Frying Pan River

Another great trip to the Pan this weekend. Ben, Marty, Dad, and I headed up on Friday afternoon to Basalt. We pulled in to The Greene Drake around 4PM and unloaded the mass of gear in the car. If you haven't eaten at Basalt's only Pizzeria you are missing out. Didn't catch the name of it but it's the only Pizza joint in town. There have been several other Pizza places in the same place but they had been shut down for a while. Good to know there is a new one that is worth checking out. Hope it stays open for a while. It's over by the 711.


After stuffing our faces we headed over to Taylor Creek Fly Shop. I have always been impressed with the mount they have on the wall. I asked Scott (can't remember his last name) who was working there about it and he stated that one of their guides found it dead one day. They called DOW and they allowed them to mount it. It was something like 25 pounds! Amazing the type of fish the Frying Pan can produce. I'm not sure how you would ever land something like this but it would be on my mind trying to fall asleep later on at The Green Drake!

After that it was back to the hotel for a marathon Klies's Mysis tying fest. I tied up 18 or so of this saweet pattern in various sizes / eye colors. John has used these on the Taylor with great success but to my knowledge this would be the first time this pattern was fished on the Pan. I was really excited to see how they did. We have the toilet bowl pretty dialed in so I knew we'd be putting this fly right on the nose of some huge trout. It was going to be hard to get to sleep this night!


Normal crazy drill in the morning. Wake up early, drive to the toilet bowl, turn the corner to see if anyone is there, warm up in the truck till brave enough to head out into the cold. If the fishing wasn't so good I would forget about this hole altogether. It gets pretty crowded and not everyone is polite about crowding in. We were the only crazies this morning and it wasn't hard to figure out why. It was 4 degrees on the thermometer and the wind was blowing like crazy. It must have been at least -10 degree wind chill. Way too cold to do any sort of productive fishing. But...... if you want to fish the toilet bowl you have to get there early.

Once the sun came up and we could feel our faces we started dredging Klies's Mysis right below the damn. Ben hooked up on his second cast with this really nice male bow. Couldn't believe the kype on this guy. Orange Klies's Mysis #16 on the board! Could be the first Pan fish caught on that bad boy. Ben, hands numb, a little delirious from the cold, flipped his half frozen line back in the water and WHAM! Another victim! This was a BIG GIRL! At this point I'm sure Ben had no feeling in his hands. I can imagine that fighting this fish was like holding the rod with your elbows! He was able to get this girl in the net and show her his "O" face. Really fat 23" hen! What the hell were we on to here? This was shaping up to be the most epic day on the Pan ever.

The action kept up for the next hour. Ben had to run up to the car after this second catch to keep his hands from falling off. Almost immediately after he left I stepped into the head of the run and hooked a BEAST! This thing tried to jump but was only able to get her shoulders out of the water before flopping over. Marty was right below me and was just as blown away by this as I was. This was a 25" class fish in the 8lb range. She took me right up under the damn almost all the way up to where the water drops in. In my experience fishing this hole, only the big guys and gals are able to do this. I knew this was a big fish! She stayed in the head of the run and I was confident I was going to land her. Dad was bringing the big net up to the head of the run when the hook pulled out........ Ouch!! Tough to lose these fish but we were only 15 minutes into the trip! Guess what she hit? That's right folks. Did I mention that the Klies's Mysis is currently under investigation by the DOW? They are trying to determine if that fly falls under the "bait" category.

Whoops! Like the belly shot though

We kept at it and kept hooking into big fish. I landed a 23" and a 24" bow and Marty landed a 22" bow. This was amazing. We were an hour into our trip! Then....... someone flipped the switch. Everything stopped. I really think that fish migrate throughout the day in the toilet bowl. I think there are always fish with their noses on the damn outlet but you can see fish moving in and out of the main run. In  the afternoon Ben and I went to the far side of the hole and they were stacked up like crazy. A number of factors could influence this movement but I think that pressure in the main run has a lot to do with it. It seems like on past trips the migration continued for most of the day with action coming in waves. I also believe that Mysis Shrimp swim in schools and that the amount of Mysis Shrimp coming through the damn happens in quick spurts.  It seems like when one guy hooks up on a Mysis pattern someone else does almost immediately. These schools could be in different areas of the reservoir during different times of the day.  The fish in this hole may have become conditioned to this and know the times of day that the most shrimp are available and move into the head of the run and deal with the fishing pressure because the pay off is worth it in caloric intake. I'm sure the weather and any hatches that occur also play a role in this migration but haven't seen any noticeable patterns to key in on yet.

