Ice berg fishing

Sunday was fantastic weather - mid 60s so I got permission to head out for a spot of meditation up at Clear Creek.
It was a perfect day - warmish and very sunny.
The water was amazingly clear. I was able to see groups of trout just lazing around the rocks - even without Polaroid glasses on.
There was some good patches of snow all around - and some ice covering the river too.
I kept being knocked by large chunks of ice flowing down the river!
Anyway - I started with small midges - no luck and moved up to a pheasants tail which was getting aggressive bites. So then I moved to even bigger patterns and caught a small brown trout.
Then I went nuts and put a hopper on a line - I was dropping it on the ice shelf and pulling it off - I heard this was a good approach - the crazy Brown went for it straight away!
A good day!

Experiences with Midges

Late September and October have proved good months for trying out nymph fishing. Some good catches up on bear creek.

Adicted to Fly Fishing?

Apparently, the route to becoming full-blown fly-fishing-addict takes a predictable route:
1. Catch 'a' fish !
2. Catch LOTS of fish
3. Catch a BIG fish

This makes me laugh - I am now at stage 3 !

Bear Creek 2008

As September went by, I found that using smaller and smaller nymphs was working well. Bear Creek is proving to be a lot of fun - reasonable sized fish and very tranquil in the Canyon.

Here's one of two great rainbow trout I caught this morning.

Arkansas River Sept 13

The ark-ans-ass river (yeah I know its really ark-en-saw, but thats like saying yosemite is pronounced yoh-sem-it-ee, rather than yos-eh-mite, which is think is much better... ?!). Anyway - fast flowing river, but I found a nice stretch with a wide slower area with sunken boulders. As soon as the shade of the canyon started coming on to the water, around 4pm, I got 3 browns in succession.
See the map on the photo album link.

Deckers fishing Sept 7

First stop "flys n lies" - their suggestion was a black RS2 so small quite honestly I had problems seeing it.
Anyway - with hopper and the RS2 as a dropper we indeed caught a couple.
Bill swears a 6lb rainbow destroyed his rod - I was unable to catch the evidence as i was struggling to stay afloat having slipped and was currently bailing out the waders!

Poudre River Canyon Camping August 30 2008

Camping at Mountain Park Campground has got to be one of the best so far!
18 Rainbow and Brooke trout has to be a record.
I must admit I felt the competition keenly as Daniel and Trey were fishing with worms and pilling them out regularly. I think they got 4 or 5 in a 2 hour period!

Best fly was a wasp stimulator - incredible on Saturday afternoon - I was getting a strike every 3rd cast. In the end the fish destroyed the two I had so I moved to other large simulators with a similar effect!

Click here to see more photos and the map of where we were!'

You're from Colorado If..

• You'll eat ice cream in the winter.
• When the weather report says it's going to be 65 degrees, you shave your legs and wear a skirt.
• It snows 5 inches and you don't expect school to be canceled.
• You'll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature.
• You have no accent at all, but can hear other people's. And then you make fun of them.
• 'Humid' is over 25%.
• Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and Away from the mountains.
• You say 'the interstate' and everybody knows which one.
• You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard .
• You know what the Continental Divide is.
• You don't think Coors beer is that big a deal.
• You went to Casa Bonita as a kid, and as an adult.
• You've gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such activities.
• You always know the elevation of where you are.
• You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it's going to snow.
• You actually know that ** South Park ** is a real place not just a show on TV.
• You know what a 'trust fund hippy' is, and you know its natural habitat is Boulder .
• You know you're talking to a fellow Coloradoan when they call it Elitches, not Six Flags.
• A bear on your front porch doesn't bother you.
• You go anywhere else on the planet and the air feels 'sticky' and you notice the sky is no longer blue
• And. . When people out East tell you they have mountains in their state too, you just laugh.

Rafting on Clear Creek - Idaho Springs CO

The water was around 38 degrees F - so of course we put on the unflattering wet suits!

Daniel took the front middle seat with Paul, Eve and Kate in the second row.
Nate was the chap at the back and we had a blast. The water levels were pretty high for clear creek - some of the highest I've seen!
Still, Nate was able to point out some good fishing spots as we blasted down the river. I'll let you know how it goes if I get back!
All in all an excellent trip.
(Boy those wet suits get stinky!)

And here's the edited video of the "Beginners Rafting".

July 4 Fishing Trip

Headed out of town on the 3rd with the boys, west to Idaho Springs. Then exit the Fall River Road up to Alice and then on to Loch Lomen! There seems to be some confusion about the spelling - Lomand or Lomen? Perhaps these were Scottish settlers trying to be creative?

Anyway - its all OFF ROAD after a certain point.
Amazingly enough we found a short cut!? (we are already off-road, so you can imagine what a short-cut is like....)
All I can say is its good job we didn't meet anyone coming the other way.
So finally we mount the last boulder and, and splash through the last water hazard to find our camp site. Well I would call it more of a clearing surrounded by 4 foot high snow drifts. It was at this point that Steve discovered the snow-driving limitations of his Jeep by embedding the jeep in a 4ft snow drift. Dave B, having nothing better to do at that time helped dig the Jeep out and yours-truly recorded the event for posterity (see photos below).

About 2 hours later, we tried to get the trip back on track (we are here for fishing remember!?) So, Steve and I headed off to the lake just as the light was fading (whose idea was this??)
Walking across wide snow drifts, I could plainly see large bear-like foot prints (you know .. the ones with the big pointy claw mark at the font of the pad....)

Just as it got so dark that I couldn't even see the approaching bears (and now my fingers are full of holes as I am constantly feeling for the fly to make sure its still on the line!) anyway, Steve caught a fish (thank God!) - now we can get back to the beer!

We rounded off the trip with an early start the next morning - but our best laid plans were truly foiled as there was a strong breeze so we decided to hike around the other side of the lake, if only the bears would let us. Fortunately all the bears were out, obviously at some picnic or other..


See this map