Trouts Fly Fishing Blog

It’s great when you have a boss that has the tarpon fishing trip of a lifetime, they typically come back all smiles and full of “yeses”. Still riding high from jumping 30 and boating close to 15; Tucker to say the least was in a very giving mood. Upon reentry into reality, the confines of Trout’s Fly Shop, Tucker afforded me the opportunity to take his place on the “1st Annual What The Shuck! Dealer Rendezvous-Rio Grande River”. You may be asking what is the meaning behind “What the Shuck!”?  And what exactly constitutes a “Dealer Rendezvous”?

First things first, “What the Shuck!” was a term coined by super rep. Michael White, a.k.a Whitey, for this shin dig.  Taking into account that this inaugural event was to take place stream side on the infamous Rio Grande and at a time when the dry fly fishing was to be at critical mass,  this new term best described both the uncertainty of what was to unfold before us, as well as, providing a wholesome twist on a common exclamatory remark. I hope this begins to paint a clearer picture.

Now to the “Dealer Rendezvous” part of this equation.  Commonly used as a noun, “rendezvous” I believe is best described and defined by MANY of the associated synonyms listed below.

Main Entry: rendezvous

Part of Speech: noun

Definition: get-together or place for get-together

Synonyms: affair, appointment (slightly late due to an emergence of grey drakes, handle of JD and LunaAzul Tequila), assignation, blind date (I didn’t know many in attendance, therefore I went in blind), date, double date (with three to a boat, more like a threesome), engagement, heavy date, matinee, meet, meeting, one night stand (I was told not to comment), tryst, gathering point (Cascada Bar & Grill), hangout, haunt, love nest, meeting place, spot, stomping ground (glorious Creede, CO), venue, watering hole (TommyKnocker Tavern…shot ski anyone?)

Combine these two terms and you get a short list of owners, managers and guides getting together to chase fish, sip on whiskey, brainstorm, smoke cigars, make fun, bbq in the rain and “borrow flies”.  Certainly in no particular order.  Clearer yet??

A few shout outs are certainly in order for this spectacular event.

Michael “Whitey” White:  The grandmaster, orchestrator…big daddy of the event is a highly skilled industry representative (Simms, Ross Reels, Idylwilde Flies) with a knack for poker, multi-tasking and two handing.  With mad “creek cred” and admiration from his retailers, Whitey was able to amass some of the industry’s finest for one heck of a fun weekend.  Thanks Whitey!

Patrick Kilby:  PK was the supplier of all things chewy and is the Director of US Operations for Idylwilde flies.  To say that Patrick came prepared would be an understatement, he had more flies in his duffle bag than all the fly shops in Mineral County combined.  Bug Du Jour for Monday:  Wilcox’s JC Special in olive or gray #10-12, Quigley’s Film Critic Green Drake #12 and Hairwing Drake gray #10-12.  Bug Du Jour for Tuesday: Quigley’s Victory Drake #12, Bloom’s Sedge Hammer brown green # 14-16, Hairwing Drake gray #10-12 and Parachute Adams #10-12.  Thanks Patrick for the use of some of your bugs!

Andy Wunsch: Despite ending his first evening in Creede with an unfortunate misstep, Andy was the “brains” of this trip.  As the Director of Sales for Simms Fishing Products, Andy brought with him the knowledge, answers, open-mindedness and wise ass remarks to keep us retailers educated, in-line and entertained.  Having literally “grown up” in the retail world, Andy was able to understand the needs of specialty retailers and parallel them with the needs of Simms, the manufacturer.  Thanks Andy for sharing your insight and opening your eyes and ears to our needs.

Duranglers and Wolf Creek Anglers:  Arguably some of the fishiest guys around, the guides from both Duranglers and WCA were top notch all the way.  Thanks guides for making all those mayflies emerge, I still don’t know how you do it!  Check them out: www.duranglers.com and www.wolfcreekanglers.com

To sum up this entire event in a concise form would be unjust…but I’m going to do it anyways.  In a few words:

Guides: $$$$$$

Fishing:  INSANITY

The company: INSANE..R

Flies: DIRTY and chewy

New Product: EXCITING

Oh yeah, just so you can hate me more…I’m going back in two weeks.  This time however Tucker and I will be hosting 6 lucky anglers on a trip that is sure to live up to this one.  If interested give us a call, we have a few spots left.

I think I’ll coin this first ever Trout Bum Trip…What the Shuck! Trouts Rendezvous-Rio Grande River.

