What's for Dinner - Two Creeks in Colorado April 5, 2018

What Trout were Eating in Vail and Denver April 5th and What I Offered Them.

4/5/2018  Gore Creek runs through the center of Vail, Colorado and has been nicely preserved as a wild stream in the center of a village. It has been screened from the highway and developments by large pines and open meadows. The freestone stream has been left quite untouched except for short stretch near the center of town. I've caught rainbows, cutthroats, browns, and brook trout in the village. 

Gore Creek Brook Trout took the Trico Dry.

This west slope stream flows to the Eagle River which joins the Colorado River to flow to the Gulf of California and the Pacific or to irrigate the produce patches of California. At an elevation of 8,100 feet a rainbow trout was eating mature mayflies, midges (adult and nymph stage) and mayfly nymphs. You may be able to identify other species.  I found a pool below a riffle that had many trout taking emergers. My three fly rig had an Elk Hair Caddis indicator fly, a Trico dry than was sometimes floating, a tiny blob of sink putty, and a foam back chocolate emerger. I caught a brook trout, brown, and a rainbow from the pool shown below drifting down the center and along both seams. Air temperature was about 40 degrees, water temperature was 39, water was crystal clear. This Gore Creek water is very near its Rocky Mountain source from the snows on Vail Pass.

A pumped rainbow was feasting on this during the "Taste of Vail"

Later in the day on Clear Creek just upstream of Golden Colorado at an elevation of 5725, and air temperature of 65 and a water temperature of about 44, and the water was clear. There was no surface activity but the same three flies caught 10 fish, including this nice brown.  Clear Creek drains to the South Platte which eventually joins the Missouri and enters to Gulf of Mexico or winds up on a crop circle of wheat or soybeans in Colorado. This water is 40 miles from its source and has traveled through one former superfund site, two small towns, and 40 miles of Interstate 70.

A Clear Creek Brown also took the trico.

My first sample of a small brown yielded just this midge and an annelida.

A small Clear Creek brown had just eaten an adult midge and a red annelida.

 My second sample of a 10 inch brown showed almost the same composition as the stomach sample 2,400 feet higher in the West Slope drainage.  The fact that the bug sample is very similar is quite amazing. The fact that the same rig of flies was attractive to fish is also amazing. The fact that there was no surface feeding on Clear Creek is puzzling to me.

A 10 inch brown had eaten these in Clear Creek.

My offerings in both stream. Three fish took the foam back chocolate emerger. Seven took the trico dry which was fished below the surface.

Gore Creek rocks provided the cover, but brookies, rainbows and browns were all hitting emergers in the center of this photo.

Fine Clear Creek habitat. Each seam held fish.

Can I Get my Neighbors Into Fly Fishing ?

Fraser chills out.  John tenses up.

Sunday will be another attempt to create fishing buddies,

 guide my neighbors into using less water on their inappropriate lawns,

 and shamelessly pump my book, "Get Into Fly Fishing for Less Than $100."

     I volunteered to put on a one hour workshop and book signing at my great local bookstore, called the BookBar, on Tennyson St, Denver. It's this Sunday, April 13, 2014 at 11:00AM.  I'm a little nervous about Fraser, the Greenback Cutthroat, who has been searching my neighborhood for his home water, pumped here under the Continental Divide, by Denver Water.

     Fraser is actually quite happy that the water company, a number of counties, and Trout Unlimited have come up with some plans to save his home waters so he can enjoy them in perpetuity. He's been resting in my tying room waiting for his big chance Sunday before the throngs at the free event at the BookBar. Every time I enter the room he just scares the crap out of me. I wish I knew what he was thinking.

    I'm thinking that one hour will be just the right amount of time to give Fraser a shot at getting people out on his water, go over the gear you can get for under a $100, tie a couple flies, try a flip, roll, and bow and arrow cast on the sidewalk, and practice some knots.  Ambitious? Of course.

   

 

      I'm going to send them out to Clear Creek to get started and have them look for water that satisfies a trouts needs according this ladder. Hopefully they'll find these spots and these fish.

I always share the stream and really appreciate the climbers staying out of the water above me.

Fishing your home stream over and over.

Fishing your home stream over and over and over.

Just do it   or Just stop it ?

     Is fishing the same stream over and over a sign of senility, lack of imagination, fear of the unknown, or laziness? Or have you found a great place that does not cease to surprise you? Or are you just doing it until you get it right?

     Here's my confession. My home stream used to be the Yellow Breeches, Central Pennsylvania limestone stream.

 No it was Clarks Creek, a spring creek in Central Pennsylvania.

     But now it's Clear Creek, a freestone stream flowing through Clear Creek Canyon. 

    In the last couple weeks I've fished Clear Creek probably 6 or 7 times and I'm starting to feel guilty about it. But friends call and want to fish so I go through the list in my mind eliminating places that are currently impossible to reach. Following the September Storm, which strangely doesn't have a reference name yet, the Big Thompson, South Boulder Creek, and the St Vrain are impossible to reach since the roads have been destroyed. During the SHUTDOWN, which does have a name which I'm hopeful will be remembered the next time these yahoos run for office, all the National Parks, National Forests, and BLM property are closed. No one seems to know what that means except for some occasional road closures, gate closures, and closure announcements. Fishing within these areas is probably doable unless you need assistance for some reason or unless you want to record a state record catch and then being in a "closed area" might close out some of your options. 

    Andrew Todd, sadly with lots of time on his hands as a "fur-lowed" US Coast and Geodetic Survey fish biologist, and I fished Clear Creek again at Mayhem Gulch. Although Clear Creek is now my home stream it is 14 mile long through the Canyon and I'd never actually fished this section because it looked boring.

    It got me to thinking why I fish it. Since I always fish upstream, wading which ever bank gives me the best sun angle to see into the water, I've noticed that I get deja-vue often. A corner or a shelf near Mayhem Gulch looks almost identical to one at Huntsman Gulch, but it's not. And with just a slight change in water flow the underwater stream currents will be completely different, meaning that what worked at Huntsman Gulch may not work in Mayhem. The fish and insect populations must be similar so the same flies should work, but they don't, because the temperature of the air and water, the cloud cover and air pressure are all different from the last time I fished my home stream. 

     My Uncle Red told me that I wasn't learning anything by playing golf on many different courses and told me to stick to my home course until I learned how to play. Ask any fly fisher and they'll tell you they learn something every time they go out. Might as well go to the same class room.

Andrew shares the stream with some gold panners.

Fall Concentration

Size 14 stimulator and a size 18 caddis emerger thanks:http://midcurrent.com/videos/how-to-tie-a-caddis-emerger/

This spot had a deep drop off a few feet off the bank.

Some browns took the stimulator some the emerger. I stopped counting after 20.