Fall Brown Trout Fishing

Well the fall weather here has been unbelieveable. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get out on the rivers to enjoy it as my weekends have been busy. Well this weekend, I finally decided to go out. However my plans were almost scuttled as my wife has come down with a cold and called in sick to her work today.

After having several conversations with her, i made sure it was ok for me to head out and go fishing. To make it more agreeable, we agreed that I needed to fish somewhere that I still had cell phone coverage. So I hit up the North Popo Agie river again. The brown trout spawn is on, and the fish were not nearly as popular as the last time I hit this stream. I was treated with a beautiful brown working his way up a run through, with a full body out of water jump. Was a site to see the big guy.

It was significantly cooler today (about 10 degrees) and mostly cloudy. I worked my way upstream again this time around. Around noon or so, a BWO hatch started coming off. And by 12:15 fish were rising. I had my fly from the August swap, an Elk Hair Caddis with antron underwing and micro tube ribbing in chartreuse on with a BWO trailing it. Oddly enough, this brown below hit the Elk Hair Caddis and not the BWO. Go figure!! After I hooked him, I quickly got him to the reel, and brought him into net. Before netting him, he managed to make 3 runs on me, which was quite fun. He had good shoulders on him.




After a couple of pictures to admire him, he was released back into the river to fight another day. This was the only fish to find my flies today. There were more in a few spots, but I just had trouble getting the right presentation to them. Not sure how many more opportunities I'll have to get outside this year, but hopefully at least one more!


Cya Next time,
Paul

Labor Day Camping Trip 2010

For the second year in a row I went camping into the mountains over the Labor Day weekend. This year I took my trusty companion...



For Saturday, we took the boat out and had some luck with standard tackle, but I was unable to entice any fish with my fly rod. Then my boat motor decided to start acting up, and I couldn't get it started the rest of the weekend. So unfortunately, we were out of the boat by noon that morning as the wind was picking up above and beyond what the trolling motor can safely handle.

Later that evening, we did some shore fishing and managed to catch another 3 fish using standard tackle. The fish in the lake just love the wind!!

On Sunday, with the boat out of the commission, I decided to hike into the back country and fish around the Roaring Fork Creek area.

Here is a picture of the lake...


Additionally, since my wife hasn't been able to make this hike yet, I took a picture of the Cirque towers off in the distance.


From there, the dog and I made progress along the creek to find some fishing. Earlier this year there were reports of excellent grayling fishing at the lake. I didn't try the lake, as it just was so windy out in the open.

Eventually during our hike and fishing a few riffles, we came across this massive log jam.


From the pool in front of this jam, I pulled out a couple of brookies.


Eventually we continued on downstream until we made our way to my honey hole from last year. The creek treated it well... Several fish can be seen in this photo of the hole.


This hole has a unique situation that requires you to be sitting down to effectively cast in it. You can use roll casts or side arm casts, but that's it. Trees are all around. Any time the sun was covered the fish would readily move into the feeding lanes. When it came out, some of them would go into the rocks.

This first guy I caught, was actually caught while I was still pulling line out of the fly rod. I dipped it into a slack area over a deeper area thinking that no fish would approach it. Welll, I was wrong! Next thing I know I pulled out this little guy.


I continued to fish the hole, pulling out one fish after another, just working my way through them. Eventually I hooked this little guy who decided that my fly looked like a caddis moth surfacing and jumped clean out of the water to snag my fly.


Certainly not the biggest guy out there, but certainly one of my most memorable takes.

Overall for the day, roughly 10 fish brought to hand during my hike. Over the entire weekend about 20 fish brought to hand, and a half dozen LDR's.

Best of all, I found that our dog, Clouie handles the boat well, and loves to hike with me into the countryside. I'm sure she spooked a few fish as she snagged a drink in the water or approached the shoreline. (She gets very curious about rise forms from the fish).

The trip was a great weekend.

Cya,
Paul