Rainbow Falls Opening Day 2013

I have been waiting for opening day at Rainbow Falls ever since the Fly Fishing Expo in Denver this year. It was worth the wait!

Ben with a 24" bow landed on a Streamer

Ben and I hit the gate around 6:45 and thought that we had screwed something up because no one was there! We had the place to ourselves except for one older gentleman that was fishing the runs just below the dam. These runs look REALLY good and I can't wait to hit them next trip. We didn't fish the creek very long. Still have more of this creek to explore. There are some really nice holes and runs along the creek that I'm looking forward to spending more time on. Ben landed one small bow and I missed a small bow in a nice beaver pond but the lakes were calling us and so we headed back up the road. We were like two kids on Christmas morning. We didn't know which present to open up next!

We had no idea which lake to fish so we just stopped at the first one we came to. It took us a while to figure out how to fish this area. Yes the fish are stocked, and yes they don't see may flies but they are still trout and it's still fishing. We fished till 8:30 without much action on the lakes.

We headed up and met everyone for breakfast. Dave Herber had a huge iron pot filled with Bacon! This is the life! After bacon, some coffee, and a chocolate doughnut we were properly fueled to stick some pigs. It didn't take Ben long. We took about 20 steps to the nearest lake and Ben hooked this nice 21" brown within a few casts! Uh..... this doesn't seem fair!

Scary! Don't wade barefoot!

We were starting to learn a few things about this place. Earlier in the morning both streamers and nymphs were working. I landed several on a size 16 Red Pheasant Tail. Other nymphs that worked well were a size 20 Red Forget-Me-Knot, and a size 14 Flashback Hares Ear. I landed several on the streamer patterns I've been posting on the Facebook page. Steamers seemed to be the ticket but you had to have the right size, color, and profile. Everyone was catching fish and having a good time. There were some very large trout landed to include a 28" 12lb bow on a size 14 Prince Nymph.

After lunch things slowed down a bit but fish were still hitting streamers. By this time Ben had found a fly that was really producing and he continued to hook and land monster trout on it like this HUGE brown.

 We hooked up with Phil Benton in the afternoon for a lesson on deep water stripping. Uh ..... that is fishing streamers on right on the bottom. We watched him land a HUGE rainbow and brown almost back to back. Crazy! Fly Fishing paradise!

I landed a lot of nice 18-20" fish but couldn't land the biggest that I hooked. It was a friggin LOG and when I hooked him he just sorta calmly swam by Ben and spit the hook as if to say, "nice try PUNK!". Even though the big one got away I cannot complain about not catching a monster this trip. Man I really wish I caught a monster this trip.

We hit just about every section of open water and found fish everywhere. Even the culverts between lakes held big fish. I have no idea how many fish we caught but I'd say it was close to 40 between the two of us.

I have to say that I had mixed feelings before fishing Rainbow Falls. After the trip though I realize that it's still fishing. It is easier for sure to land huge fish here but it still takes using the right fly and getting the correct presentation. You just expect to hook a 6-10lb fish every cast :-)

Do I really get to fish here all summer?

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Nice bow that fell for the jazzed up Copper John

Quick half day trip down to Pueblo today with Ben and Marty. We started out at the Nature Center and worked our way up around the first bend. Got to look at some of the new structures and they are awesome! Crowd started to fill in above the Nature Center pretty quickly so we headed down to the water treatment plant which was also packed. Plan C was to head down to Pillars Park and we had the river to ourselves. Missed a nice fish on the second cast in the Martini Hole. There are also some nice new structures along this stretch. We all caught fish today but nothing huge to speak of.

Brown that fell for a "pegged" egg sucking leach.

Two nice experimental flies caught fish today which is always fun. The first was a Red Copper John tied with Prismatic Pliable Peal Sheet Back and Red UV paint covering the copper. The second was more of a rig than a fly. I tied a slump buster on with a non slip mono loop knot and slid a bead egg on with the fly so that the egg and the fly were in the loop. I think this setup will work well once the flows are higher. Hoping to get a few more big snow storms this month and in April.

The Copper John and the egg rig can be seen on my FB page if you are interested.

https://www.facebook.com/jamiesfishingjournal

Next week - Colorado River!

Ben with a nice little bow right off the bat

Marty with a bow towards the end of the day

Biggest Catch of the Day!!!
BINGO Burger!
This thing put a hurting on me. Ben ordered the same thing. Mine was up first and when I sat down at the table Ben took one look at it and said, "I'm in a world of hurt". I'm not going to eat for at least 2 hours!

