Rainbow Falls

I think my Dad had planned our trip to Rainbow Falls for today before we actually left Rainbow Falls last Sunday. I believe we can add him to the certified Rainbow Falls junkies list. We had Ben, Marty, Dad, and I today and we split up first thing. Marty and I decided to hit Cougar Lake. My Dad went upstream and hit the section of the creek we did well in last week. I'm not sure where Ben wound up to start.

Things started off slow. I had some new patterns I wanted to try out. I figured I'd tie on a pattern, take a lap around cougar lake, tie on a new pattern, and repeat. I cycled through retrieves at each stop along the way. First fly up was a nasty white / red barred meat whistle. Not much attention was paid to this fly. I had one grab just after the fly hit the water while it was diving but I didn't get a good hook set. I made it back to where I started and tied on a black meat whistle of the same size. I had made it just about around the second time when I cast out and was pulling three quick strips and a quick pause. Right at the last minute a big male brown swam up and seemingly effortlessly grabbed the fly. Second big male brown I've hooked at Rainbow Falls and the second one that has followed the fly all the way to the bank before taking it. Reminds me of a pike. Two natural born killers.

Marty was on the other side of the lake and ran around to help with the net. Not a crazy fight but plenty of strong pulls and head shakes. I couldn't quite get him to come to me so I had to work him to Marty in order to get him in the net. Seeing these big jaws in person and how they close perfectly together to trap whatever unlucky prey item that has just been inhaled is really something. These fish are truly a masterpiece of nature. Perfectly adapted to hunt and kill. Amazing.

Shortly after this 4 or 5 cars pulled up and a small mob surrounded us. I hadn't finished my plan and had two more patterns to go but I'd have to stay put for a while. I missed a really nice rainbow on the last pattern I wanted to try and then we decided to work our way up trout creek and meet up with Dad and Ben.

We hit several nice fish along the way to include this nice 20" bow that Mary landed. We met up with Dad and Ben at the tubes and fished for a while there. I landed a few but got too rough with one and he broke me off taking the last test fly I had tried that turned out to be the best one! The only one I had! Bummer too because I know it's going to be killer in Elk Lake. No worries there is always next weekend :-) I just need to find some vice time this week.

We made our way to Elk Lake but things were slowing down a bit. I need to hit Elk Lake first thing in the morning. Things started to cool down around noon. I started cycling through patterns and retrieves. 

I swear I didn't photoshop different fish in these pictures.

My Dad decided to hit Ute Lake, a lake I hadn't really fished much before, and started hooking up pretty regularly on black meat whistles. He landed two really nice bows within a half hour. The first was 20" and the second was a really fat 23". I landed a 20" in between but we had a camera malfunction and we didn't get a picture. Dad's 23" was full of spots. Really pretty fish and a REALLY strong fighter. Took a good 5 minutes to get him to the net.

Ben landed a nice 24" bow on the far side of Elk Lake after that. Marty landed a few on dries and then the switch flipped and everything stopped. We fished for another hour and a half without a tug.

Another great day in the hills. I must say though that I'm jonsing for a good river trip. East Portal of the Gunny is on tap. Will probably be hitting that in the next 2 - 3 weeks. Big bows on big stones in crystal clear water. Yes.... am jonsing bad. Looking forward to trying some of the same streamer techniques that have been working at Rainbow Falls on my normal fishing spots. Well my old normal fishing spots anyway.

You know where

Finally got to take my Dad up to Rainbow Falls last Sunday. I think he was pretty excited about checking it out in person. We've posted some pretty nice pictures since opening day and we haven't even been through a full month yet! Started this entry a week ago and only got one sentence in. Busy week! Work is getting in the way of my fishing. Not cool! That's OK - Alicia is kicking arse in school and is well on her way to becoming my Sugar Momma :-) Then I'll finally get some time to do some fishing....

