has a tail and legs that are a bit too big]

Tying A Simple Buckskin Caddis Variant 01Nov18

I used a Buckskin Caddis more effectively this year than ever but feel the chamois cutting and tying makes the fly a bit of a challenge to tie. I wanted a rugged and simpler version. I have a new variant which really looks the part. It's as yet unnamed but here we go. I've tied 'em with (dk green, blue or chartreuse) and w/o the wire, with and w/o the thorax (just a black tie wrap head), with and w/o a bead.

DRC's Simple Buckskin Caddis Variant

Recipe/Ingredients:

• Hook: #16-#18 TMC 2457
• Thread: Dark green or black UTC UltraThread
• Head: Optional 2.5mm black nickel bead or just black thread buildup
• Tail: ~8 pheasant tail fibers
• Body: Buckskin colored tubing (size midge) with optional wire overwrap
• Thorax: Optional peacock ice dub

Hook in vise; bind on thread

Tie in PT fibers then wire; wrap back to
50% hook bend and tie in tubing
(with enough tubing on tag to bind in forward)

Bind tubing and wire down going forward;
trim excess

Wrap tubing with adjacent wraps;
bind down leaving room for thorax

Overwrap (optional) wire directly into and
between tubing wraps (it may somewhat
"disappear" - that's OK)

Spin a smallish tube of peacock ice
dubbing onto thread

Wrap on dubbing for thorax and whip finish.
Done!

Halloween Fly Line Maintenance 01Nov11

'Tis the season to do some fly line maintenance. My 4wt and 5wt line tips were sinking and I noticed "cracks" in the first 25 ft of lines where I handle them most. Rather than jumping directly to replacement as I've often done in the past, I chose to run a maintenance pass to see if I can get some more time on them. I prefer SA Mastery MPX these days in WF-F. It's a very good general purpose line for nymphing and decent enough for dries and is not over the top expensive @ ~$80 retail. To clean and restore this line I got an SA line dressing and cleaning pad for ~$6 at Sportsman's Warehouse. The cleaning pad actually roughs up the surface some and the flip side allows you to apply the dressing. I chose to only do the first 8 yards of line. I first used lightly soapy water (soaked and agitated the lines, then rinsed). Next I used a clean cloth to get any remaining grime off the line. I moved then to run the recommended SA maintenance... I pulled the lines through the rough side of the pad a couple times and more gunk came off. Then I applied a blotch of the dressing to the sponge side and dragged the lines through it a couple times. TaaDaa... "refurbished" lines. They look and feel decent but we'll see on performance. The whole process can be achieved with aid of La Cumbre's stellar seasonal experimental Project Dank IPA.