Even though it was a slow afternoon it was a great trip overall. Any time you land fish of this size it is a good day! We also had the chance to land some bigger fish and that is all you can ask for. Size #16 orange eyed Klies's Mysis seemed to be the ticket for most of the day but we did also land some on #12 - #14 with yellow eyes and black eyes.

I'm beginning to miss the lower sections of the Pan. The last several times we've fished it the toilet bowl has been open. It's hard to walk away from it. I miss fishing the flats, beatis bridge, the bend hole.......etc. One of these trips the toilet bowl is going to be taken. I think I'll be OK with that. Looking forward to hitting the rest of the river this summer!

Arkansas River (2013 Frostbite Fish-Off)

Had an awesome time at the Frostbite Fish-Off! This was the first tournament that Ben and I have been in and it was a really fun experience. This tourney is run by the Southern Colorado Greenback Chapter of TU  and Steel City Anglers. Most of the proceeds go to the Arkansas River in Pueblo so it is really worth supporting and a helluva good time. In fact, there are pictures of the river improvements currently in the works on the river on Steel City Angler's FB page that were made possible, in part, by the proceeds of this tourney.

We showed up on Friday night to draw our beats and I ran into Chris Ramos and Mark Puterbaugh. I went to high school with Chris and had the pleasure of meeting Mark. We sat together for the beat drawings. Ben and I decided to go with Team Chuck and Duck for our team name due to the finely tuned casting technique that we have both acquired over years of dedicated practice. The teams were called up one by one to draw a morning beat and an afternoon beat. There was a large map of the river laid out across a pool table that everyone hurried over to after they drew their beats. Team after team went up and drew their beats. Ben and I started to get worried after 15 or so teams out of 18 were called. I was starting to think I screwed up our application. We were the next to the last team to be called up. Ben drew beat 16 for the morning session and I drew beat 4 for the afternoon session. A quick trip to the pool table revealed that we had done pretty well. Beat 16 is just around the first bend up from the Nature Center and beat 4 included the hatchery outlet. Nice! We had good beats. Now it was up to us.

We showed up Saturday morning at 7 to sign in and grab breakfast. We signed in and decided to head to "Arribas" for a breakfast burrito. I've been told the food is good there and it is. Convenient location. Going to have to make it a regular stop. After breakfast we decided to head to beat 16 to scout out the water. This is the beat around the first bend upstream from the Nature Center. We climbed up on the high bank and were able to spot some trout at the head of the run. Most of the run was a deep slow channel on the far bank. My Dad had come down for the morning session to watch the action (I use that term loosely) and set up camp in the middle of our beat. We met our Controller and at 9AM EXACTLY I made my first cast.

A BITE! Whoahh - first cast in the first tourney I've ever fished and I had a bite. Unfortunately it surprised the hell out of me and I didn't get a good hook set. Rookie mistake. This was going to be a productive run! Ben and I took turns fishing. Only one angler could have his line in the water at a time. We didn't have a specific system worked out we just decided to get a few good drifts in and then switch it up. We did this for the next 2.5 hours without a fish! WTF over - Ben and I were pretty discouraged at this point but we Cowgirled up and kept at it. With about 20 minutes left in the tourney Ben got a hit and landed a nice 15.5" rainbow. I netted the fish and then turn around and made a cast. BOOM! Hit and landed a 17.5" rainbow. Two fish within 4 minutes out of 3 hours of fishing! CRAZY. Ben and I were thinking we were going to have to skip lunch because it would have sucked going in there and posting goose eggs. We ended the morning session with 33" of trout. Not great but not terrible.

