Sylvan Lake Camping, Fri July 22 - Sun July 24, 2011

So, we did a little camping this weekend up in the mountains at Sylvan Lake (15 miles south of Eagle). The place is great for kids - 15 miles away from any town - keeps the riff raff out. Just a bunch of families enjoying the lake, mountains and sun. Got up there Friday around 6pm, set up the camper, made some hot dogs, started a fire and had smores. The kids were pretty wired from being in the mountains and enjoyed running around the campground and "walking" Cabo. Hit the hay pretty early - probably 10pm or so.

I got up at 5:30 on Saturday morning and took the dog and kayak out on the lake. The wind was steady in your face from the far side of the lake - nothing too bad though, just had to dig in the paddles a little more. I like the inlet to the lake because the water seems to be moving a little and I have seen fish in that section. I set up shop about 60 yards from the inlet and dropped anchor.







I was surprised how cold the breeze was and the sun wasn't even visible on the far off peaks yet. I started getting hits right away - had a orange scud/grey chiro/peach pegged egg rig on. The first fish I had on was the best, I never landed it, but I could tell it was good sized as it started running horizontal at a very fast pace - no head shakes, not real tugs, just a 20 foot run to the side in about 2 seconds and he was off. I was excited to get a hit so quickly. The indicator kept bouncing, but I wasn't hooking into anything. Finally, I got a pretty little rainbow. He was maybe 11 inches, not much of a pull on the rod - but it was fun to be into fish.



Soon after that I had anohter hit, a fun little fight and landed this brookie (again, about 11 inches) on the chiro. My first brookie in a long long time.





I managed another rainbow, and tried drifting back with the wind to the boat ramp. But the wind stopped, the sun came out strong and the fishing turned off. I saw the family waving at me back at the ramp, so I paddled out.

We had a fun day of playing in the water, eating lunch, and hiking - the kids got grumpy and the wife wanted a nap - so they crashed in the camper around 3pm and I hit the water again. I trolled around a few spots - again, a bunch of plops on the indicator, but nothing I could hook up with. I caught one nice 11 inch rainbow, then hooked a tiny rainbow as I had just cast my rig - must have been falling through the water column. I paddled back down to the inlet and hooked this brookie - again, same size - this one on a green scud.





I was done by about 5:30 and paddles back to the boat ramp. Avi and Mom were awake, but Z and Emma were still sleeping. We woke them up and headed into Eagle for Diner food and bowling. We got back to camp around 9:30 and had a small fire and more smores (of course). Hit bed around 10 again. I was going to get up the next morning and fish, but Avi slept next to me and there was no way to sneak out without waking her - so I slept in.

Sunday we played some more in the water - found lots of mayflies, damsel flies, thousands of grey/green scuds and just had fun checking it out. Here are some more fun pics of the weekend:







Great weather all weekend, no rain, in the mid-80's. We tried some off roading on the roads up behind Sylvan - went about 10 miles deep trying to find the old resort beaver ponds, but couldn't find them. Took all the roads back there, but couldn't find them. We did find Lede Reservoir - which was infested with horseflies. Some rough road back there. I would guess we were almost all the way over to Ruedi, but we didn't see any signs for it. Very pretty country.

We hit some traffic coming home, so we stopped in Frisco at the brewery for some food and sitting on the deck - very relaxing. Got home around 4pm. A very nice trip with the family.

South Park lake fishing - July 12, 2011

D and I hit up a lake in SP - first boat on the water at 6am - by over a half an hour. Morning was dead calm, and dead slow. The first thing I noticed in the morning was the noser - hundreds of fishing nosing up in the water really early in the morning. It was a sea of noses.



D picked up 4, missed at least a dozen others. I landed 2 - had another half dozen or so takes.





D's last fish of the morning was a sweet 20+inch fat bow caught on a red brassie chiro.



We could see a huge storm and thunder/lightning hitting just south of the dam - a couple of miles away. Since it was way off we weren't nervous. It was still partly sunny over our heads - we had missed the storm. Then a clap of thunder and lightning hit right over our heads, and we were reeled in and headed for shore in less than 30 secs. It started raining, so we docked the boat and sat in the truck and ate lunch around 1pm. 20 mins later it had stopped and the sun was out - we fished right off the parking lot and started hammering them. Of course the storm decided to come back over the mtns and just pounded us for the nmext hour - on and off. But we kept slamming the fish - catching about 15 or so in the next 1:45 mins.

During the rain storm! I wish I could explain how hard and wet it rained.



Flies: we caught a couple on chiros, but most everything on eggs.