Posted in Industry News, Trip Reports, Uncategorized | No Comments »

About a month or so back, I got a call from the Rio Grande Club wondering if I would be interested in coming down to their property in South Fork, CO for a weekend of fishing, dining, and all around good times.  Never having heard of this club, I got online and did a little recon to learn that although primarily a golf club, they also have over 1 mile of private access on the Rio Grande.  Never one to shy away from a weekend of fishing, especially on private water, I obliged their invitation and started packing my bags.

It has been quite some time since I fished an entirely new river, so I was anxiously anticipating the trip and hoping that the river and weather conditions would play out in my favor.  Lucky for me a weather check the Thursday before departure forecast warm temperatures and sunny skies, ideal fishing conditions for late October.  A four hour drive Friday afternoon brought us to South Fork around dusk, so there was just enough time to unload the car and take a walk down to the water to check out the surroundings.  Having never seen the Rio Grande, my initial impression left me excited for the following day, as well as curious as to how I had managed to fish for this long and never made it down to this legendary stream.  It seemed to have a perfect gradient, not too fast or too small, and although the flows were low, there was still ample holding water for the fish.  Being predominantly a brown trout fishery, I knew that there wouldn’t be an abundant number of fish per mile, but those that were there would be healthy and potentially BIG. (more…)

Posted in Trip Reports | 3 Comments »

*Although I will not tell you the name of the creek I fished, I will divulge to you that it is in the Eagles Nest Wilderness, and it is a tributary of the Colorado River.

It’s Labor Day Weekend, you want to go fishing for a day but you know that every notable river in the state will be flooded with other anglers, what do you do?  For me the solution was simple, grab my 2wt. and head for the hills.  There is  something about fishing the high country in September that has always kept me coming back for more.  Maybe its the fall colors splashed across every mountain side, or the eagerness of every fish to eat your fly with reckless abandonment, or maybe just the joy of walking around the back country and not seeing another sole.  Regardless of the reason, it’s an annual past time for me that has always produced some very special and memorable experiences.

I reached the trailhead at around 12pm after a lazy morning.  The flows were low for this time of year, as the area hadn’t seen a good rain storm in some time.  Wanting to ensure that I wouldn’t be bothered by other anglers, I decided to head a few miles away from the trail head.  During the course of my hike, I passed numerous different sections that all looked enticing and equally productive, but I stuck to my game plan and kept on walking.  About 3 miles in, I encountered a large beaver pond that encompassed the majority of a mountain meadow.  From high on the trail, I scanned the water surface looking for signs of life.  After a few moments, one after another the fish began to rise.  Figuring that I had spaced myself an adequate distance from other anglers, I broke off the trail and descended towards the waters edge.  (more…)

Posted in Trip Reports | 1 Comment »

Despite the high flows that have been coming out of Green Mountain Reservoir all year, this was the first time this season I had a chance to get out on the Lower Blue.  Conditions for my inaugural float were ideal at just under 500 cfs, so I had good expectations of the day; that was until I was driving up and noticed the beautiful silhouette of the FULL MOON against the backdrop of a blue bird day.  At that point I new the day was going to be a struggle, as the fish were undoubtedly pulling an all nighter feeding with the aid of the moonlight.  Never one to give up, I forged ahead fully prepared to get my butt kicked; but hey, a day on the water is better than just about anything else.

We arrived at the put-in around 9:30 am, and joined about 3 other groups who were already gearing up.  By the time we went to run the shuttle, the number of boats at the put-in had grown to 6, so I was growing a bit eager to get on the water.  We were able to push off at around 10:30am, which I figured was perfect as the insects were starting to move from the shore to the river.  With the lower water levels, we started out throwing a Hopper/Dropper combo with a size 12 hopper trailed by a tungsten pheasant tail.  The first mile and a half was slow to say the least, with little to no lookers.  We pulled over in a nice run that I’ve done well in on previous occasion, but after a solid hour of hammering the hole with nymphs and dries, all we had to show for it was a few small strikes.  Flustered and a bit pisted off (another group parked their boat directly up stream of us), we continued further downsteam in search of better options.

About 2/3rds the way down the canyon, we pulled over on river right at a spot that looked promising, but one where I have never seen anybody fish.  After about 10 minutes of working my way upstream, I hooked into a nice brown in a soft pocket.  He ended up taking my size 14 pheasant tail, which has always been a great producer in this section of water.

With the afternoon starting to ware on, we continued on downstream.  Slowly our luck turned, as we started getting solid looks and strikes on our big dry fly, in addition to taking a couple nice browns on the dropper fly.  About half way through the float, the rivers gradient began to decrease, and lot more deep holding water began popping up.  Tired of seeing fish slap at our dry, we re-rigged our rod with a deeper double nymph set-up, and almost immediately started having success.  As I suspected, the fish were holding deep during the middle of the day, but were very willing to eat anything that came their way.  For the next hour or so, we moved and hooked some nice rainbows and browns on numerous different caddis and general attractor patterns.

