02/29/12 Yampa Below Stagecoach

02/29/12
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...

01/26/12 Yampa Below Stagecoach Res

01/26/12
Yampa Below Stagecoach
8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Air Temp started at around 20 degrees warming up to mid 30's

I had a great opportunity to fish the Yampa below Stagecoach because I had to head to Steamboat for work. And what a trip it was.

This was the most incredible day of fishing I've ever had. Especially in the winter.

We were the 1st to arrive at the tailwater. It was still chilly as we put on our waders but the sun was making its way over the mountains. We rigged up with scuds and midges with hopes that one of use would find what the fish were keying in on.



Right away, we are getting bites, but for some reason...maybe the cold air, or the coffee induced shaking hands, I couldn't land a fish! My buddy hooks up right away and lands a beautiful 16 incher.



As the sun starts coming over the mountains, we see two trucks pull in on County Road 14. Assuming they were just the guys that work for the dam, we continued fishing...but wait a second...they were wearing waders, and hauling gear down towards the river.

As we continued to fish, the guys kept hauling gear to the river. We saw buckets and coolers...



As they continued to work, we kept right on catching fish...until one fish that we caught was spitting up eggs!

That's when we realized what was going on. My buddy went to talk to the guys and it turns out that they were with the DOW and were doing a special project on artificial redds. These guys were literally chumming the water with eggs for us!

So we switched it up! Not wanting to miss out on an opportunity that doesn't EVER happen, we rigged up with eggs and the "egg hatch" was on! It was surprising to see so many fish key in on the eggs, especially since we are in between spawning seasons, but these fish wanted eggs and that's what we were going to give them.





We were catching fish with every cast! Around 11:00 we started seeing people show up, and there was even a guide with 4 people. Most people set up above the artifical redd not realizing what was going on. But they definitely could see us catching fish on every cast. A few people stopped and asked the guys what was going on but nobody else was catching fish with the frequency that we were. I think most people didn't have the right egg patterns or they just didn't want to match the hatch!





My friend and I kept trading off fishing the run right behind the redd, and we also kept moving around downstream to see if there were other runs loaded with fish. The fish must have heard a dinner bell because every run we fished had fish in it. And these weren't small fish! Most were between 16 and 18 inches. We didn't catch anything over 20 inches like we were hoping to do, but consistent fishing with big fish is just fine by me!





The DOW guys finished up around 3:00 and set up a fence with a sign to keep people out.



By this time, the "egg hatch" was dying off, so we went back to dropping a midge behind the egg. Fish were still keying in on the egg, but we also got plenty of hits on black beauties, miracle midges, mercury midges, and zebra midges. All size 18-22. Every fish we caught in the afternoon was also super fat, having gorged on eggs all morning. Some fish were so full that they eggs were just sitting in their mouths waiting to be swallowed.









As the sun was setting, the fish were still biting, we didn't want to leave, but it was getting late and getting stuck out there in the dark was not a happy thought. We decided to head up to the dam to take a look and passed two spin fisherman who didn't look like they were catching much. We snapped a quick picture of the dam and decided to make our way home. Arms tired from catching fish all day, this was one of the most epic days of fishing I've ever experienced.




This truly was a once in a lifetime experience that will probably never happen again. We got lucky and picked the right day. Obviously the Yampa doesn't usually fish this good, but even if there wasn't the "egg hatch", we found that fish here are eager to eat.

If you're going to head up there now, I would most definitely have an egg pattern to lead. The fish still have eggs on the mind, and I'm sure there is quite a few eggs still being pushed out of the redds.

We tried scuds, in different colors (olive, brown, grey, etc...) but actually didn't have a single fish pick the scud. Weird since we found a TON of scuds in a mat of moss that was floating down river.



Overall, stick with midge patterns. Honestly anything in a size 18-22 was catching fish. Even some weird no name patterns that we tied up last night to try worked remarkably well. A sparkle braid beadhead midge with a copper wrap was an amazing fly...I fwsh I had tied more since I lost them all later in the day!

Flour0carbon is a must, but you can get away with 5x and 6x. No need for 7x...at least not the day we were there.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it up to the Yampa again this winter, but it will be on the list for next winter for sure!