Fun Afternoon onthe Poudre River

[spilunkr]

Thursday's forecast was pretty nasty calling for a front accompanied by thunderstorms and rain to move through northern Colorado. But by mid-morning the sun was out and it looked like the front had gone through as looking towards the mountains the sky appeared to be clearing. So at noon I grabbed my waders, vest and rod and headed up the Poudre River canyon. But the further up the canyon I went, the darker the sky got. By the time I got to where I wanted it was 1:30 and the rain started to fall as I turned off the ignition. Although it was totally overcast the showers were sporadic, there was qutie a bit of thunder but no lightning. So I got rigged up while waiting for the rain to stop.

I was about 30 miles up the canyon at a place called Indian Meadow. It is about 2 miles into the first of two catch and release areas on the Poudre. Unfortunately at this point I found that the batteries on my camera needed to be replaced and my back up batteries were also spent. So ther would be no pictures.

The Cache La Poudre River is still high from snow melt flowing at about 550 cfs at the mouth of the canyon. Where I was it was probably still about 400 cfs, more than enough to make wading tricky. So I basically just worked the shoreline pockets and near shore slicks. I started with a #12 Stimulator dry fly but with no action after 20 minutes I went to nymphing. I rigged up a #8 golden stonefly nymph with a #14 olive hare's ear dropper above it.

The first cast with the nymph rig and I hooked up with an 11" brown. In the first hour I landed 5 browns from 9" to 11" all on the olive hare's ear. In the next hour, without changing flies, I landed 7 browns from 9" to 13" and oddly enough all but one was on the golden stone nymph. At that point I was fishing an eddy against a cliff that came down to the water on the side of the river I was fishing. The last two fish I got on nymphs were the two nicest at 12" and 13". At that point I had to climb around the short rock face as it was to deep to wade. When I got back to the water on the other side of the cliff face, I hooked a nice fish on my next cast but it went down deep and out into the heavy current and the hook pulled out.

While I was checking my leader to see if my fly was still there, I happened to see a rise in a slick area behind a rock just upstream from where I was standing. Looking closely, I started to notice the blue wing olives that had finally begun hatching. Pretty soon there were a couple more rises so I switched over to a dry # 16 blue wing olive and that's when the fun really began. Over the next hour and a quarter I hooked 10 fish landing 8, all browns. The other two got out into the heavy current where the hook pulled out. But the really nice thing was the size of the fish really increased. Every fish that hit the dry was at least 12" and a couple went 15" with most of them around 14". Definitely nicer fish than I been catching in recent weeks.

But, by then it was 5:00 and the sky had gotten really dark and a harder rain started to fall with lots of thunder. So I started back to the car. But the rain was short lived and when I got to my car ten minutes later the sun was starting to peak through. However, it was time to head home. The Poudre River has 65 miles of trout water upstream from the mouth of the canyon and so far I've only made it half way up the canyon. While I was rigging up when I'd first arrived, someone from the Division of Wildlife stopped to give me a Poudre fishing survey card to fill out. We talked a bit and he said in his opinion, the best fishing was still another 10 miles up the canyon in the second C&R section. But, that will be another trip.

Guy

[Jeffrey Rasband]

Thanks for the report Guy, it sounds like it would take a lifetime to fish every stretch of that drainage. Have you fished the Gold Medal water on the Colorado River at the William's Fork confluence yet? I saw the most unbelievable BWO hatch in this stretch one rainy day, the water was just bubbling with rises. This stretch suffered hard from Whirling disease but there are plenty of browns now.

[spilunkr]

Jeff,

I haven't been over to the Williams Fork yet and probably won't get there this year. We are having lots of visitors this summer none of whom fish, so there will be at least four weeks when I won't get out at all. In between the visits I will be checking out areas a bit closer to home than the Williams Fork unless I can talk my wife into some overnighters.

Guy

[Tissy Furnes]

Well-played, Guy. Makng the most of retirement and the good life. Bet you miss the salt though.

[SingingReel]

Guy:
Thanks for sharing. I had found memories fishing Co. last year.
A quick question:
I always rigged double fly by putting dropper(smaller fly) on the bottom with a tippet tied on the hook bend of the larger fly.
Do you mind to share how to rig the opposite way?
Thanks,
Simon

[spilunkr]

Simon,

I sometimes rig a small fly trailing from the bend of the hook of a larger fly especially when rigging something like a "hopper and dropper". But I ave been doing really well this year nymphing with a version of the Czech nymphing system where the heaviest fly is on the bottom.

I will put the largest/heaviest fly on the end of the leader. About a foot above that is a barrel knot with one tag left long enough to tie on a second fly. If I want to fish a third fly then a foot or so above that is another barrel knowtwith a long tag for the third fly. When the water was higher at the begining of the run off I was putting a black woolly bugger with a tungsten beadhead as the bottom fly, the next fly up was a beadhead golden stonefly nymph and above thatwas an unweighted pheasent tail. There were a couple of days I caught fish on all three flies and on a couple of ocasions I had two trout on at once.

I have fished with some people here who do not like tying into a tag. Instead they will tie in a fly then attach another foot or so of leader to the eye of the first hook and tie a second fly on the end of that piece of leader. If a third fly is desired they repeat the process. People nymphing in this manner still tie the heaviest fly on the end of the last peice of tippet.

Guy

[SingingReel]

Thanks, Guy.
Hope you enjoy the rest of the summer, and have plenty chances to wet your line.
Later.
Simon