01/18/12 Frying Pan River

01/18/12
6:30 AM - 1:00 PM

The wind was howling in Vail. I set my alarm for 5:00 AM and tried to get some sleep. I could hear the wind all through the night and it wasn't looking good for my plans to run up to the Pan.

I didn't even wait for my alarm to go off, I was out the door by 4:30. The gusts on I-70 were getting bad, 70 mph winds. I stopped to get gas and coffee in Avon and almost turned around to go home. But I thought, "I already made it this far...".

It's dark, and quiet. No cars in the parking lot of course, but plenty of tire tracks. Looks like the Pan was fished pretty hard yesterday.

I get out of my car to put on my waders, what happened to the wind? There were no gusts, no rustling in the trees.



It was calm, very calm...very unlike the Pan.

I get back in the car and start re-rigging my rod. I put on a 4x leader with a bead egg up top and a size 16 Craven's Mysis. A few more sips of coffee and I can see light trying to break through the clouds.

I can't wait any longer...I hop out and head to the flats. I can see an occasional swirl and a few splashes in the distance, the fish are feeding!





A few smaller browns, a rainbow or two, but nothing of size...looks like the bigger fish were chased off the flats.

It's light out now, but no sun in sight. The clouds are thick, but still no wind...

I want to feel a big bend in my rod, so I head over to the toilet bowl.

The bead egg worked well on the flats, so I decided to keep my rig the same and see what I could come up with. Plenty of brownies! But no football rainbows! I'm not complaining...the fishing was good, but I think the pressure from previous days has really turned off some of the bigger fish.







I was contemplating changing up my rig, most of the browns hit the bead egg and I was wondering if I rigged up a mysis/midge combo, I might be able to coax out a big bow. But before I do that...one more drift...



This skinny beast of a brownie took my bead egg hard! This skinny thing measured out to 20 inches...I thought all the fish in the Pan were supposed to be fat!?!?

I re-rigged, Mysis on top and a thread midge on the bottom.

1st fish on the midge, and wouldn't you know it...a bow.



It's looking good! Not a football, but still a nice fish. A size 20 black thread midge with a copper wire wrap was on the menu. I managed a few more browns and bows, with fish taking both the mysis and midge.

It's almost 10:30 now, and people are showing up. Fishing conditions have been great all morning, no wind, slightly overcast skies. 2 guys show up and I see them walking down towards me. They set up at the riffles and respect the fact that I'm fishing the bowl. An older gentleman shows up and doesn't show me the same courtesy...he stands behind with 2 rods in hand waiting...he gets impatient and tries to fish downstream a little. He snags a rock, breaks off his rig and trudges back up behind me to tie on again. I can feel him staring me down as he continues to try to fish downstream of the bowl without catching a single fish...eventually he leaves, but not without mumbling under his breath something about how I should let others fish the bowl...great idea!

I call the two guys over and say you are welcome to come fish the tail end if they would like. One of the guys says, "are you sure? I don't want to encroach." I say it's no problem. Besides, I had to leave soon, so they might as well stake the hole. After talking to them for a bit, I learned they were from Fort Collins and that one of them was studying fisheries biology at CSU. A fellow Rammie!

They each start hooking up with some fish and I continue to do well. The bite did die off around noon, but a change in flies brought more fish to the net.





I was worried that the weather on I-70 was going to get worse, so I decided to take a few more casts and then head home.

On my last cast, I caught this beauty. I haven't caught a lot of Cutthroats, so I was super excited to catch such a pretty one. A diet of mysis will do this I guess!



Overall, another great trip to the Pan. I didn't get into the big legendary rainbows of the pan, but plenty of good fish made it a worthwhile day. And best of all! No wind! I guess you just can't trust the weatherman...

Flies that did well this trip were bead eggs, mysis patterns (cravens and epoxy), midge patterns and even chocolate emergers in a size 20. As I was leaving the two guys from Fort Collins mentioned that they were here a couple of weeks ago and the streamer bite was great...next time I come up, I'll definitely have to stick around at dusk to strip some streamers through the bowl.

