January, 2005

Last Logbook Entry  é for previous days.

1/16-17:  Not a bad start to a new year's batch of fishing outings.  We returned to Glenwood Sunday after skiing five different Colorado areas in five consecutive days and had an hour to burn before dinner.  Walked down to the big, heavily fished hole above the Sunlight Bridge and threw a wooly bugger for whatever might be lurking in the eddy.

Not overwhelming success here, but both Sue & I had fish on - browns that looked a bit snakey from not having fed enough lately, but at least it was enough action to whet our appetite for the following day's trip up the Frying Pan.

So the following morning we drove up to this gold medal stream that we alternately love and alternately hate.  Happily this time of year the Pan is considerably less popular than in the summer months, and we were able to access a couple of favorite holes without having competition from other like minded fisher people.

Given the high probability that nothing in the way of bugs would be available besides the ever present midges, we rigged up with smaller nymphs using a peacock herl larva trailed by a #22 glass bead red midge larva.   Almost immediately we began to hook fish.  This nice pool gave up 6-8 mostly smaller browns but a couple of very fat rainbows in the 14-16 inch range.  Nice fishing.

Worked our way further up the stream stopping at another couple of deeper pools and found that the going was much tougher up here.  Released one fourteen inch brown but otherwise were shut out.

Eventually drove all the way to the turn off at the base of the dam and finally encountered larger numbers of fishermen with guides.  Here these PhD. type fish really turned their noses up at our ineffective tactics and only one more small brown came to hand.

All day long there were some heads poking through the surface film, but those happenings were so sporadic we felt it a waste of time to tie on any emergers or dry midge clusters.

A return to the first pool of the day brought a couple more browns & rainbows to hand, but that was pretty much it.  We stopped once at the gold medal section of the Roaring Fork just below Basalt, but with time running short, had only a few minutes to do some casting.  Sue hooked one larger fish of indeterminate type, and it broke off fairly quickly without being identified.  Nonetheless it was a very decent beginning to our new year.

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