We went back to the Sports Garden for lunch and the morning results were posted. Lots of 20"+ fish were caught including a nice 22.5" brown caught by Tim Hannan on Team Angler's Covey (Tim's write up can be read here) . Biggest fish was a 23.5" brown caught on a streamer. There were some good fishermen fishing in this tourney! 70"+ of trout put you in the running we were at 33"..... Had a lot of work to do in the PM.

We finished lunch and headed to beat 4. This beat includes the outlet of the hatchery and is an excellent piece of water. The Team that fished this beat in the morning did VERY well so the pressure was on. I hooked up pretty quick with a 14". It was good to get on the board quickly after the morning's session. Things were looking up when I hooked into and landed an 18" rainbow. This beat was going to be awesome! Two more rainbows, 14.75" and 16" were landed and we had 4 fish on the board! Saweet! Now we needed to replace some of those smaller fish with some Pigs! Queue the fish switch...... Everything turned off.... Not another landed fish for two hours. Very strange day. The weather was strange and there was a front moving in so I think it really affected the fishing.

****NO WAY THAT JUST HAPPENED*****
Towards the end of the session I broke off a rig. I knew we didn't have much time left and I asked our Controller how much time we had. He said, "3 and a half minutes". Ben was fishing the run below the hatchery outlet. I had Marty's 4wt Orvis Clearwater II that I had broken a rig off of earlier. I decided to generate a desperation rig consisting of a 4wt Orvis Clearwater, 3X tippet, and a huge olive Meat Whistle. I rigged it up and asked the controller, "how much time"? "You have 30 seconds". I told Ben that I was casting and he pulled his line out of the water. I was in the slack water just to the right of the drop off below the hatchery outlet. I cast just above the drop off and started stripping hard - strip - strip - strip - BOOM!!! Big slab of red comes up to the surface. Holy Shit!!!! This could be the fish of the tournament. I had him stuck on a big hook with 3X tippet. He is mine!!!! I started loading the reel with slack line and I heard a SNAP! Everything went slack and I looked down to see half a rod in the water. This Pig had just snapped Marty's rod in two!!!! The fish spit the hook and the tournament was over! My controller looked at me and said, "no way that just happened". He saw the fish when it came up to the surface. Unbelievable!!! There were probably 15 seconds on the clock when this fish hit. I would have had 10 minutes to land him. Not only did I loose the fish of the tournament but I have to pay for Marty's rod repair! What a kick in the nuts!!

But- it makes for an awesome story and I had a great time. I kept a section of the broken rod as a souvenir. I'm the ass-hat that tried to strip a Meat Whistle on a 4wt anyway. Another lesson learned the hard way. Can't wait for next year!!! We wound up in 7th place out of 18 teams. Not bad for a couple of amateurs. The official score card can be found here.

Taylor River

High Adventure this weekend in the mountains of Colorado. Living life to the fullest and coming home to tell about it - doesn't get any better than that!

Destination Taylor River this trip. Ben Lewis and I were at our company's national sales meeting in Vegas this week. We had planned on going to the Taylor this weekend with my Dad and Marty and planned on leaving Friday night as soon as Ben and I were back in town. Bone head idea which I have to take full credit for. Not a relaxing week and when I walked in the house to drop one bag for another (already in zombie autopilot mode) I realized what an a-hole move it was..... OK so making it up to the Fam today, hold off on the hate mail!

On to the fishing and we'll wrap it up with a small but significant near death experience (for those that wan't to skip the ramble, head to the "We don't got it" section). We arrived in Gunnison around 8PM and grabbed lunch for the next day at Subway. The guy that snores the loudest insisted on stopping by Safeway for some ear plugs. After I bought my plugs we headed to the hotel to rig up. Within 5 minutes our Super 8 room looked like a fly shop. Lamp shades off the lamps, gear spread out everywhere, at least 8 rods being worked on like helpless patients. About an hour or so later we were ready, lights off, queue the snoring.

