Submitted by John Walker

I was recently in Colorado to do some hiking and to watch the Cardinals play in Denver. As part of that trip I spent a couple of days fishing on the South Platte river around Colorado Springs. One day, I got to fish Cheeseman Canyon and the second day I fished in eleven mile canyon. Based on the recommendation of FATC luminary Matt McClure, I hired a guide out of Anglers Covey, the largest shop in the Colorado Springs area and one of the few guide shops licensed to go to Cheeseman Canyon. The weather has been warm this time of year in Colorado and the water levels are lower than normal which has made the fishing a bit slow but still worth doing. The first day was Cheeseman Canyon and fishing amongst boulders and pocket waters. We hiked back about ~ 2 miles to our destinations. Because the water levels are fairly right now the fish are spread out and we did a lot of sight fishing for specific ones we could see. We used a 3-fly rig using different emerger patterns. We never got a trico hatch as we hoped. We did ok for my first time there and given the conditions, managing to net rainbows, cut bows and a couple of browns. The second day was eleven mile canyon. Here we did manage to get a very nice trico hatch. From about 9:30-11:00 fish were popping up all around us. We used two flies, a larger BWO (size 18) with a smaller trico (size 20) trailing behind it. I managed a few on both dry flies so that was quite fun. After they shut off we got a couple more on mergers. Overall, it was a decent showing. Fishing on the South Platte is always a lot of fun and I definitely recommend Anglers Covey if you are in the area and need a guide.