Squeezing In Some Fall Fishing
Living and working in Colorado
has many benefits, and one of those is that I’m usually not too far from a spot
to fish, even in the winter. People
assume that because I’m a fishing guide that I must get to go fishing all the
time, but that’s only technically true. What I really do is spends lots of time
watching other people fish.
Since I live fifty feet from the Colorado River, getting a
line into the water can be as quick as grabbing the little rod that hangs next
to the gate on the way out to the back yard. From the end of my dock, I can
usually fool one of the small browns that feed in the slow current out there just
before dark.
Of course, some
times I look for a bit more of a challenge, and there are productive places to
wade all along the river. I’ll use my
bike to reach the closer spots, which has the added benefit of helping to get
my legs in shape for ice hockey. But
living so close to good fishing spots means that all I need is an hour or two
to be able to fish, so its not a huge time commitment to do so. Last Sunday was an example of that. I spent most of the day getting caught up
with office stuff and yard chores, and by three was done doing the things that
I absolutely needed to do. So I hopped
in my truck and drove up the river to the canyon, where I used the railroad
bridge below Pinball Rapid to get over to the other side. On river left is a small boulder garden, one
that I can’t reach from my boat when I take clients through. (The spots that I
usually like to wade are the ones that I can’t reach from the boat).
Wading across the
lower end of the hole, I sloshed up through the current to a large rock that
offers a perfect perch to cast from.
Although trout can be found behind some of the rocks, the most reliable
feeding lie is where the current runs back along the bank. After a couple of short casts to get my
distance set, I peeled off a couple more feet of line and dropped my two dry flies
right on the bubble line a foot or two off the bank. The flies, and Elk Hair Caddis and small PMD,
drifted perfectly and I held my rod tightly ready to set the hook. The flies went through unmolested however, as
they did on my next presentation. On their
third trip, the flies were at the end of their drift, and as I took my eyes off
them to scan upriver for my next cast I felt a tug in my hand, and noticed that
I had a fish on. I landed a thirteen inch trout on the mayfly, and felt a bit
guilty about it since I never saw the take.
After releasing the fish, I made more casts further up into the hole and
soon caught a much nicer brown, and felt better about this one since I put the
fly right where I wanted it and saw the take this time.
Now that I had
caught two out of this hole I was ready to move on, and so I went back to my
truck and drove towards home, to another spot that’s hard to reach from a
boat. When I got there I realized that
the water was still running faster and higher than I expected it to be, and
spot I was going to try was still a bit blown out. So I went a little further down to a sizeable
eddy below, and cast from there. This
hole was deep, and had a nice bubble line below where the river ran past a big
rock on the bank. I watched for a moment
to see if there were any surface action, and I saw a rise, and then
another. From the bank I began casting
to areas where the current would bring my fly into the swirling bubbles. After one such pass, instead of pulling the
flies out after they went under, I stripped them back to me like a pair of
streamers. Soon a felt a strong tug, and
landed a small rainbow. I kept tossing
the dries into the eddy line, and soon caught a much better rainbow than the
first, this one was about fifteen inches.
I didn’t think that I’d better that fish, but kept casting in the
bubbles and had to do lots of mending to keep my flies on top. Then I saw a
fish rise to my fly and he was on, fighting much harder than the other
two. Once I got him close I saw why, he
was foul-hooked. It was another rainbow,
bigger than the first and smaller than the second. After releasing that third fish, I decided
that it was time to go, three fish out of the same hole was plenty, what would
I prove by continuing to pull fish out of it?
Making my way out
along the bank, and saw the rise of a nice fish not far away. I didn’t really
want to catch another fish in the same spot, but the siren’s call of a feeding
trout is hard to resist. The caddis
pattern I was using was pretty beat up, and would be getting retired anyway, so
I cut off the hook and the second fly and cast that towards the unsuspecting
trout. The fly drifted towards the
intermittently appearing olive nose, and as the fly drifted over it the nose
came up and gulped down the fly. Since I
had no hook I didn’t want to pull it out of his mouth, but did get to feel a
good solid pull on the line before the trout opened his mouth back up and spat
it out. Fishing without hooks isn’t
something that I do a lot, but every now and then its fun to do everything
involved with trying to catch fish, except for the
sticking-a-sharp-hook-into-a-trout’s-mouth part.
Of course not all of
my fishing occurs along the river I live.
My other main working gig is driving a propane truck, and that takes me
all over the back roads of Eagle and Garfield
counties. Usually I have my tenkara rod and
a couple of flies on hand, just in case I end up on some private property I can
fish during work. But last week I knew
that I would be making a delivery to Piney
Lake above Vail, and so I made sure
I had my other travel rod as well, an old telescoping Trimarc. After delivering the propane, I drove about a
mile downstream from the lake to a spot I’d been eyeing on previous trips.