Dad with a sweet cutty

We hit the water at 8. Not a soul in sight! Ben and I decided to pick out some hogs to cast to. We found a few huge bows around the bridge. I'm sure one pushed 30 inches. It was massive. These guys don't get big on accident. You can lay out a 7x, split shotless, indicatorless rig on a bed of feathers and they'll swim off. At one point I headed up the hill on the far side of the Avalanche hole to spot for Ben. My legs slid out from under me in the snow and I went down. SNAP!!! I looked down and my net had taken the full weight of my fall. It was broken in three places. Crap... We continued to site fish for about an hour. We had some looks but no takes. It was friggin cold and Dad and Marty were having luck dredging the Avalanche hole so we decided to join them. 

Dad and Marty dialed in quick and were consistently catching fish. Ben and I struggled for most of the day. Dad had the drop off going into the Avalanche hole nailed. He was casting far enough upstream to get his flies down right along the drop off. As soon as he cleared the drop off, BAM! Tan sparkle worms and beadhead blood midges were killing it for him. Marty was fishing the slack water on the near side of the main channel. He had a cool technique going where he would cast into the still water, wait for some sort of drift and if his indicator wasn't drifting he'd give it a little twitch to get it moving. He was getting a ton of takes during the twitch and when the flies were settling. #26 midge pupa in black, red, green were working great for him.

Ben and I weren't so skilled. We were hooking up but they were few and far between. I decided to head to the far side of the Avalanche hole in order to reach the main current without so much slack line on the water. After finding a good drift around the massive fly shop bush that inhabits the bottom of this hole, I dialed in my depth. A few casts later I had a subtle take and set the hook. I immediately new it was a big fish. I saw the white of his mouth through a couple of big sweeping head shakes. Yes!!!! Oh no!!! I don't have a net.... I knew he was on my #22 midge so I had to be careful with him until someone with a net could help out. This guy was behaving well and hanging deep. As soon as my Dad made it over he went on two long runs. I had already had him on for over a minute and knew that those small barbless hooks don't stay in long. My Ross Evolution LT 1.5 handled it without issue. Love that reel!  Dad made a nice net job and he was landed! He went 23" and had a huge head on him with nice big spots. Probably the nicest brown I've landed on the Taylor. Unfortunately that was about it for large fish. This guy took one of my Miracle Nymphs (future post) with a nickle tungsten bead and some brown quick descent dubbing. I tried the same fly later on in the day up in a riffle by the bridge and missed a HUGE bow on it. I only had him on for a second but he came up and broke the water just long enough to tease me. Good fly that was put together at tie night at the Covey!

It was a good day all around. Everyone caught fish and we landed a trophy. Little did we know that the excitement was far from over.

-WE DON'T GOT IT-

It was snowing pretty good throughout the day on the river. We were thinking that Monarch Pass was going to be rough but we got up and over it without issue. The further we got into South Park though the worse the weather got. Heavy snow and slush covered icy roads were starting to form. We were a little worn out and were probably going a little too fast. Marty's Durango was handling it fine so we weren't too worried. As we came up to a bridge the tail end broke loose. We started fish tailing.... A collective wooooooaaaahhhhhh came out.. Marty: Hold on we got it..... Me: You got it man, you got it.... Ben: WE'RE DEAD..... Dad: (we would later find out had already closed his eyes and was thinking that he almost made it to the first social security check he was due to receive next month. I picture that seen in Happy Gilmore with my Dad sitting on a golf course with social security checks falling from the sky)..... Me: We got it man, you got it.... it... it...... (back end comes around).... shit -  WE DON'T GOT IT!....... hold on! At this point all I could see were guard rails as the back end came around. I was in the front passenger seat and just as we were de-roading I got a birds eye view of the embankment that we were about to head down. I absolutely knew for SURE that we were going to roll. Marty somehow straightened us up enough to go down the embankment at an angle and we stayed upright! No WAY!!! We were down the embankment but we were still stepping in it. The Durango wouldn't stop. We were sliding backwards toward who knows what. At this point things got pretty surreal. The slide down the embankment wasn't rough at all.  We were all sitting upright and pretty comfortable... We were all just looking out the window as we slid backwards like we were taking the scenic route somewhere and were relaxing to take in the sites. It was super quite and we just kept sliding. Crazy!!!! Eventually we came to a stop - Dad: Where are we what happend???.... Everyone else: Jaws on the floorboard. WE ARE ALIVE!!!!! Me: THAT WAS AWESOME!........ Ben: THAT WAS NOT AWESOME!!! .......Dad opened the door and snow was up to the bottom of the door. All of a sudden we realized we were WAY off the road in 2-3ft snow. This was going to be a pain in the ASS!!! Marty, on autopilot at this point, started the truck. I flipped the switch to 4L... Dad instinctively knew to close the door.. Marty started rocking the Durango back and forth. We got traction and started moving!!!! HOLY CRAP.... We picked up speed as we headed up the embankment....... Next Problem: We were going to launch back up onto the road like some huge white 4WD Elk with no way of knowing who was coming. We all were straining our necks trying to see if any lights were coming. No lights as we launched back up on the road!!! NO WAY WE JUST DROVE AWAY FROM THAT!!!!!! AH HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! AWESOME!!!! We spent the next hour breaking down every second of what seemed like an hour of sliding around in a big white sled. We did slow WAY down... and had a line of cars behind us. Didn't care. We were not going through that again! We made it home and the story telling was ON!! Great time! This is one for the history books.. or blogs anyway. Glad everyone made it through unscathed to live through our next adventure. Love you guys! Can't wait for the next trip!