Bugs: one huge damsel in army man green - a size 8 I'd say. Some size 12 yellow caddis - cool looking, but they crawl up your neck (weird). And tons of callibaetis - the dries were a size 10 or so and they were light tan/light grey/albino colored - they were everywhere. No sign of chiros - which was weird.

This is a pic of soaked D and his cool boat. We were headed out - the weather kicked our butt, but it was fun!



Home by 5:30 or so. Thanks for floating us D!

The Workhorse - FOTD

The Workhorse by the Haddis Catch. Great looking fly (and even better photo - fly porn!). Check out his website for tons more great fishing stories and patterns.

Great job (again) Brian!

Delaney's Sat & Sun, June 11-12, 2011

I hit up Delaney's on Saturday night - got the hall pass with my MIL in town - stayed through Sunday. Got up there around 6pm, South Lake had about 40 boaters/belly boaters/tubers/canoers in it (not kidding). Chatted with my buddy Mark over at North Lake for about an hour. Hit South Lake from about 7:30 until 9am. Hooked 4 fish, landed a 15 inch sucker and got a 16 or so inch rainbow right up to me before he popped off. Headed back to my buddies camper to hang out - when a nasty storm came in - literally 45 mph winds and driving rain. Lasted about 40 minutes then it was dead calm. I was going to fish, but by now it was 11pm, so I called it a night and slept in the truck. Killed about 1,000,000,000 chironomids that had snuck in the truck and attacked my dome light. Took about 30 minutes to kill them all.

Sunday morning was up at 6am, on the water by 7am on North Lake - fishing for some nice browns - paddled across the lake in the kayak. Fished in 9 feet of water with no luck. Paddled my ass back (into the wind) around 9am, and went to South Lake. Fished the South Lake until about 2pm, had a bunch of hits, landed NOTHING. I'm embarrassed I got skunked at the D's. Saw a few fish, perfect weather, medium breeze, warm, lots of chiros hatching - just couldn't figure it out. Long drive for no fish.

No callis or damsels hatching yet. Don't believe the North Park Anglers reports of the D's like the other 100 or so other campers that were up there. Literally the place was insane, no doubt all due to the rivers being blown out, no mosquitoes yet, and the NPA glamorous reports. Rumor has it that it isn't on fire yet - my buddy has fished it the last 4 weeks with limited success. It has not "turned on" just yet, but it will - I'm sure the callibaetis hatch will bring on a feeding frenzy.

If you go, good luck, I wish you the best.

South Platte River below Chatfield

Today I hit up the South Platter River below Chatfield. This part of the river is so close to my house, but the reputation as a warm water trashy river completely turned me off to it. Not knowing if this reputation was deserved or not, I finally decided to give it a chance. Unfortunately the reputation is well deserved.

Yes, the flows below Chatfield are historically low right now (not sure why - I guess trying to fill up Chatty), but no matter how you view it, the place is just a nightmare. However, the parks department has put a parking area/ranger station/park office right behind Aspen Grove mall on Santa Fe in Littleton. I had no idea it was there and stumbled upon it. I went inside and talked to a nice guy about the area and he explained the river and the surrounding areas. Inside the office there is a greeting area with all kinds of stuff animals that are in this area - from snakes to foxes to hawks to weasels to coyotes to beavers. Pretty cool little exhibit.

I decided to grab my gear and hike in there right at Ken Caryl. As I was walking in I dropped down to the river and scared a cool colored lizard - he was a limey green color, but I only saw him for a second. The river is horrible colored with nasty algea growing on the bottom, and it was terribly off color - which makes no sense since the flows were so low. I kept moving up river towards Chatfield, hoping to find some fish moving. I did not even string up the rod - just hiked along the rivers edge. There are a couple nice runs, but the water is ugly, no way any trout are in there. I took the temp and it said 60 degrees, which is way too warm for that river in mid May.

There are some restored areas with riffles and waterfalls, but I saw nothing. I even threw in some rocks to see if I could see something scatter - nothing. I moved all the way up to first small pond - there on a fallen little tree I saw a black snake all stretched out on the branch - pretty cool position - he was just sunning himself. I saw tons and tons of different birds as well - flitting in and out of the brush and singing to each other. Of course the bike path follows the river - so lots of bikers, runners and walkers going down the path giving me dirty looks.

The little pond that connects to the river was full of shadowy figures sitting up on top of the water sunning themselves - huge carp, some I'd guess hit 30 lbs or so. I tried my best to cast to them with my carp flies, spooked a bunch of them, had a few laugh at my flies and ended up getting skunked. At least I know where they are now!!

