March, 2000

3/1:  A quick trip to Aspen provided a chance for Sue & I to throw some flies on the Roaring Fork on our way home.  Small grey midges were visible when we entered the river, but no rise forms showed, so we tossed #20 emergers in the deeper runs.   Sue had the only success above Carbondale, hooking three fish and landing one dandy hook-jawed male brown of about 15".

Downstream near Satank I had the only fish on - a rainbow that was in the 16 inch range.  Continuing back towards home on I-70, we stopped one last time near the Gypsum ponds area on the Eagle River.  Again I had several fish on but failed to get even one to the point where I had to handle it to release it.  The best "long release" was of a monster rainbow in the 20 inch range.  Shortly thereafter Sue got a good dunking which ended our fishing for the day.

3/11:  The first entry in the month subtracted from this date in the month's log is the number of days since I've had a chance to get back out on the water.  It's an extraordinarily busy month from a ski teaching standpoint. My midday cancellation offered this chance to fish.  Today wasn't nice from a weather standpoint, but anything's fine as long as I'm on a fishing stream.  As a retrospective, a fellow ski teacher who's also a terrific local fly caster had great success last weekend on a tiny black midge trailing a prince.

But my day today was marked by too many other fishermen on the Eagle, not enough attention to my strike indicator, and a completely different mind set on the part of the fish.  I can't get over how popular this river has become amongst Front Range people.  There was a car parked at the first five places I'd hoped to cast.  So I did an experimental session - - and probably paid for it.  Missed at least a dozen strikes due to inattention.  The handful of rainbows I released were nice ones, but in all honesty, I didn't do a good job at anything today.  The interesting thing was that all my fish came to either a bead head golden stone or a straight dark stone.  My midges - in red or black - produced nothing.  That's what makes fishing so interesting.

Last Logbook Entry  � for previous days.

3/24:  Below Alkali Creek the Eagle ran muddy today, so instead of contesting with a dozen guides for available space above Wolcott, I drove down to State Bridge & threw nymphs on the Colorado for a couple of hours.  This big water takes multiple cannon sized shot to get the flies down to where the fish are holding, so a strike indicator is out of the question.  But a variety of stones, bead head caddis & serendipities took their toll on the resident rainbows & whitey's.   Most fish "long released" before coming to hand and the action was decent - had on a dozen or so that ranged between 12 and 20 inches. 

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