Nice brown Marty caught

Blue River

Decided to mix things up a bit and head to the Blue River today. I used to fish the Blue quite a bit but haven't fished it in a few years. I knew it would be low and slow but I kept dwelling on the brick red bows we had caught there in the past.

Ben Lewis and I got on the water at the crack of 10:30 and I started flogging away with an indicator and split shot. An hour later without having a bump I decided that I needed to earn my fish today. Off with the indicator and split shot, on with the 8x and a weighted midge larva.

We were fishing the "cable riffle" (just made that up - it's the riffle above the spillway) and we were spotting fish pretty well. I was high sticking without my indicator touching the water anyway so all it really was doing was giving the fish a heads up.

The change in tactics produced some nice trout to include the blushed fatty shown above. These fish were not taking flies very hard. Any flash of white or any movement at all required a hook set. The problem with that were the bushes lining the bank directly behind us. This caused my hook sets to be short and, if it was a miss, a quick cast downstream to avoid the bushes. I thought I was pretty smart until this disaster manifested itself on the end of my rod. Seriously? A birds nest so nasty I had to take a picture of it.

The only thing the fish would consider touching today were TINY midge larva #24-28. A #24 Miracle Nymph and a #28 Blood Midge worked best for me. 6x seemed to be way too much. If you have the right rod and reel you can get away with 8x if you are very careful.

We got some really good sight fishing in today and learned a lot. I love that I still learn something new every time I hit the water. It never gets stale for me. After 20 years of fishing these rivers I still feel like a beginner.

Next up - The Taylor!

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

I'm typing this very slowly because my hands haven't thawed yet. It was a bit nippley today in Pueblo... Ben Lewis and I were a few of the crazies on the river today. The trout didn't even show up. We started fishing around the pump house and it was very slow going. I hooked and landed a 14" bow during the first half hour or so and if I thought that would be the only fish of the day I'd have taken a picture. So here is a pic of the fly I used.

I'm not sure if anyone else has done this but it's just micro chenille covered in thick CC. It looks amazing and took the only fish of the day. Had a great hit on a size 12 purple CC worm but didn't hook up. I had some #12 Dai-Riki 135s that I wasn't using and figured I'd experiment. I noticed how dull they were when I put them in the vise but didn't take the time to sharpen them and it cost me a nice fish today. I knew it would end up biting me in the arse and it did. Another lesson learned the hard way....

Can't wait to try some of these this spring in high flows. So far the CC doesn't seem to be cracking or flaking off so it may wind up being a regular "fly" I use. The CC I used for these is the thick CC Tack Free.

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Solo trip down to Pueblo today to get some fishing in before vacation is over. First trip of 2013! Crazy that the holidays have come and gone. Time is a strange bird..... Anyway - the weather looked promising and with it being a weekday I was excited to fish some open water.