Arkansas River Below Pueblo 11/23/11 - 11/24/11

Spending 2 days down in Pueblo with the in-laws does have it's upside...

Flows are down at about the norm for the Arkansas this time of year. 55 CFS.

Temps for both days of fishing were warm, with a cold front that blew in shutting down fishing for a couple hours on the second day, but the fishing over all was excellent!

I ended up with 2 new species, the 1st was a surprise...the second, not so much.



A little walleye that took a red copper john.



A sucker that took a pink san juan worm. I'm kind of surprised that I had not caught more suckers since I've heard they are pretty common. It was actually a pretty fun fish to land, it fought hard and took some long runs.

Besides the two surprises, the rest of the fish were bows. Mostly stocker sized with an occasional brute at 18 in. No browns, and I didn't see any spawning beds, but this is probably just because of location. I'm sure if I had fished up torwards the dam and the nature center, I would have seen a redd or two.

Below is a little video of how the action was, the clip is only about 5 mins long, but I was picking up fish about every cast. Again, nothing of size, but still fun. I wish my battery on my go pro hadn't died, since there a few other spots that I wanted to get video of as well. Oh well...



Flies that worked for trip was almost everything and anything.

The standard copper johns worked well in a size 16 and 18, copper and red worked very well.



A new fly that I had been working on were some czech nymphs. I was really surprised to actually catch quite a few fish on them since I only tied them up to help get my rig down.





This green with a hot spot was a very favorite until it started falling apart...

A standard green czech nymph also worked!



Also rainbow warriors in a size 18 worked great...



And of course egg patterns were still very popular...



Orange...red...pink...they all worked well.

This is a great stretch of water that generally isn't too busy. There's lots of fish habitat since it is the Pueblo Whitewater Park, and you will see all kinds of people fishing this area from fly fisherman to bait casters...it's a very productive area, but with smaller fish and I would assume this is the case because it is not a catch and relase stretch of water.



On my next trip down, I'll do a little more fishing closer to the dam and around the nature center to see if I can find some bigger fish. I've even heard of people catching some nice fish down by the riverwalk in downtown...

10/07/11 Clear Creek

Another day fishing the Georgetown area.

Yes...I know, I've been fishing there a lot, but why not! The fish are biting and it's a relatively quick drive.

I started up at the inlet since the browns have been stacking really heavily.  The spawn is on, but there are plenty of fish ready to eat and plenty of bows around there too.



I started the day with a standard rig for the area, an egg pattern with hare's ear dropped behind it. Thingamabobber about 4 ft. up. I immediately got hits on both the egg and the hare's ear, with some really nice browns and an occasional bow.



Right around 11:00, the water started getting cloudy, looks like they were doing stream improvements upstream around Silver Plume. The bite turned off quickly so I decided to hoof it down stream and fish below the dam. Turns out it was a great way to get back on the fish and explore the water downstream a little more. If you've never fished down here, give it shot when the inlet is busy or if you are looking for a change of scenery.









Although fish are smaller than the big spawning browns, it's pretty consistent with plenty of pools to fish and if you're agile, rock hopping and dropping your nymphs inbetween the rock pools will produce plenty of fish. Just be careful down there, the rocks are slick and everytime I fish down there, I haven't seen another person.

I finished the day at around 3:00, after moving back upstream to check if the water had cleared up. Luckily it had so I nymphed a little more with a hare's ear and lightning bug. Again, both produced, but it seemed like the browns like the hare's ear and the bows like the lightning bug.



After a while, I saw lots of fish rising, so I threw on a small elk hare caddis picking up some small bows and a bonus that completed my day!



Even though it was small, this brookie made it a Clear Creek grand slam for me.

I finally left at around 4:00 when the river was getting muddy again. I'm not sure when the work that is muddying up the creek is gonna end, but the fishing is good between the muddy runs and you can always head down stream until it clears up. Although it looks like winter has set in with all this snow over the weekend, there's still plenty of fishing and willing fish at Georgetown. Get out there before it all starts icing up and the ice fisherman and ice racers take over the lake!