S. Platte Dream Stream
7:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Flows at 112
I didn't want to go...I knew it was going to be crowded...I knew it was going to be windy...
A friend talked me into it. At the last minute, we decided to get up early and head to the Dream Stream. I'm by no means a fair weather fisherman, but considering the nice weather and the anticipation of the rainbow spawn, I knew it was going to be a busy day on the water...After my last trip down, I was hoping that some of the bigger fish had made their way up. Unfortunately, they are still taking their sweet time making their move.
Lots of these...
A little brownie...
More little guys...
A few coloring up and getting ready for the spawn...
The fishing was good and relatively consistent. Lots of 8-14 inchers in just about every bend. Unfortunately there were also fisherman in almost every bend. We were the 6th car in the lot at 7:30, and we could see that the lot was full by 9:00.
Fish were taking egg patterns, baetis patterns, and san juan worms. Red is the key. The water is slightly stained, but visibility is still very good. Fish an eggs and bacon set up and you will catch fish.
We fished our way down to the outlet, but it was so crowded that we decided to head back since we couldn't find a spot to fish. We were within sight of the outlet, and it looked like people were lined shoulder to shoulder. We didn't see a lot of catching going on, and we only spotted a few fish, but nothing of size. At the end of the day, we did hear from some other fisherman that there was a group of guys that were hole hogging the outlet that caught quite a few fish over 20 in. In a way I'm glad we didn't make it all the way down...those guys were in that hole all day long, so we wouldn't have had a chance to fish it, but it would have been cool to see where the fish are staging getting ready for their move up the river.
Towards the end of the day, we decided to goof around and fish the gauging hole and the bridge hole. We could see numerous fish and the lots of spin fishing guys chucking gear and not getting any bites. I saw a few risers so I tied on an eric's midge and managed to land 3 little bows. It was fun catching fish on dries again!
After a while, the hardware chuckers left so we put our eggs and bacon rigs through there and managed a few more fish.
My trophy for the day was this nice 17 in. brown.
So...would I go again? Well...yes. The fishing is good, but I would get there early. Unless they bump the flows again, the big guys are still going to stick around the outlet without moving up. They need the higher flows to feel more protected on their journey upstream to spawn.
I would also try to go on a weekday. The weekends are brutal and the pressure keeps the big fish weary.
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