North Platte (Grey Reef)

Grey Reef!

Experienced a little March Madness in Wyoming this weekend. Ben Lewis and I stopped by Wyoming Fly Fishing’s booth at the Fly Fishing Show in Denver this past January and spoke to Greg Mueller who stated that the fishing would be good in March up on the Grey Reef section. “Good” turned out to be “did that day of fishing really just happen please get me ice for my arm GOOD”!

Back yard of our Red Butte Ranch lodging

Ben and I arrived Friday night around 9 at the Red ButteRanch where we would be staying for the weekend. Ruth Romp, Proprietor of the B&B, met us at the end of the drive and we followed her up to the guest house. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw our accommodations for the weekend. It felt like home right away. Ben and I unloaded the ridiculous amount of gear we drug up and crashed out for the night.

We woke up the next morning to the smell of breakfast burritos. We had an outstanding breakfast, courtesy of Ruth, and loaded up the boat. Off to the Grey Reef! I have heard so much about this section of river and knew it should be good fishing but I was about to get schooled on what Wyoming fly fishing is all about. Greg had rigged us up before we left so we put in and started casting just downstream from the boat ramp. Unfortunately it took a full 2 minutes to hook up (notice the boat ramp in the background). Greg told us to imagine what it would be like if we had a good guide! Ha! Love this guy already! I was a little leery of the quick hook ups because I’ve had days where I’ve hooked up quickly only to get shunned the rest of the day. This however, would not be the case today.

We continued to hook and land quality fish on egg patterns. Greg would put us through good runs half a dozen times! The “outhouse” hole was a blast. Greg must have rowed us to the head of that run 6 times. We hit trout every single time. We could have done that all day but Greg’s arms would have wound up being as sore as ours. We hit every good piece of water for the next 9 miles. Ben and I both hooked our biggest fish in the same run at the same time! Unfortunately we lost both of them. Both were north of 20” and absolute slabs. We ended the day somewhere around 40-50 fish! What we didn’t know is that Greg was just warming us up for round two.

Next morning started out with Ruth cooking us another awesome breakfast for the road. We were going to hit another section of river that will have to go unnamed. Please hold the hate mail. I know a guy that can put you on this water anytime (wyogilley@aol.com – ask for Greg). I promised I wouldn’t say where we were going since it’s a pretty uncrowded piece of water that Greg gets to guide on. From what Greg was telling us the day before this water was really good. Again, another understatement. If Greg ever tells you that a piece of water is great, quit your job if you have to and start driving to Casper. “Really good” equated to one of the top three days of fly fishing I’ve ever had.

We arrived and only saw one other truck in the parking lot. We drove down to the boat ramp and the other boat was anchored just across river from us. We were going to be the first boat downstream. We pushed off and unfortunately we didn’t repeat our 2 minute hookup time. We had to settle for 45 seconds! Uh….. WTF! Do Wyoming trout fast during the month of February? You can’t see the boat ramp in this picture but you can see some individuals that were punishing the water for a while before we put in without a take. Sorry guys! We peeled out of there and headed downstream. I don’t know how to write about what would follow. It’s kind of a blur of red stripes, kypes, and diving indicators sprinkled with short bouts of shit talking. The result was an 80 fish day to include 3 fish over 20” and the elusive cuttyrainbrown. The average fish was probably 17”. If we went more than a minute without a hit something felt wrong. Good thing for us that happened exactly twice as I recall. Okay maybe three times.

 

I’m still blown away by the weekend of fishing we had. It’s hard to think of hitting some of the spots I’ve been wanting to hit outside of the U.S. when there is fishing like this to be had close to home. This will be an annual trip for me 

As a bonus we discovered a new species of trout! It's born without a body so that it doesn't have to stop eating in order to wait for digestion to occur. Its tail is connected directly to its head so that all caloric intake goes into growing its killing apparatus located on its head.

 A HUGE thanks to Ruth and Greg for a fantastic weekend of fly fishing. Their company added immensely to our enjoyment of the awesome fly fishing Wyoming has to offer. I highly recommend hitting these two up if you want to experience the North Platte the right way. 

Ruth Romp

Proprietor

Red Butte Ranch

Greg Mueller 

Head Guide

Wyoming Fly Fishing

307.267.5494