I started below the Nature Center at the fence run but got a very slow start. Foul hooked one trout before moving upstream. Just above the Nature Center I found a riffle with a half dozen trout feeding and they readily took a size 20 Purple Poison Tung. Hooked 5 and landed 3 within 15 minutes before the riffle emptied out. This little male was very colorful. Can't wait to see him when he grows up.

Continued upstream and started to run into people. By noon the flag hole was a zoo. That was my sign to head downstream. I jumped in the Taco and drove down to the 4th street bridge. I wanted to see if the Bud hole was open so I parked at Dutch Clark Stadium. This run was wide open! Not a soul in site! Made my way down the hill and changed up my rig for some deeper water. I tied on a tan San Juan Worm and a size 18 red Two Bit Hooker and took a cast. Wham! First cast and hooked the nicest fish of the day. Getting lucky with a Two Bit Hooker in the Bud Hole is a lot more fun than it sounds! I worked my way up and down the Martini Hole and hooked a few more nice bows before calling it a day.

I'm starting to move around more on these trips. Fish the Nature Center upstream early and when the Dude hatch comes off head downstream. Really good fishing up and downstream from the 4th street bridge and up and downstream from the water treatment plant. My nicest fish in this river have come downstream from Pueblo Blvd.

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Day two of an epic fishing weekend in Pueblo. Ok... so maybe not epic but fun for sure. Ben and I had seen the pump house hole the day before and wanted to give it a shot so we parked off of Cotton Wood Road and headed straight for the fence line. Dad and Marty had joined us so we had a herd. We weren't the first people on the river but the hole directly under the pump house outlet was open.

Same flies as the day before. Yellow eggs, PTs, FB Mercury Black Beauties. Ben and I hooked up right away while Dad went downstream and Marty rigged up. This run is absolutely jam packed with trout. You could barley run a line through without hooking or foul hooking a trout. These runs are tough because you don't want to foul hook a trout but at the same time the takes are very subtle so you set the hook on any movement. We brought in the foul hooked trout quickly and with barbless hooks the release was very quick.

Ben in some sort of strange sun storm

After things died down I wanted to try a sink tip line with a heavy weight where the pump house outlet enters the river. This is a technique that I use at the toilet bowl that works really well. I was able to get a good "drift" on the bottom but there is a nasty snag (feels like a log) that you cannot avoid fishing this way. Lost two good fish fry patterns that I tie that imitate a small fry with the egg yolk still attached before moving on to other water. Thought that some of these may get discharged from the hatchery (no clue really where this water comes from but it was worth a shot) and if they did I could imagine a few hogs sitting in the white water getting huge on unlucky fish fry. 

Wrong date on the camera on this one

Dad hooked into some nice fish below this run below the first weir downstream. While we were fishing this run. Marty jumped in and started hooking fish as well.

Dad and I worked upstream to the run Ben and I had done well in the day before. This is the riffle into a drop off that runs along a rock pile bend. We fished from the rock pile side but things had slown down in this run from the day before. Not much action except a descent bow on a red tungsten bead head PT.

We worked back downstream to the pump house where Marty had dialed in on the slow side of the drop off. He was killing them with yellow sucker egg patterns. I probably watched him land over half a dozen within 15 minutes. Big smile on Marty's face :-)

By this time the mob had arrived and I felt like I was in a fly fishing zombie apocalypse film. Guys were slowly walking towards us with arms outstretched holding fly rods... Time to move on. We hopped in the car and headed down to Pillars Park. No one was fishing the weirs but there was a guy in the Bud hole that we wanted to fish so back to the car... We hit reservoir road and fished the water treatment plant. The temperature had really dropped and the fishing dropped off with it. We fished a few hours around the water treatment plant and landed a few fish between the 4 of us but it was  slow going. Ben had a nice articulated pumpkin Sex Dungeon on him and I decided to give a few stockers a heart attack with it.

I was slow stripping it in a deep hole when I hooked a massive branch that bumped along the bottom when I set the hook. Oh yeah!!!! Big Fish!!! Get the net!!! The branch came up and rolled on the surface to my dismay. It was super exciting while it lasted but it was a terrible let down.

The good side is that it was an awesome weekend of fishing with family and friends. Everyone caught fish and had a great time. Can't beat that.