Yampa Below Stagecoach
10:00 AM - 3:30 PM
A client of mine called me up and said he was going to be in Steamboat and was wondering where to fish...
I jumped at the chance to show him around!
The drive up from Denver was a bit hairy, and after stopping in Silverthorne to fish the Blue in a snowstorm, I was excited to get to Steamboat. That day, about 12 inches fell and another 6 inches was forecasted to fall that night, but we had a window of clear weather on Wednesday.
With all the recent snowfall, County Road 18 is no longer driveable. You have to walk in from Stagecoach Res, which is about a 45 min hike. The snow from last night made it a tough hike, and the road didn't get plowed until after we trudged our way in.
Once we got to the river, the guys got set up, and I helped them select flies for the day. These guys were from Chicago, so their experience with tailwater fishing was pretty limited. I spent a majority of the day helping re-tie flies since they aren't used to fishing with 6x tippet.
Playing guide all day long cut into my fishing a little, but it was fun watching these guys catch fish and they couldn't stop talking about how good the fishing was in the middle of winter.
Here's Karl and his 1st fish of the day. I assured him he would catch much bigger ones...
And he did! He ended up with quite a few big fish, and lost many more. Fishing with little flies takes practice to play and hook up with fish, something these guys aren't used to.
Here's Blaze and his 1st fish of the day.
A nice 19 incher.
Between helping the guys tie on their flies and putting them on the fish, I was able to get into some fish myself!
Most fish caught were between 14-18, with quite a few bigger fish hooked, but with limited experience and small tippet, the guys lost more fish than they landed.
My fishing buddies have a few more pictures on their camera that I'll be posting as soon as they send them to me. I did catch a nice 20 incher which was the biggest fish landed for the day, and I can't wait to see it. I hope it turned out well.
We fished midges all day long. WD40's, zebra midges (copper, silver, chartreuse wraps) red hots, jujubee midges, blue poison tungs, RS2's and egg patterns all worked. I ended up using just about every pattern of midges in my box since the guys were breaking off and losing so many fish but at least I learned that all my patterns were effective! Fish were keyed in on midges and took eggs on occasion. We didn't try scuds since they didn't work last time.
Fish were rising around noon, but mostly they were sipping in the film. We could have tried to fish some dries or an rs2 in the film, but we had a constant bite on midges so we didn't try anything else.
At around noon, 2 other fisherman made their way in. We didn't see anybody else the entire time.
Even though we had a great day fishing, the guys weren't looking forward to the long hike out. Thankfully, the road was plowed so we weren't trail busting like we were on our way in.
The road opens again April 1...considering the great fishing, expect crowds once the road opens. If you can make it before then, you just might have it all to yourself...
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