30 fish in RMNP on one fly in 4 hours.

Thirty fish in 4 hours on a single fly in a National Park along a busy hiking trail. 

An Elk hair egg-laying green caddis. Looks a little beat-up, doesn't it.

John and Fred w/buffs to make us disappear in the forest. I always take a before picture to show the investigators that he wasn't coerced into this trip.

    Within two hours of Denver, there is a National Park with many small streams loaded with hungry trout. The reason they are hungry is that at the elevations in the park, insect life is difficult and the trout as a result do not grow large but are always looking for food of any kind.
    The parking lot fills up with hikers, mostly families on Rocky Mountain motor vacations. The few fly fishers spread out along the trails which follow the streams or take a feeder branch. I have very seldom run into another fly fisher on these marvelous mountain streams.
     The wading, casting, and drifts are not easy. Roll cast and bow and arrow casts are all you'll be able to use unless you are casting parallel to the stream. Even then a set will often put you in the branches. And there will be lots of sets.

An Easter Brook trout descendent. Stocking of these easterners probably can be blamed on the Railroads.  The higher you go and the further you hike the more likely you are to encounter cutthroats. 

The trail follows one side of the stream but the other side of the stream, with the fast rushing waters will give you complete silence and solitude. 

The brookies do have beautiful colors though.

     Fred does a flash back to fishing from the pier and demonstrates the cast called dappling that's been around since 1653.

Fred does a perfect release.

It's not just about the fish.

     Don't forget to take a break once in awhile at this altitude. I used a 6 1/2ft  4 weight rod and 5x tippet. Fred even devolved to streamers at one point but I wanted to see if I could do it with one fly. Somehow it lasted all day, through 30 fish brought to the net and another 15 that were hits, runs, but none left on. ( We call that a Trout Unlimited in-stream release.)