March, 2007

03/09:  Hallelujah!  A whole day off from ski teaching - and a chance for my first fishing outing of the year.  The plan was to drive to Glenwood and try a couple of favorite spots on the Roaring Fork while simultaneously checking out the shore ice and water conditions on both the Eagle and the Colorado, as I have another day off  Sunday.

It didn't take much observation to determine that neither of the latter two streams were likely to be fishable in the near future.  Apparently last week's warm temperatures had triggered something resembling an early runoff.  So much for fishing Sunday.

Anyway off we went through Glenwood and up the river a bit to the airport section of the river.  It was a nice day and the Fork is running quite low albeit fairly clear.  Rigged up double nymphs of leading lime bodied copper john and a trailing # 20 white winged RS-2.

It didn't take long to pick up some strikes and then play and release a couple of two pound whiteys.  Then a long stretch of nothingness ensued before finally playing a sixteen inch brown and another smaller version of that species.  

With an empty hole in my tummy, it felt like lunch was in order, so I changed out of the waders and drove into town for a quick fast food lunch.  Stopped just below the Sunlight Bridge, changed back into the water gear, got ready to fish, and noticed my rod was missing.  Oh boy, what did I do now?  

Assumed the rod must still be standing on the bush I'd propped it up against by the airport so drove quickly back there, and the worst case scenario played out.  No rod was to be seen.  I must have taken a handful of stupid pills this morning instead of my vitamins.  OK.  Since "memory is pain", suspect I'll not do this again.

Back we (the dog & I) went to the bridge & I used a softer 8' that normally wouldn't work well on a river this large, but it had to do so today.  

We tried a couple of different spots using similar types of nymphs and finally landed a twelve inch rainbow for the only fish of that type today.

Further upstream a couple more browns came to hand before I noticed a few heads poking though the surface film rising to some of the many midges that were on the water.  Wonderful!  

The first decent dry fly fishing of the year also was in the offing.  Using #22 sized grayish tan comparaduns brought numbers of strikes from smaller browns in the 8-12 inch range.  It was fun.  Missed many rises, but probably released another eight to ten browns in the next hour or so.

It was just great being back on the water - even if the loss of my favorite rod did put a little damper on the afternoon.

3/17:  Losing my rod last week called for immediate action which yesterday arrived in the form of a new Sage FLi 5 weight two piece rod, a 3.9 ounce Lamson Hard Alox reel, and the necessary line backing for a new Airflow Ridge line.

With one of those rare days off the mountain, following lunch and in between data input sessions, I could not stand thinking about the new outfit and not trying it.  Drove down to the Eagle just above Dowd Junction, slapped a black wooly bugger on the tippet and did a bit of casting.  The rod is a completely different feel from my older Orvis, but the difference is not a negative.  The FLi seems to be a fairly powerful tip flex rod, and it handled throwing that weighted streamer into a strong upstream wind with little problem.

Roll casts were not easy with the rod, but at least they could be executed.  The stretch of river where I was casting is very heavily fished both by fly casters and bait dunkers alike, so I had modest expectations.  There were a few strikes along the way up the bank, and at a deeper hole I eventually released four somewhat lanky browns between 10 and 16 inches, so at least the fly equipment no longer qualifies as a virgin.

With another long set of ski teaching days in front of me, it's not likely we'll be back on the water somewhere again until quite a bit later this month.

Last Logbook Entry  � for previous days.

3/26:  Two and a half hours of driving each direction was a bit too much work for the quality of the fishing today on our "favorite" stream.  As I drove over the river below town, it was clear the water wasn't.  Flows were also on the high side at 550 cubes near Elk Creek.  There was no way to tell that the fishing wouldn't be decent in this early part of runoff, but either the fish were sulking - or I simply didn't have what it took to arouse their appetite today.

Tried a variety of approaches beginning with single and then double streamer rigs.  Absolutely no strikes resulted and I was hung up and broken off repeatedly.

Changed to a double nymph rig of leading black stone and trailing smaller red copper john.  Same results - a big zero.

Substituting the copper john for a smallish egg fly brought the only two fish of the day - a fourteen inch whitey shown here and a slightly smaller rainbow.

Pretty disappointing results for what I'd hoped would be a nice outing with some plump rainbows to hand.  

It was just fun being out on the water - wet wading too, but that's the last try for this river until runoff abates.

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