May, 1998
3/1: GOOD SUCCESS ON GORE CREEK, but the end grows ever nearer. Moved further upstream today to escape the increasing ravages of runoff. Each run or pool yielded a nice fish or two and the best fun was on a series of ponds along the creek that only recently became free of ice. As these pools are not easily fishable during the summer season (for reasons we'll leave to your imagination), the fish were wildly eager to please. Literally every cast brought one or more strikes and I probably landed 25 nice brookies, missing a couple of really good ones.
The fly of the day in both the creek and in the ponds turned out to be the old standby OS-1, grey bodied in a size 18. Took a couple of nice cutbows in the creek on a smallish black stone type, but the generic emerger was more productive.
3/3 - 3/4: THE RUNOFF IS UPON US. Gore Creek ran fairly clear but high these past two days. We had modest success with a pair of smallish OS-1's, but with flows much above normal levels, casting in many of the pools and runs is almost impossible. So we'll probably have to turn to ponds & lakes for a bit until the runoff forces fish completely to the banks - at which time streamers will do fairly well.
A trip to Aspen today revealed that the entire Colorado is out of shape, as is the Crystal and Roaring Fork below Woody Creek Canyon. Marble and Castle Creeks are still looking OK, but I didn't have time to try them.
Tomorrow I leave on the annual windsurfing expedition to Corpus Christi, so this will be the last report until later in the month - probably around the 22nd.
3/8-3/22: CORPUS CHRISTI: As always, I did a lot of tying during the low wind periods and attempted some casting, but again, as before, had no success. Probably need to get away from the populated flats around the windsurfing areas, but it's difficult to do without a boat. Apparently some people did catch a few sea trout and an occasional redfish on live bait off our beach, but I personally had no sign of a bite using streamer flies.
3/24: RUNOFF IS RAMPANT on all local streams. Will get out later today and try streamers on Gore Creek and maybe some small nymphs on the golf course ponds.
Tied a bunch of nicely shaped black cone head buggers while watching TV as a good friend - Buddy Lazier - finish second at the Indy today. Spent an hour using them on Gore Creek before being driven off the stream by the day's second set of thunderboomers. Landed only two modest rainbows but had several vicious strikes. Suspect the streamer season will be a general repeat of previous years when the strike to landing ratio ends up at five or six to one. But it's all good fun.
3/25: GORE CREEK produced four rainbows to conventional nymphing today. Water remains clear but is rising rapidly. Used a combo rig of a stone and a caddis pupa. 3 out of 4 fish took the stone. It's tough getting any kind of drift, and the fishable water continues to shrink.
3/26-3/31: LIMITED SUCCESS ON THE EAGLE AND GORE during this period, but any fish is better than none given the nature of runoff. Everything's stacked along the banks, and this last day of May we dragged black cone head woolly buggers along the riprap at Dowd Junction on the Eagle. Although we landed only four browns, both Sue & I had others on and a number of additional strikes. And best of all, she kept her record intact of catching at least one trout from our area stream every month of the year.
Back to Vail OnLine , the Main Fishing Page, the 1998 Diary, or check on stream flows.