This time of year can be particularly difficult to find good fishing. This year in particular, has been very odd. Because of the massive late snows caused by the last ditch effort of El nino, we have had a ton of snow in the high country. This has caused runoff to start much later than normal on many of the watersheds throughout the state. Runoff has finally started on the front range. As of a few days ago, Boulder creek started to rise and as of this morning flows were over 350cfs. The St Vrain also cut loose this afternoon and flows have risen dramatically. Clear creek was over 700 cfs today as well. Then there is the Big Thompson. It has been very stable with a flow of 125 cfs for the last 10 days or so. This is now the most viable option for fishing the front range.
I had a corporate trip today. A group of 9 civil engineers in town for a conference decided to have a pleasant day out on the water with us. This required 3 guides each with 3 clients. The first two groups opted to head into Rocky Mountain National Park. I however made a more wise decision to stay with the stable flows of the tailwater below Olympus dam in Estes Park. I drove my clients a couple miles into the canyon and found a pull off with some ideal water to start our day. After getting everyone rigged up, (each with a different set of bugs to find out which flies would be the best choice for the menu), we stepped into the water. I gave a little instruction on how we would approach the water and showed my clients the likely holding areas for the fish, I set them free to get the hang of casting the dry dropper rigs I had previously set up for them. Not even 5 casts in, we had a fish in the net. Two more casts yielded another fish. It was obvious what flies I needed to rig my clients with so I tended to changing the other clients flies and they also had immediate results.
We played leapfrog moving my clients up the two hundred yard stretch of river, until lunch time around noon. By that time, we had 20 fish to net between the three of them. When we met for lunch with the other groups, they had not fared as well. We had caught more than the other two groups combined.
After breaking for lunch,we headed down the canyon again to try a different spot for the remaining time we had left. We chose a spot, and were again immediately into fish. The afternoon proved to be much slower than the morning even though we had an epic start. My clients had many opportunities, but couldn’t connect on many of the fish that ate their flies. We caught several and had quite a few more hits on top as well with the Chubby Chernobyl.
We had a great day on the water with over 30 fish landed. Get out there now while the fishing is hot. You don’t want to miss it.