About 3:30pm, we reached the “Ranch”, and rigged a 7wt. to handle to large fish we were hoping to catch.  As soon as we dropped over the first weir, we hooked and landed a nice 20″ rainbow.  Thinking that this was a sign of things to come, we kept our deep nymph set-up on and made our way down river.  Whether the fish were holding in shallower water, or they just weren’t interested in eating, I don’t know, but it’s fair to say that the fishing ultimately sucked!  We managed to pull in one nice slab out of a secret honey hole, but that was pretty much it.  A few other fish were hooked towards the end of the float, but nothing to write home about.

All in all, it was a great day on one of my favorite floats, so I’m not going to be one to complain.  Good company, beautiful weather, cold beer, and a few fish to the boat made for a very enjoyable day on the water.

Posted in Trip Reports | 6 Comments »

Located on the South East side of the Holy Cross Wilderness lies Homestake Reservoir. Built by the cities of Aurora and Colorado Springs in the 1960’s, Homestake Reservoir collects water from the Homestake Creek drainage, and transports it over to Turquoise Lake on the East side of the Continental Divide.  From there it is transported to Twin Lakes Reservoir where it’s released into the Arkansas River, bringing much needed drinking water to the front range.  At over 200 ft. deep, 1 mile long and about 1/4 mile wide, Homestake Reservoir is a large body of water that offers some great fly fishing opportunities.  Yet because of its location in steep mountain valley, the reservoir is almost impossible to access by foot, and most of the good angling opportunities are limited to those with a boat (canoe, row boat, belly boat, pontoon boat, etc.).

I have personally been exploring the Homestake Creek area for over a decade, but had never ventured to the top of the valley to where Homestake Reservoir is located.  Since I was totally new to the area, and wasn’t quite sure what to expect, our trip there was conceived as more of a exploratory adventure than a hard core fishing trip.

The plan was simple; we would paddle a canoe to the south side of the reservoir where we would set up camp and fish for a couple of days.  From the research I had done, this appeared to be the only section of the valley that had suitable camping, and with numerous creeks flowing into the reservoir on that side, it seemed a likely spot to find some good fishing.

Upon our arrival to the reservoir though, it became blatantly obvious that there was one vital piece of information that we failed to check before coming; the water level.  To our surprise and disappointment, Homestake was only about 1/2 full.  This not only created a less scenic vista, but is also became clear that it was going to make it much more difficult to get to a suitable camp spot.  But with the canoe rented, the gear packed, and our hopes still high, we launched our boat to see what Homestake Reservoir was all about.

The trip to the South end of the reservoir was shortened by the low water, but it was still a pleasant float across a beautiful high country lake.  The few extra pounds of yellow lab and beers that we pack along made the going a bit slow, but enjoyable non the less.  After speaking with some guys at the put in who had had good success trolling, I went ahead and rigged a streamer rod with a full sink line that would be suitable to tow behind the boat.  I tied on a heavy, flashy streamer that I hoped would get down to the fish, but after an hour in the water I had no takers.

The real downer of the day came when we arrived on the south end and realized that all the best camping was above the high water line, which was about a 1/4 mile away and 150′ up.  With a storm rolling in, and little time to gripe, we unloaded the canoe and made our way up the hill to find camp.

We spent the afternoon that day paddling around the reservoir looking for feeding fish.  At this point in the day, we had seen no fish (except for the few on a guys stringer back at the boat launch), and I was beginning to question Homestakes reputation as a solid fishery.  We were able to find a small island on the south end that seemed like a suitable place to park the boat and wet a line.  There was ample structure in the area, and with the sun starting to drop it seemed like an ideal time for fish to start feeding.  Yet after trying countless flies and various rigs, all I had to show for my efforts was a few small chasers.

At this point it was becoming clear that something was off.  I never go into a new area expecting to catch dozens of fish, but it didn’t make sense that we weren’t seeing any fish cruising or rising.  All I can figure now is that the low levels of the reservoir had effected the population of insects, and had sent the fish to the depths of the reservoir to find food and protection.

Beat but not broken, we retreated to camp for a nice evening at camp by the fire.  We awoke the following day and packed up and headed home.  The previous days lack of success left us both unmotivated to fish very hard, and the looming storm clouds to our west were a good reminder that an afternoon thunderstorm was inevitable.  Yet on our paddle back, the beauty of our surroundings was a stark reminder of why a day on the water is better than a day doing most anything else.  There’s no doubt that I will be headed back to Homestake, but I can guarantee you that this time I’ll be watching the water levels like a hawk.

Posted in Trip Reports | No Comments »