Anyway... We showed up at 7ish... I wanted to get my Dad in the first few runs in the creek and we lucked out and had the place to ourselves. I pointed out a few good runs and techniques to my Dad and he was hooked up pretty quick. This all happened a week ago so the details are fuzzy but if memory serves I believe he landed a 32" bow on a size #28 that he hand tied creek side using naturally available materials after snatching a few naturals out of the air with his forceps. Fish broke the 7x tippet right at the bank and the Old Man dove in just at the last minute and noodled the beast out from the under cut bank we were standing on. The Old Man came out of the water, arm first held high, with a monster bow that had swallowed his fist. Rocky Mountain noodling! Call the Discovery Channel! Fish was at least 32" but my tape didn't extend any further. Weight was somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 - 18 pounds.... Oh my Dad just called me back. I left him a message earlier and told him I was trying to remember the details from last week so I could write up the blog. I was mistaken. This fish has grown over the last week.... It was actually 20" and about 4 pounds. #4 instead of #28, 3X instead of 7X, and net instead of consumed fist. Still a nice fish! Really nice male bow with a sweet hook jaw. Great pic that shows the little creek we're pulling these toads out of.

We fished the creek most of the day. Further down stream was good just past the tunnels. There was a stretch of about 15 minutes where 18" fatties couldn't resist a slowly moving #4 white slump. I think I hit 5 or 6 of them. They are really picky about the retrieve sometimes but if you can dial it in you have a golden ticket. This hole right below the tunnels (first "bridge" over trout creek) is funny. I hit it again today (4/28/13) and the exact same retrieve worked. Always works in this hole. Medium length slow strips, one
or two, then a 1 to 2 second pause. They'll normally hit on the pause. This retrieve works well in general but it REALLY works in this hole. And they won't eat it any other way....

I did put some good time into my favorite Elk Lake and did hook a very large rainbow. Had him on for maybe a minute before he came unbuttoned. I landed about an 18" bow after that. No monsters but 4 fish over 20" aint none too shabby.

Rainbow Falls

Well our Tuesday trip was canxed due to us being soft and not wanting to fish in the cold, and our trip for today up to the Colorado was canxed due to a change in plans with my old man. So we headed up to Rainbow Falls for a quick Friday night trip.

Mike Greene joined us because he was tired of reading about this pig farm and wanted in on the action. We hit Trout Creek for the first hour and each of us caught nice fish. We then decided to head up to the lakes. We fished Spring lake and landed a few. I missed a nice one on a white slump buster that came up to the top and left a huge wake while ditching my fly.

I decided to hit my favorite spot on Elk Lake since it was getting later in the evening. I've found that you don't catch nearly as many in this lake but the ones you do are usually huge. I fished for a good 45 minutes without a bump. I tried a variety of colors and stripping speeds. After rotating through white, black, purple, olive, and brown I was back to white.... Time to start getting creative with stripping. I noticed there were fish cruising around the surface so I figured I go with a super fast strip to keep the fly up towards the top. I cast out to a wake and started stripping as hard as I could. BAM! That was the ticket... This nice 24" brown stopped my speedy white meat whistle in its tracks. She just kinda flopped her weight around and came right in. Not the best fighter in the world (as you can see in the pic I'm real worked up) but this gal is photogenic. Elk takes some patience but the rewards are worth it!

Not making any more promises on where I'll be fishing next. If you are a betting man I'd say the odds are on Rainbow Falls. I'm such a big fish whore....

Rainbow Falls (Again)

I know I know you're tired of reading about my trips to Rainbow Falls. I can't help going somewhere 35 minutes up the road that holds 10 pound and bigger trout. Do I sometimes feel that I just stole a lolli from a baby like a good friend of mine put it? Yes. Will that stop me from going at least once a week? No. Don't be a hater. I admit I have a problem! If you are tired of reading about Rainbow Falls and are one of my loyal reader(s) hit me up anytime and we'll go so you can experience it for yourself! Just be warned that you may find yourself looking to fund a membership so you can snatch some lollies too!

