Middle Fk Of S Platte Above Spinney - New To Me 17May20

On my way back to the Front Range I stopped above Spinney Rez on the Middle Fk of the S Platte to fish. Greg mentioned it was less crowded and it mostly was so. I caught a number of smallish browns like this ~12"er on Iron Sally and BHFBPT. It's a small stream and fishes here much like Tomahawk - also the color was a bit off. I decided not to take the bridge to cross the river. I moved down to the Dream Stream in the PM but it was mobbed so I headed on back to Colo Spgs.

Blue River Waters & Tame Your Nelson Collaboraton 15May20

It was overcast and 50° but the water was cold and flowing 400+cfs from Dillon Rez into the tailwater in Silverthorne. I chose to stay close to home as driving further just got me into more folks. Sure there were plenty on the Blue Tail today but I was productive in non-prime spots; I parked on the Adams St side behind CDOT rather than the Outlet Mall side - perhaps that helped but while I was 1st to the lot at 9am, I was joined by two others before hitting the water. Nonetheless it was a decent outing on this section, especially given the flows (but the water was gin clear). The poxyback mysis (beat up here from use) and a blue foil midge I like were the best. There was little bug sign up here below the dam. It's nice catching these largerish (some 18"s and a 16") but purer rainbows for a change, rather than the cutbows we have on the Ark & So Platte. Nice kype jaws still on the males.

 

 

 

I hit the mid-section of the Blue just north of town in the PM but my rig of electric San Juan worm, yellow sallie stone and blue-beaded BWO (Destiny's Child) did not produce a thing over a 90min pass. Oh well, I had errands: to acquire and install a new fence at the Nest and to acquire and consume an anticipated collaboration @ ORB. 4 Noses, one of my favorite Denver brewers (Revised Copy NEIPA, their APA and more) came to Summit to collaborate with ORB and chose to focus on Nelson and Dragon hops, WTF. They made a NEIPA and WCIPA using these and of course I bought both - gotta keep your home teams afloat. DD likes Nelson and I think the NEIPA is better as Nelson hops do need to be tamed and it is less so in the WCIPA. Still, what fun, "How To Train Your Nelson."

 

 

It's A Weird World Now - Blue & Williams Fk 12May20-13May20

An unexpected consequence of Covid-19 is the crowding of my favorite waters, and perhaps the entire outdoor system. Sure I expect 11 Mile & Cheeseman Canyons to be crowded, but everywhere? Fly rod sales must be through the roof, and waders too, as there are pros and noobs aplenty everywhere I go. Argh. I fled to Summit in search of wild Blue & Colorado waters but I found packed THs again. "Go back to work." Tue I hit the Blue @ Jurassic Pk @ 250cfs and found 14 cars there on arrival, usually 2. I caught a decent brown but there were still scant BWOs and rare were the big cutbow sightings. I saw about as many as folks on the stream (younguns as the step in is wicked) as mayflies - is it me or does everyone in Summit have a rod rack now? I went further than ever down the Blue till cliffed out, but folks just kept coming.

I headed to the Williams Fk today despite flows having increased 50% to 150cfs, That's not a bad flow here but he impulse function may effect the catch. Wait for it - it did, as did the crowds again. I hooked a couple and landed a small brown but this tailwater should be much more productive now - but for the 20 cars in the lot as I arrived at 11am. All the Colorado River parking spots were packed along the way. WTF. Yea that's the confluence of Williams Fk & Colorado , which was very off color from yesterday's precip. Anyway we are into some desert bloom.

Nest Theater Part Nine - New Audio Path Perfections 11May20

I came to Summit to fish and mess with the audio system. It was snowing in Summit after Hoosier Pass. I wasn't really satisfied with the NestT audio as last installed - I seemed to not benefit sufficiently from the Viawave super-tweeters, and the Hsu sub was hard to control. So I revised the audio paths once again; this time I am employing a separate solid state amp to drive the super-tweeters and feed line level to the subwoofer (which has its own amp). It worked and now sounds gr8! I have solid response out to about 20KHz and the sub-bass is much better controlled. In the1st graph the green sweep is the prior line without sub & super-tweeters which the red sweep is as the system is now: note both the high end and sub-bass improvements. It took some tweaking with volume levels but the new scheme is much improved. The downside is I need to adjust two volume levels when I boot it all up. The 2nd graph shows the equalized sweep which matches the house curve well now from 15Hz-20KHz. Sure I stopped at ORB for my May Summit Club allotment of Amenities - yummy.

New Blodgett Family Room Audio Source For Mom's Day 10May20

I repurposed an old Surface Pro back into our systems as an audio streamer for the Blodgett Family Room using JRiver Media Center. The whole house audio now again has a full terabyte and a half of tunes and promotional images or lyrics show on the family room TV as songs are played.

Zoom Life - NorCal Friends, Financial Mgmt, And Family Happy Hour 09May20

It's the Zoom life - ok so WebEx, Skype, and Zoom. Beyond the CoWW we have a number of calls regularly now. Maybe it aids sanity, mainly we are checking in on our peeps. Here we are catching up with our NorCal besties, checking in on our shrinking accounts, and updating with the family. I do not want a new normal - as pleased as I am to raise all these folks and my other friends, this can't be the only way we do it going forth.

Purple May Reign - An Arkansas Mayfly Story 09May20

Greg's success with the Purple Reign in Brown's Canyon early prompted me to comment that they might be taking it for the early mayflies as I believe them to be somewhat purple, especially early on in the Arkansas. "Maybe add a tail," and he did and tied some in larger sizes. He's also observed the purplish coloring I saw. I've tied some too and we now are seeing success with the newly dubbed "Purple May Reign," which is a larger, and tailed, variant of Purple Reign. Recipe: #18 2488H hook, lavender glass bead, purple thread, gunmetal blue wire overwrap, black KF flash tail, Medora thread emergent wing and peacock herl thorax. Very simple, very effective.