Tailwater Fishing, Wed December 16, 2009

Darren and I fished today at a nice little Tailwater south of Denver - and although it wasn't below zero, it was still cold as all hell.

Got there around 8am and it was about 7 degrees. Darren was immediately into fish - they were hitting eggs and jujubees all day - mostly yellow eggs and grey jujus. Basically any thread midge worked - mostly in a greyish color. Darren was catching them here and there while I was just trying to warm up. I snagged a little 15 inch brown right on the tip of his dorsal fin - not sure how I dragged him in, but it never broke off - just goes to show how strong that cartilage is.

The sun poked over the canyon around 11am and things started to heat up. Darren and I stopped at one spot in particular and just slayed them for over an hour. We had over 35 hook ups but only about 15 fish landed, but those fish were fun and fought nicely. We worked the hole from top to bottom a couple of times and then decided to move on. But not before this last beauty by Darren:





I'd love to show it to you, but unfortunately the fish couldn't wait to get back in the water. That bottom photo is the hog just after re-entry! Anyways, it was a nice fish indeed. Here are a couple more pics of that hole and the fish we landed:







We worked our way back to the parking lot - stopping for a brief time at the hole we originally started the day at (but had no luck in the morning) - we camped there for another hour and Darren again started hammering them on a small yellow egg. He pulled probably 8 fish out of there - and lost another dozen or so. This hole had some of the biggest fish we have ever seen in there - including a half dozen suckers that were easily 5 or 6 lbs. The prettiest fish had to be Snake River Cutt and a cuttbow that had an orange underside.





It was getting late and I wanted to see the infamous bend pool by the dam, so Darren took me up to the pool and I was astonished at how the fish could be stacked in there like cord wood. Literally there were 300 trout visible. Darren and I both slayed them in this hole for about 30 minutes - some were foul hooked, some were fairly hooked - none were all that big. The biggest fish of my day was this ugly girl - she was maybe 19 inches but her tail was decaying in the net.




We fished for a bit, but ultimately were in the car and out of the canyon about 3:45. Lots of fish were caught - many many many more were missed, and we my nuts are just starting to get defrosted as I type this. It was a very smooth trip - in and out, no delays, lots of fish and lots of stories (as usual).

Some of the craziest things we saw all day were a bald eagle at the head of the canyon, tons of kokanee carcasses, a 30 inch long blue carp, and two brown trout that looked like someone had cut the middle section of their bodies out and glued the head and tail back together - they looked like Bass (a new breed of fish known as Br-ass).



It was a great day - thanks for taking me Darren!

And here are some artsy photos from the day: