I’d planned on being up there for five hours, so, needing something to do, I headed all the way down the trail to the reservoir.  The wind was cooperating about as well as the stream had and it looked like it might storm, so I found a long cove with a large, overhanging boulder for some shelter and pulled out a pb&j sandwich.   The weather broke a few minutes later and I scrambled to the top of a large boulder that overhung the water.  What I saw was pure awesome:  crystal clear water and a green algae bottom with visibility at least twenty feet down and, from my high perch, I could sight fish further than I could ever throw a line.

Sure enough, after a couple minutes observation, I saw a torpedo shaped shadow laze about in the water and, occasionally, take a bug off the water.  I was in business.

Using a combination of my high perch and the tailwind, I was able to throw a long line out, but that also lead to several missed strikes, including one behemoth that came in a arcing, silver flash and destroyed my fly.  Shit.  After popping a couple flies off on the boulder in my back cast, I stumbled on to a winner:  a foam bodied, dark caddis in size #14.  On my first cast, I landed a nice lake rainbow, nearly 18″.   His twin took the fly a couple casts later and then the weather picked back up and the fish laid off for a while.  I sat out of the wind and eat my other sandwich.  Finally, the weather broke and I was able to sight fish for more circling trout.

As the wind picked up (again), I decided to try a little mojo.  I threw a long line and, as the fly floated back towards me, I sang “Here fishy, fishy.  Heeeeereee fiiiishyyy fiiiishhyy” Right at the edge of a huge, submerged boulder, a sip so subtle I’d set the hook before I even believed my fly was gone and I a silver bullet set off for the bottom and bowed my rod in half.  For a second, I wondered if the #5 rod I was using had the backbone for the fish, but after a long fight that consisted of the big rainbow sitting in the bottom and working his head like an angry dog, I pulled in a fat 22″ lake rainbow.   That song sure does work.

Here’s one thing I’ve learned about my and nymph fishing:  I do better without an indicator.   I’ve tried a couple of different style indicators, but I haven’t found one that really makes sense to me.  When I get a strike, I usually feel it, or see the fish.   I notice hesitations in the line just as well as I do an indicator, so I’ve gone sans foam or yarn for the majority of my trips now.

My last trip down to Deckers, I had some hit-and-miss success with a nymph.  For starters, I finally found a nymph that seems to be pretty popular:  a #22 Rainbow Warrior.  I spent most of my time at the Wigwam Hole, or just down from it.  There’s a deep run just on the other side of the wire the club put across the river and a lot of big fish stack up in the tail end of the run, where it widens out to a series of deep pockets and boulders.  I walked the road above the run to see where the fish were and noticed several, nice fish on the back side, near the bank.   Walking up stream, I got myself into position for the nymph to take a wide swing right across what I hoped was the feeding lane for the fish.  After a couple of strikes with no hook ups, I big, buttery sided brown, in full spawn colours, took the rainbow and I brought him to hand after a healthy fight.

I missed several more fish and caught a couple more, but he was the big winner for the day.  I saw several, big browns spawning in a shallow riffle down from the last parking spot; hopefully people are giving them their space and staying off the reds.  But, about nymphing, this was an example of what I mean:  I spotted, stalked, fished to and landed a beautiful fish.  Of course, later, I worked a shallow run with several fish for nearly thirty minutes without a single strike or fish.  So it goes.

I’ve found a #18-#16 Parachute Adams, some floatant and about a 7.5′ leader to be just about everything I need to take down some decent sized rainbows in all the reservoirs I’ve visited.   One really interesting thing happened:   About two weeks ago, I made a trip to a small reservoir down in the springs (I really like this place. I’ve caught trout, smallmouth and some bluegill out of the same hole and the view is amazing: the edge of the reservoir sits on a small hill and, just beyond you can see just about to Kansas. It reminds me of one of the endless pools you see in celebrity’s homes on Cribs).  I wish fishing a #12 Green Drake, black with a little green was a hot colour for the day, when a healthy rainbow sipped my fly and, as soon as he felt the hook, dove down into a deep hole, wrapped me around a bunch of vegetation and promptly broke me off.  Flash forward a couple weeks and I’m fishing in cold, windy conditions during my lunch break, this time with a #16 Parachute Adams.  The first trout to take my fly gives me a good fight, with a couple nice jumps.   I finally bring him to hand when, lo and behold, there’s my Green Drake sitting in the corner of his mouth.  I removed both flies and let the 16″ rainbow go back to feeding.   Part of me believes that first fly was giving him problems, so he took the second in hopes I’d either end the misery, or give that damn hook out of his lip.

I also held true to my promise and brought home four rainbows from Manitou lake.  A little butter, sea salt and lemon pepper and they tasted great after a couple minutes in the broiler.  After I’d taken my four keepers, I did some C&R and found an interesting tactic for those stocker fish.  I’d fish my Adams on top, way out there and, every time a fish would go at my fly, I’d start to slowly strip it back in after he’d pulled it under with out biting.  Usually it took about three strips before that or another fish would slam the Adams underwater and the fight would start.  I started catching fish at a much faster clip than waiting for a fish to hit and stick on top alone.

Rampart Reservoir, although very scenic, has died off the quickest.  The first trip there, the fish were rising like crazy right around sundown and I caught a couple nice fish.  But the last time I went up there, the water temp was down several degrees (the reservoir sits at 9500 ft.) and the fish were off.  I had one strike off of a green woolly bugger down deep, but that was it besides some nice scenery to look at.

As the temperatures begin to lower, I’m looking forward to fishing more of the water down in the springs before the late Winter freeze.

I tried the creek first, but it was pretty much a muddy, low water bust, despite the Trout Creek moniker.  Next I tried the lake itself, starting at the spill way where there was quite a few bugs on the water, but no fish rising to them.  The wind was also kicking about 10-15 mph, making the surface a succession of micro-waves, so I headed to the south-eastern side of the lake, where the water was calmer and still, no fish.  One full lap complete, I came upon an elderly couple worm fishing and asked if they’d had much luck.  A couple, they said.  I mentioned that I’d heard they hadn’t stocked in a while, but they were told by the old fella collecting the entrance fee that 5100 fish had been stocked just last week. 

Interesting…

After a brief phone conversation with my mother (I know, cell phones and fishing don’t go together, but there’s a newborn at the house, so it’s nice to stay connected, but it ended up biting me in the ass, as I’ll get to…) about a recipe we’d both forgotten, I figured one more lap around the lake couldn’t hurt.  Finally, at an inlet into the wetlands, I saw some fish rising way out  at the mouth, so I slide over the bridge and wet waded as much as my gore-tex protected boots would let me and let loose with some monster double-hauls trying to get into range.   Between horrible, line piling casts and bull whiping off one fly like an amateur my #16 Parachute Adams was taken in a silver arc and heavy pull.   It was the first of four, identical 14″, stocker rainbows.   Still, I was whipping out the iPhone for a photo of everyone until I finally managed to get the full sixty odd feet of line to go out in one smooth cast and caught the slightly bigger ‘bow that had been smashing bugs out by some structure.   Awkward photo taken, I slide the phone into the pocket of my light wading jacket and turned to collect the line up when, slooo-plooop, I heard the unmistakeable sound of my phone sliding out of the pocket and into the lake.

I tossed my rod and recovered my phone, ripping off its protective, rubber cover and started blowing as hard as I could into the data port, watching the water fly out of the cracks.  After a couple minutes, I was able to turn the phone off and stick it into my pocket.  I figured the phone was worth more than catching the couple of remaining trout that were rising, so I bit off my fly and reeled in and started heading out to the truck.   Of course, at the next bend of the lake, I hear the unmistakable sound of a fish jumping and look out to a lake full of rising rainbows all within casting distance of shore.  A brief battle raged inside before I reckoned the phone was either destroyed or not, but the fish were definitely rising, so I tied on a #18 BWO and proceeded to smash stocker rainbows until closing time of the park.

For the first time in a long time, I’d wished I had a cooler with me because I figured a nice dinner of rainbows and a cold beer would have been a good way to end the day.   I’m going back to the lake soon, before the weather gets too cold and I’m going to bring home a mess of stocker trout, but I think I’ll leave the phone in my pocket.

That’s not to say I haven’t been fishing.  Quite the contrary, I’ve gotten out several times and, more importantly, I’ve been doing a lot of exploring around the house for new water, of which I’ve found more than plenty.  I’ve made three trips to 11-Mile canyon and, after this last one, I can honestly say the first two were almost meaningless.  In my impatience I opted for the first pullout and the first hole I came to in the canyon.   The hole, run and pocket water after it yielded some nice fish in the two trips, but I had  no idea I was playing in the kiddie pool with the real deal about eight miles upriver.  Finally, two days ago, I spent enough time exploring to hit the catch-and-release water and man, oh, man, that’s what I’m talking about.  I stopped at the giant pool right after the start of the c&r and stood on the bank staring down at a pool full of big rainbows, finning lazily in the slow current.   After a few, awkward fumblings trying to figure out a good spot to stand and cast without spooking the pod (although they’d calmed by this time, this was the day there were 50+ mph wind gusts blowing through the canyon, so my choices for positioning were limited), I opted for the old Indian trick and waded out into the middle, with castable water at nearly every quarter and stood there until the big ‘bows were back sipping BWO’s off the surface almost within reaching distance.

