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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.
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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.
If you want this kind of experience, you have to make your way on a less traveled path. The fish are smaller, the hiking is tougher, the roads are dirt, but the outdoor experience is breathtaking. 
A day after the foothills near Denver got a foot of snow I headed up Coal Creek Canyon Road (RT 72), turned right on Crescent Drive, then right on Gross Dam road (dirt) 
to an unplowed pulloff just past Gross Dam. 
Down a couple hundred feet on a trail, carefully avoiding the cougars to South Boulder Creek that was running at a respectable 106 cfs for the past 10 days. Water temperature was 40 degrees at 1:00PM. I dropped a bead egg below a pheasant tail and worked the far side of this pool slow and deep.
A little while later, in the same pool, this rainbow also chose to ignore the pheasant tail and went after the egg. Both hook-ups were very clean outside the jaw, as predicted by Clint Packo who taught us how to rig this egg pattern. 
It's not easy to entice trout at 40 degrees but the quiet beauty of a healthy Colorado stream in the winter is reward enough.