There were spots closer to the resort that I’d already fished in past, but
since I already knew that fish were there I was ready to find some others.
The Piney was much
lower than it had been three weeks ago.
The water wasn’t more that a few inches deep in most places, but I did
see a little riffle that looked a bit deeper than that which would have made
for a good feeding lie. I extended the
Trimarc to its full length, and added a second mayfly to the caddis already
tied on. On my very first cast, a small
brookie inhaled the mayfly and I quickly pulled him out of the hole so that he
wouldn’t spook the others. It was only
about six inches long, but beautiful in a way that only a brook trout in
spawning colors can be.
I released that, and
on my second cast a fish came up for the caddis. My hook set was too quick though, and I
pulled it out of his mouth. After a
couple false casts to dry my fly, I gently dropped my flies down into the
bubble line once more, and the moment my caddis hit the water a nice brook
trout was waiting with its mouth open to eat it. This one gave me a better fight than the
first, and when I worked it in over to the shallow water by the bank I saw that
it was a foot long beauty, in colors that no oil painting or mere photograph could
ever do justice to. After pulling the
hook out of its mouth and watching it swim away, I raised my rod to try another
cast. Before I could I noticed my line
was still animated, and realized that there was still another fish on the end of my tippet. This was a three inch rainbow fry that had
eaten my mayfly at some point, without my even realizing it!
I was going to keep
casting, but remembered that I was supposed to be working, not fishing. I had
only made three casts, had three strikes, and caught three fish. Not a bad way to kill a few minutes at
work.
The following week I
was asked to speak at a lunchtime Denver Angling Society event, and after
giving my presentation was talking with some folks there. One of them mentioned a body of water I’d
never heard of before, the Old Dillon
Reservoir. This was a little lake that the town of Dillon
used for its water supply when the town was in its original location, before
the creation of Lake Dillon. He said that he had hiked up to it recently,
and that after being recently expanded it had been stocked with Golden
Trout. Goldens are native to California,
not Colorado, and I’ve heard of
them being stocked in places but have never seen one. So on my way home from Denver,
instead of fishing Clear Creek or the Blue as I often do I decided to check out
this spot I’d never seen or even heard of.
The trailhead to the
Old Dillon Reservoir is located off the dam road between Frisco and
Dillon. I’ve noticed cars parked there
in the past, but never given it much notice.
Before hiking up the hill, I grabbed my rod and fanny pack of gear. After a short hike, I came over a rise and
saw a small round lake perched at the top of the hill with a commanding view of
the “new” Dillon Reservoir, Buffalo Mountain,
the Williams Fork
Mountains, and Keystone off to the
east. Traffic from I-70 could be heard
just to the west and downhill, but not seen.
The little reservoir
itself was not very impressive, and my first thought was that I was an idiot
for even carrying my rod up there. It
covered perhaps ten acres, and was surrounded by rock, cement and gravel, with
no vegetative cover whatsoever. I left
my Fenwick broken down in two pieces, and decided that instead of fishing that
I’d just go for a hike around the “lake”.
When I got down
closer to the water’s surface though, I noticed something that I didn’t expect
to see, riseforms from feeding trout. I
usually associate trout with living in beautiful places, in fact it’s a big
reason that I am a trout fisherman to
begin with. Though there was a nice view
from here above the little lake, I can’t imagine that the trout would
appreciate that much.
So I put the rod
together and strung it up, and made my way down to the water’s edge. Now that I was closer, I could see plenty of
dimples in the water, created by what looked to be very small fish. On my first cast the a trout rose to my fly
almost immediately, but when I set the hook I pulled it away from it. The same thing happened on my next cast, and
my next, and my next, for maybe twenty casts.
I stopped setting the hook altogether, but still when I’d raise the rod
tip there would be nothing there. It was
frustrating but amusing too. I
considered replacing my mayfly with one that had a barbed hook, for I was
curious to see at least one of these “Golden
Trout”.
Finally on about my
twenty-first cast or so I was able to get the hook to stick, and brought a very
small to hand. It was not a Golden
Trout, but an immature rainbow with golden color and deep parr marks. I put him back into the water and watched him
shoot off to rejoin his clan, with a great story to tell about the abusive
giant he had just encountered.
Curiosity satisfied,
I broke the Fenwick back down and resumed my trek around the little reservoir’s
circumference. It was a beautiful fall day and the colors on the hillsides
rivaled those on the baby trout. The
lake itself was not beautiful, but the setting was and it was yet another
pretty spot that the pursuit of trout had taken me to. One of hundreds of such
places that I’ve found in Colorado,
with hundreds more yet unexplored. So many places, so little time…
Golden trout are very similar to rainbow trout. The title image for this blog post is a golden trout. Good fishing!
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