I headed back to the truck - my 3 hour excursion was over - I was not disappointed with the adventure - I saw lots of different animals, tons of fox and raccoon footprints, listened to the birds and saw some fish. Not a bad afternoon only 4 miles from my house!

I know TU is thinking about fixing this section of the Platte, but until Denver Water promises consistent flows out of Chatty, this would be a waste of time. That section needs to be blown out for 6 months straight, and then consistent flows in the 1,000cfs range - which will never happen.

I'm just glad I got out.

Spinney, Fri & Sat, May 13-14, 2011

I can't even come close to describing our fishing trip to you - lots of inside jokes, 2 cases of beer, tons of bullshitting and fish tales and of course a ton of fish. We got a reputation this weekend, when you see the big red boat with the loud asshole in the Red Sox hat on it - you follow it wherever it goes. We had boats within 100 feet of us all weekend, and one time I counted 5 within range. A couple boats came by to ask what we were using, when we said chironomids they didn't beleive us. We should have said powerbait. The fish were beautiful and we were lucky to have a good couple of days with warm sun and very little wind (for 2 half days at least).

Scott, Werm and myself camped at Chaparral General Store, got to check out the new camper and got the luxury of Scott's boat - thanks man!

Here is some fish porn, enjoy:

First beer of the morning - pwned by Scott!












































It was a great trip, I think we cleared 75 fish total. It took us a while, but we kept moving and found the fish. Once we did we stayed on it and were rewarded. Thanks boys for the great trip. Thanks Scott for letting us use the camper and the boat.

I don't like to kiss and tell, but this is a very large lake and there isn't many secrets on this lake. Plus, the water was so low that our favorite spot could be completely different when the water starts coming into the lake (it was at least 7 feet low). You can't get to this spot on foot, and it would take an Olympic kick swimmer to get there by belly boat.

I will say that although Spinney is a flies and lures only lake and mostly a catch and release (you can keep a 20+ trout or any pike) we as anglers need to respect the regulations and fish in this lake. We did see too many people mishandling fish, horsing in fish on spin rods with 10 lb test and bad boating in general. I ask that if you are fishing with someone who decides to do any of these things that you point out that it is careless and only hurts the experience of others and future fishermen. Let's ensure the future of this (and all) fisheries.

I'm looking forward to a great fishing summer!

Spinney, Saturday, April 23, 2011

Not much to report. My buddy Scott and I hit Spinney on Saturday. Day started nasty in Confier with heavy snow - couldn't see 20 feet in front of the truck, made it slow going. Took 2 hours to get there. Saw a Ford Focus with an elk in it's windshield just outside of Fairplay - scary and sad. The roads were a mess over Kenosha and all the way to Fairplay. Just outside of fairplay it cleared and the roads were dry.

Hiked in from the northwest lot - still a very long walk in - caught 1 fish each all day. Scott nabbed a 15 incher chunky rainbow and I caught a 19 inch solid rainbow. Only had one other hook up the whole day. It was a breezy day - not crazy wind, but still enough to be cold and painful. Blowing snow hit us on and off all day. Walked to the bluffs which were muddy and silty. Left around 1pm, roads were wet most of the way, dry on this side of Kenosha, not a drop of snow in Conifer, home in my house around 4pm.

Crappy day, but hey, at least I got out.

Before Fairplay

After Fairplay - big difference

The BHGRHE - FOTD

The BHGRHE is the Tuesday tie from the Haddis Catch.

DAMN!! This thing looks buggy - and it looks like a decent tie. Although I can't tell exactly what the "tail" fibers are - but I suspect speckled hen like the "legs".

Well played Brian J! Well played!

Stillwater, Saturday, April 9, 2011

Stillwater fishing, first trip of 2011 season. Sorry, I can't disclose my "secret" spots. Enjoy the fishporn.





















The early early morning was calm, but after sunrise it got difficult, by 8am the wind was horrible, literally you could cast about 10 feet in front of you and 10 seconds later you'd have to recast - it was pretty miserable. We were blown off the lake, back to the truck and home and in the house at 2pm. These pics don't do the fish justice.

Stonefly Tie - FOTD

A great stone fly pattern over at The Haddis Catch. I like this Copper Stone for the golden d-rib outlines by the silver wire - I have tried this and my result are not nearly as nice. The legs are an interesting addition - I like the way they add to the buginess of this fly.



Nice tie man! If you get the chance, check out the rest of his blog, he has some interesting stories and lots of fish pics.