Saturday, February 4, 2006 – South Platte River, D

Saturday, February 4, 2006 – South Platte River, Deckers
Cold morning about 30 degrees, warmer in the late morning about 52 degrees. Water was clear above Muddy Creek, slightly off color below it, flows about 54 cfs

Fished with Chad again – pretty good day of fishing. We fished the stretch of river by Wigwam first and then made our way back to the bridges. I hooked into a bunch of small rainbows right at the lot before Wigwam – most on size 20 gunmetal black midges. We fish down into the mini canyon down there and I hooked a couple more – nothing bigger than 10 inches. Chad had a slow morning, but started hooking up inside the canyon – including a nice 18-inch fat rainbow that we got a picture of. I was nymphing all morning and had limited results. On the other side of the canyon is a nice deep hole next to a rock that Chad let me jump in – on my second cast I hooked and landed a nice 16-inch rainbow – again, he was nice and fat.

I drove down to between the bridges while Chad walked the stretch – he had some amazing luck, hooking about 12 more on the trip to the bridges. I didn’t have much luck at all – so I decided to switch to a streamer and fish the section right after the first bridge. Well, I hooked 3 fish on that stream, a small 11-inch rainbow in cloudy water, a nice 15-inch fat rainbow in the same hole, and a small 11-inch brown trout a little further down. Chad fished the stretch just after the downed log and said he caught 4 fish in 20 minutes or so and all were larger than 20 inches – all on a streamer/mercury midge pattern. All told I caught about a dozen or so fish and Chad caught upwards of 35. A very nice day.