Marty and I showed up around 7 and had the place to ourselves. I told Marty that I wanted to hit the first few runs in Trout Creek if no one was there. I was rigged and ready to go but Marty had to rig up. He said that I would probably have five fish before he started fishing and it wasn't far from the truth! Absolutely love the first few runs.

Both nymphs and streamers were working. A large white meat whistle seemed to be the ticket this morning. The cool thing about these runs is if you let them sit for 5 to 10 minutes it's just like you hit them for the first time that morning. The fish suffer from fly amnesia. We fished Trout Creek for an hour or so and then decided to hit Spring Lake.

We hit Spring Lake and Elk Lake for a few hours but no one was doing much at the lakes. This was the slowest that I've seen the lakes so far this season. No worries, back down to Trout Creek. One of the nice things about this place is that if one area is slow you can always find another open area to fish.

We hit the exact same runs we had fished in the morning and it was like no one had fished them all day. I think we pulled three or four 20 inch fish out this go around to include this 20" fatty that Marty landed.


We hit Elk Lake again on the way out but only managed to land one 18 inch rainbow. Ran into Greg Blessing and he gave us some great tips. Yet another great thing about Rainbow Falls is all of the nice people you run into while you're fishing there. Everyone is always willing to help and we try to return the favor anytime we can.

Did a little reading on the Donaldson Trout (aka Super Trout) that I've been told are stocked at Rainbow Falls. I'll have to ask Richard to be sure but I'm pretty sure this is what we are catching. I believe it because of the way these fish fight. I had an 18 incher almost tailwalk up the bank on me! Marty was able to snap a pick just as he came out of the water. He saw the net and went CRAZY! It is too fun catching these fish in a little creek.

This guy almost tailwalked himself onto the bank!

My New Addiction - Rainbow Falls

First weeknight trip to Rainbow Falls. Makes for one LONG work day but totally worth it. Not too many people there last night when we pulled in. It was such a nice day yesterday I thought it would be packed but it wasn't too bad. I'd say 10 guys total on the property.

Nice buck that took a #16 red annelid

Ben and I started on Trout Creek. We hit some areas we didn't hit on the first trip. The runs directly below the dam are as good as I thought they would be. There is a section of 5 nice runs directly below the dam. Each have a nice weir that dumps a little white water into the hole. There are two that I noticed that have an underwater shelf that drop off into a deep cut. You can get a really nice drift right up against the shelf and the trout seem to be stacked up against the drop off. Really fun fishing these runs because you can tell when a fish is going to hit before the take. Addicting!

This trip I came armed with a bunch of streamer patterns like the ones Ben was killing them with last trip and didn't have much luck with them. It seemed like bigger patterns were the ticket this trip. Just goes to show that you still have to figure out whats going on on any given day. Makes it even more addicting...

26" Hoss

We hit Elk Lake as the sun was setting. I fished it for about a half hour without much luck.  I tied on the biggest black slump buster that I had, came within a foot of knocking myself out with it on the forward cast, and let it sink for a good 20 seconds. I started a VERY slow and lazy strip. 4 short strips and a 2-3 second pause. I saw my streamer and was getting ready to cast when something caught the corner of my eye. I hesitated and this big boy swam around in front of it (between me and the streamer) and opened his mouth and ran it over. My heart was in my throat when I set the hook. My line just stopped. He just sat there for a second in front of me like he couldn't believe he was hooked. I thought he was going to come right in but that would not be the case. He found some motivation and was running. This gave me some time to yell over to Ben who was at Spring Lake. He jumped in the truck and drove over in time to see the end of the fight and this jaw with fins swim into the net.

We headed back down to the creek just as it was getting dark. I tied on a white Meat Whistle with yellow dumbbell eyes and stuck a few nice fish before it got too dark to fish. Awesome way to spend a Thursday night!

One thing I've learned over these first two trips is that a very slow and gentle stripping action is best on streamers. I've picked a few up on faster strips but it seems that most take the fly on a pause in between very slow strips. We'll see if that holds up.