This was the technical water I’d been reading about ever since I knew I was moving out to this area.  I had a 6x, 9ft. leader on and wished I had some 7x with me.  I was using some #20 Hackle BWO’s, I’d been turned onto my last trip to Decker’ s at Flies & Lies and still I was getting plenty charges and refusals.  Finally, a plump, 14″ rainbow took the fly and gave me quite the show, with a full two seconds of tail walking on top of the water to get warmed up.  Once I got him to hand and the fly out of his lip, I attempted to take his picture with an underwater, disposable camera I’d found unpacking, but that proved more than my coordination can handle.  I won’t be sure until I develop the film, but I think I may have got a shot of the last quarter inch of his tail.

The next few hours were spent alternating between frustration, as I watched fish after fish charge my fly, only to bank away at the last second, to pure elation as another, nice rainbow came to hand.  Then it happened.  The old, “The One That Got Away” for this trip.  I had taken a few more steps after landing my third fish from an eddy behind a large rock and gave a long cast across and slightly down stream.  I’d seen plenty of fish taking BWO’s off the top that way and, as soon as my fly hit the middle of its drift, a quick, small splash and a heavy weight on the line were the last I felt of the fish.  I raised my rod and pulled a little line to set the hook.  Meanwhile the fish had turned back towards the bottom and his combined weight, with my slight hook set was enough to snap my off right at the fly.  Now, before we get too excited I will say that I had just tied that fly on—those hackle BWOs are awfully pretty, but delicate.  About three fish and their pretty mangled–and my Grandpa would roll over in his grave if I ever tied a bad fishing knot, so, short of full catastrophic tackle failure, I have to assume that the sheer size of the fish, combined with the current and my hook set was what broke me off.  Man, what a fish he must have been.

In related news, that experience reminded me once again that I was in desperate need of a new net.  My last net being of barely serviceable quality was sacrificed to a brief and wholly unsuccessful attempted at removing the weeds from the rock bed in the last house.  So I purchased a new one, with a nice rubber net so the fish can keep their slime and I can not have a story about the big fish I was going to land until he broke off as I tried to pull the leader in by hand.

That’s why it took me several hours to get out of town and down to Decker’s.   I decided to stay off any lists and drove to several locations to get the required money orders to pay for the house this morning.  Eventually, though, I took the thirty minute drive through the valley and down the slope to the South Platte and Decker’s.

I stopped off at Flies & Lies to meet the folks and get another view on the local flies.  One common trend I’m sensing is pretty much everyone seems to go off of what Pat Dorsey says on the Blue Quill Fly Shop online for the best flies and presentations for the moment.  That man must really get around.

My education began immediately.

First, I forgot what it’s like to wade a real mountain river at around 300 cfs.  Coming back from two years of fishing the small, North Carolina streams made me under appriciate the pull-you-off-your-feet strength of a well flowing river.  My casting was sharp….in ranges of less than twenty yards.  Being out East I’d forgotten how to throw a line out past twenty yards, but the hauls came back quick with a Amy’s Ant and dropper.  The steepest curve, however, was mending my line.  The swiftness of the current took me a while to get back to mending my line and giving a nice, natural drift. After an hour of fumbling, bumbling and stumbling in the current I’d managed to miss my first fish.

Several hours and several missed fish later, I was starting to get that feeling in the pit of my stomach.  That, “Uh oh. If something doesn’t happen quick then I’m going to get skunked here” feeling.  I’d finally gone down stream enough (down stream towards the north, what a weird river) that I finally hit a big pool with a nice back eddy and a small hatch of some brown, winged critters.  I tied on a #18 Parachute Adams and after another couple of missed fish, I finally landed a 6″ rainbow (a stocker, I’d guess) and called it day, the skunk avoided.

And here I sit, typing nervously, wondering if anything has gone wrong with getting the house, if my 37-week pregnant Wife can hold on for another week so we can turn a house into a home and have a place to bring our daughter back from the hospital.  And I’m thinking about the Bend Pool at Decker’s, a short twenty mile drive from the hotel.

Who says there’s no catharsis in writing?  I know you couldn’t hear the phone ring, but that was the realtor and everything’s good to go on the house.   We sign and pay tomorrow.

Now.  Where’s my gear?