Middle Fork (Tomahawk)

Mike Greene making a cast 

Got away from the crowds this week and headed up to the Middle Fork of the South Platte River. This river is typically less crowded than other rivers around Denver / Colorado Springs. If you can go on a weekday you can basically have the river to yourselves. We only saw two other anglers the whole day!

Tomahawk has some of the nicest water within an hour and a half from Colorado Springs. It winds through a beautiful valley with snow capped mountains in the background. Every bend of the river offers up perfect runs, riffles, and undercut banks. The trout aren't huge but they are aggressive and each run holds several nice rainbows and browns.

We started fishing around 7 and worked our way upstream from the dirt parking lot. We immediately started hooking fish. The hot ticket in the morning was a San Juan Worm / Bead Head PT combo. There was a heavy midge hatch in the morning and a sporadic BWO hatch but the trout seemed to be keying on to BWO nymphs. The trick to this river is stealth. You need to keep your distance and stay low at each run. These trout are wild and spook easily. If you stay low and make a descent cast you will be rewarded with little gems like this.

After lunch we hiked downstream about a half mile from the dirt parking lot and started fishing upstream back to the Jeep. This section of river opens up a little and gives you a little more room to cast. The trade off is less deep bend runs. Never-the-less we continued to hit trout on just about every bend. Mike switched to a dry dropper rig and had some luck on a size 14 yellow Simulator. It was fun seeing little 4-8" trout coming up to eat that fly! They couldn't even fit it in their mouths.

We each landed over a dozen trout and had many many more on. This is such a fun little river and it's very refreshing getting away from the pig chase. I will be heading back up here this fall for the chance to land a large brown from Spinney in such a fun little river to fish. Had a great time with Mike who is always a pleasure to fish with.

I wanted to get a little fish catching action on video and since we were regularly hooking fish I thought it would be a good chance to do so. Below are a few videos of Mike and I hooking into fish. Not huge by any means but you get a feel for how peaceful it is fishing here.

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Gunnison River (East Portal)

20" Slab of a buck (photo bomb by Dad's finger)

The East Portal did not disappoint. I was hoping our first trip there wasn't a fluke and it turns out that this section of the Gunnison, in my opinion, is one of the best kept secrets in Colorado fly fishing. Since I can count the number of my blog readers on two hands I feel safe in writing this. For my faithful reader(s) this is your reward for reading my ramblings several times a month.

Henry Comp with a nice brown

Henry Comp, my Dad's lifelong friend, flew out from Missouri to join us for a weekend of fishing. My Dad has known Henry since they were about 6 and it was nice listening to some of the old stories they had. I always learn some nugget of info about my Dad when Henry is in town. Henry is a huge Pike/Musky fisherman and knows how to fish. He landed this nice brown on the Taylor (took a quick detour to the Taylor on Thursday night on our way to the Gunnison). Dad is seen here showing Henry how to properly hold a phantom trout. As you can see by my Dad's hands, his phantom trout is still smaller than Henry's brown.

We hit the river shortly after daylight and I went straight to the hole I had missed the huge rainbow in a few weeks back. I have this run dialed in and knew exactly what files to fish and what depth. This hole is DEEP and I use my biggest split shot covered in Mojo Mud along with weighted flys to get down fast. Since it was early in the morning in oxygenated water, I knew the trout would be on the lookout for golden stones. I was right. For the first half hour of fishing I had a take on almost every other cast. Tungstones, Tungteasers, Pat's Rubberlegs, and Disco Worms were on the menu. These fish hit hard and fight harder. 4X is a MUST. Especially if you don't want to chase every fish 100 yards downstream. This section of the Gunny reminds me of the Frying Pan in the mid 90's. Fat, red, aggressive rainbows that are always hungry.

We fished the spill over for most of the morning. We moved downstream to fish some faster pocket water just before lunch. I hooked about a 14" brown on the edge of some fast white water and was to my backing within 20 seconds. Dad was with me and we started running downstream. During my run I noticed a nice simulator laying on the bank and took a quick pause to pick it up. Nice bead head stone attached to it. Quick stop for some free flys and it was back to the races. 100 yards later we netted the little brown that got both of our heart rates up. I couldn't imagine hitting a large Gunny bow in this water.

After lunch we went upstream to a nice long bend run that we had found during our first trip to the East Portal. Around this time (noon or one) a nice PMD hatch started developing. I was unprepared for this hatch. I had gone into the fly shop a few weeks back looking for PMD superfine dubbing and they were out. No big deal then, HUGE deal now. I'd have to go  with some BWO Bar Emergers and hope the fish I was fishing to were color blind. I told my Dad to tie on a Bar PMD Emerger and he was out too. But after taking a second look in the dark recesses of his fly boxes he found an old size 16 PMD that was barley hanging on to the hook. The fish loved it. He hooked several really nice rainbows at the head of the bend run.

The fish started rising pretty regularly and I decided to tie on the closest thing I had to a PMD dry. I had a few refuses on an Adams but the fish knew what they wanted. I will be better prepared for the PMD hatch next time. July and Colorado and I don't have any PMDs. You would think I would have learned something over the last 20 years of fly fishing...
  
We decided to head back to the spill way for the last hour of fishing. Dad decided to cross the river with me and hang out with the net ready. I rigged up again with heavy line and a boat anchor. Large Tungteaser as an attractor and a beadhead flashback Bar emerger as the rider. On about the 5th cast I set the hook to a bow that absolutely wen berserk! This thing jumped immediately after being hooked. She jumped and ran on top of the water several times. It was all I could do to give some slack and hang on! After 20 minutes of long runs, head shakes, and net scares Dad was able to corner her up against the bank and net her. She wasn't done fighting when she was netted! Amazing strength to this trout. One of the hardest fighting fish I've ever hooked. She fought like and 8lb trout. She turned out to be just a hair shy of 20" but she has earned her way on to the 20" board with that fight (and my arm extension). Truly a memorable trout on a fun and memorable trip.

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Same 20" buck as shown above