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?