December, 2006

Last Logbook Entry  é for previous days.

12/14:  So much for the year 2006.  Our fishing season is finally over.  With the holidays coming on shortly - along with lots of forecasted snowfall, the dog & I drove to Glenwood this morning to get in one last casting session before winter closes us out.

We started throwing nymphs at a nice section of deeper water near the airport - and came up completely blank.  Not a hint of a strike in places that generally are productive year around.  Debated trying a couple other spots in town but decided instead to head all the way to Basalt and to give the Frying Pan a try since it always has been decent fishing in the winter.

Wrong again.

Despite having a couple of tentative strikes in some normally very good holes, I was shut out once again.  Even shifting to a streamer brought only another set of mild bumps to the fly.  Gave up on the Pan and pulled off just below Basalt at a nice pool on the Roaring Fork.  Zip.  Zero strikes here too.

It was getting really depressing.  Visions of shaking hands with Mr. Skunk kept running through my head.

We gave it one last shot back in Glenwood.  I nymphed my way upstream above the Sunlight Bridge and again came up empty handed.  

But shifting to a black rabbit bugger streamer on the way back to the car finally got us the only two fish of the day that came to hand.  

The first was an obviously beaten up twelve inch brown that fought like crazy but looked really bad (see dorsal fin).

The last fish was a very nice sixteen inch rainbow that was sitting along the bank barely downstream from where the brown had taken the fly.

Played another rainbow a bit further down river at the tail end of a big flat where fish normally congregate and that was it for the day - and the year.

We have a lot of nice memories from this season's fishing expeditions - the best of which was finally finishing up our Wyoming cut slam after five years of trying.  See below.

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