Deckers in the Winter

Winter on the South Platte below Cheesman Canyon.

     I've now listened to Clint Packo, Freestone Outfitters, twice within a couple months on the topic of cold weather fishing. He wants us to fish small and slow. Randall and Terry are joining me on Thursday to try out his techniques. 

     Freestone Outfitters stream report for the recent cold weather excursions has mention miracle midges every time. So I tied up seven. Carefully strung them on my threader. And now there are six. Size 22 flies have the ability to come to life like pinocchio when ever they detect that they are free. To keep one from springing to life after it is tied, I thread it onto a piece of 3x as show above. But to get it onto a tippet on the stream it just does not work to put them in a plastic fly shop cup. The fly shop's love these cups for small flies. A size 22 midge can escape from this box before you are out the door. So my method is to carefully slide them off the 3x and onto my work surface very very slowly. Then, one at a time I carefully thread them on to my CF Design threader. The threader fits in a foam cutout in the CF fly box. Once out on the stream, I can open the fly box without dumping the the contents into the ice water, and the larger threader is easier to manipulate with cold hands than trying to extract a single size 22 fly from  a foam pad next two a dozen identical flies. The downside is that it is very easy to drop the whole threader into the ice water. That happened once, on the South Platte, in winter, fishing with Terry. Certainly it won't happen again.

     But somehow before I had them all strung, one red one managed to escape. I know it will reappear in a painful place. They always do.

For your Christmas Kindle

Spoiler Warning - This is a blatant promotion !!!

I just finished the second volume of "Bug the Bug", an eBook of 12 cries for help about Fly Fishing posed to some aquatic insects. Here's the thing. These insects have been around for 350,000,000 years. They know what's going on below the water. On the other hand, our species has only been flailing the water for a couple thousand. They know more than we do.

If you are getting or giving an iPad, a Kindle, or some eBooks consider this from Amazon. You don't have to do any shopping.  

Here's a sample:

March 

A fragile midge helps a humiliated angler, out-fished by his buddies.

From Rafael in Pueblo   - So I'm fishing below the Pueblo Reservoir in the fly fishing only section and the guys I'm with are hooking and landing really nice fish. They've lent me flies; they've tied them on. They've changed my tippet. They've had me stand right where they've each landed fish but for me ? nada. Should I try snow boarding ? 

Dear No se puedo in Pueblo -  No, no Rafael. Special regulation areas do not permit clubbing trout with a snow board. Special reg areas also don't mean it's especially easy to catch fish. In fact, along with Gold Medal waters like the Dream Stream, the fish are actually harder to catch for at least two reasons. One, they see a lot of fly fishers and a lot of flies, and they learn from each hookup. Two, these streams are quite fertile with aquatic invertebrates allowing the fish to be more selective on what and how they eat. So don't give up. Perfect your techniques on unregulated areas and nightmare streams, where few people fish and the fish are small, under fed and dumb. Try behind the sewage treatment plants in Salida and Vail or under the I-70 and 119 bridges on Clear Creek. Nobody fishes there. Clear Creek has 2,000 fish per mile (that's one every three feet for those math challenged), while below Deckers thanks to the Hayman fire it's only 900. Check out the Division of Wildlife's fish survey here.

Fishing only the iconic streams with buddies who fish them all the time is a recipe for humble pie. 

The Grizwold Family Tree Reenacted

It was far too cold. Snow blanketed the target area. I lost two of my helpers to head colds. But I had a permit to reenact the selection and harvest of a live tree in Colorado hopefully without the log truck incident.

The forest you love is just on fire away from this.

Mark this down.  On Oct 31st of each year put in a calendar event to google "Tree Cutting Permit Pike National Forest" On November the 1st they go on sale by mail. I got one permit this year for $10 for a specific range of dates. "The cutting is not destructive but gives room for neighboring trees to grow faster and better," according to the U.S. Forest Service which always does the right thing.

The Pike National Forest was hit by the Buffalo Creek Fire in 1996. It's mildly depressing driving through this area on the way to cut down some of the survivors. What was I thinking? I don't remember anything about this in Clark's trip to get his tree.

The U.S. Forest Service set up a check point outside the forest and directed me to the cutting area. 

Griswolds to the left, to the right, straight ahead. 

Wow. This is crowded. I actually saw a guy carrying a little dog that I just know he was going to tie to the bumper of the car while the family went into the forest to find their family tree. ISTG. I had to warn him NOT to tie the dog to the bumper. He said he'd seen "Vacation."

Finally, I parked in a lonely spot, got out my bow saw, and trekked out into the forest.

After mindless wandering, my hands are getting numb, my feet starting to freeze, and my body is getting powdered with snow as I shake it off spindly little trees trying to find something that doesn't look like a Charlie Brown reject, when Behold !! a miracle happens right in front of me.

This must be IT. The Davenport Family Christmas Tree.

The perfect size, the perfect shape, cut just 6 inches from the ground as ordered.

This is what it must be like with elk. 

North Fork Volunteer Fire Department serves chili, santa photos, and pie to the "Cutters."

And this bit of wisdom.