Covid-19 Fly Fishing in Colorado

    What a difference a few months can make.  My last blog post dealt with the beginning of the pandemic in the good 'ol U.S. of A., but since then we've been holed up for two months and states are already beginning to re-open.  My trip to Utah seems like a year ago...

    What's interesting is that here in Colorado Governor Polis did NOT lock down fishing although people were supposed to stay close to home.  Based on some of the crowds I have witnessed that has not been happening.  I have also seen plenty of out-of-state plates the last few weeks. Crowds at Deckers have been ridiculous, but due to the concentration of quality fish there, that will always be the case, especially on the weekends.  I think a lot of fisherman that lost their jobs and were quarantined realized that their one release was the river.

    Honestly, that's how I have felt although I have been remotely teaching for two months now.  My Covid-19 panic levels have been relatively low although I have had some bad days like everyone else.  The river has been my sanctuary and it helps when the trout eat my fly as well.  I have been very safe when traveling and have not stopped in a mountain town for months now.  I have gassed up in Denver, brought my own food/beverages, stayed 6 feet away from strangers (at least), fished, and returned home.

    April was good fishing, but May has been really something.  Whether you have been fishing freestones or Tailwaters, the fish have been hungry.  I have put a few new fly tying videos up so I want to share the flies that have been working for me in the areas I have been fishing without giving away too much.  

Can you beat the spots on a brown trout?

    I read a lot of Facebook posts and I find it funny when people want to know the exact spots you are fishing.  This may offend a few people, but that is NOT the point of fly fishing.  Our sport is special.  Fishing a new river should be seen as a brand new opportunity and not only that, but if you are like me and enjoy a decent hike to or on a river, you'll never know what you might find.  

    I remember two years ago fishing the Crystal River in the Roaring Fork Valley for the first time.  I parked in a public area after doing minimal research, got my stuff on and started hiking.  I will never forget the jaw dropping moment when I hiked up around a corner to this:

    If I hadn't hiked on my own I never would have seen this so take every opportunity you get to fish and explore.  I get it that sometimes time is tight and you just want to catch fish so you go to a familiar spot where you have caught fish before.  I do that too, but exploring new spots on familiar rivers or hopefully a new river can be a truly enlightening experience.

    So, the fishing and what's been working.  I'll start with a trip I took up into Cheesman Canyon.  I hadn't been there in over a year and as I was walking the trail to the water and didn't know why I hadn't been back.  It is a difficult place to fish, but I don't believe it's the type of fly opposed to the size of the bug, but most importantly the presentation.  The water is almost always gin clear and as with Deckers, those fish have seen every fly under the sun more than once.

    I hiked up a good bit and there was a crazy midge hatch going on by 8am.  There were no risers because the flows were near 300 cfs so I put on this fly:  Foam Wing Emerger

    I am promoting my video and this fly because IT WORKS.  I hooked a great fish on my 2nd cast that took me to school.  I wish I knew if it was a brown or a rainbow, but I'll never know because that fish cleaned my clock.  I fished with a friend of mine yesterday on the Williams Fork and gave him a few of these before we started.  I said, put this on.  Once he did he caught at least two nice fish on it.  

    Back to Cheesman.  I must have hooked and lost at least 3 more fish on this fly before watching a big rainbow suspended in the water column calmly feeding.  I had a bigger beadhead fly above this with no indicator and no additional weight on.  I made a gentle cast above him and watched him open and close his mouth...

The result was a 19" cuttbow that had probably eaten a few thousand midges already that day.  Tie some of these foam wings and tell your fly tying friends about my video.  That fly is a proven winner.

I have also fished Clear Creek a few times because it's close and there is solitude to be found if you don't fish right near Golden.  I prefer fishing dry flies there during the summer after runoff, but I took a friend of mine out who had never been fly fishing before.  I set him up with a couple of nymphs beneath a small indicator and we hooked and caught some pretty rainbows, browns, and cutts.  The fly that day was another pattern I adapted.

Here's a link to that video: Wire K-Flash Nymph

This little brown took the Wire K-Flash Nymph without hesitation.

Here's my buddy with his first ever fish on a fly rod.  Can't beat a gorgeous cutt.

Back to the Wire K-Flash Nymph: This fly works because it's an attractor pattern that looks like a few different types of bugs, but nothing extremely specific.  The legs are flashy and since runoff has begun I would tie a few up for your box and use them as the bottom fly of a two or three fly nymph rig.

The last two weeks or so I have fished in Pueblo and on the Williams Fork.  I had a day in Pueblo I will never forget.  I think a lot of it had to do with cooler/cloudy weather from about 8am-12pm and there were bugs because the sparrows were eating them with reckless abandon the entire day.  How I never hooked a sparrow I will never know, but I did hook a lot of beautiful fish and I landed most of them.  

The fly of choice that day is another proven winner.  Peridgon's have been around for a little while now so if you're a history person like me, here ya go. 

Perdigon Nymph article written by Charlie Craven

I tie a simpler version because its effective and if you have some UV Resin handy, you most likely have everything else you need to tie some of these up.

First, here's a few fish I have caught on this pattern in Pueblo.

This 20" fish was so fat I could barely hold it with one hand.  It was an awesome battle, but I was able to get him into some slower water to make the scoop.  My Simple Perdigon Pattern was in the corner of his mouth.  

This was another beautiful rainbow that I caught in Pueblo.  Perdigon, corner pocket.  

Here is the link to my fly tying tutorial for the Simple Perdigon: Simple Perdigon Fly Tying Video

Tie some up.  They work.

    So, like many others, the pandemic has not hindered my fly fishing or fly tying.  I have probably had more time to do both things and as school wraps up and I excited and curious about what this summer will bring.

    I will leave you with a brown trout from the Williams Fork that ate my Simple Perdigon (the amber wire and bead variety) in a deepish hole behind a few boulders.

Stay safe out there and until next time...Tight Lines!