Hi Guys!
I wanted to report-in on a terrific week of fishing Jason and I had this past week…It even had some “firsts!” I’ll give a daily synopsis, and follow-up with some Lessons Learned.
On Sunday (last week), we met up with Nick and Bailey (friends of Jason and I) late in the day on the Blue River. I landed a couple of nice 16” rainbows on a craft fur streamer around 7p…I figured we can nymph fish the rest of the year, so I decided to stick to either a streamer or hopper-dropper combination most of the week. In either case, the take’s are addictive!
On Monday we decided to take an aggressive drive and hike near Breckenridge on the Mohawk Lakes trail, up to Mohawk Lake #2 (out of 5). This is a trip I’ve been wanting to make for quite a while.The last 2 miles of the drive in the Outback were about as aggressive as I’ve ever taken in my car…rocky and deep-rutted…from 10,000’ in Breck up to a parking spot at 11,000’, followed by a 2-hour steep hike to over 12,000’! We were exhausted when we got up there, but it was definitely worthwhile! The views were spectacular, and the cutthroats were sporty and big…all in the 12”-14” range! The water was crystal clear, and we could see many big fish that repeatedly did “drive-bys” of our flies. All-in-all we landed 6-8 fish each and lost a few others along the way. See pics below.
On Tuesday we hit a section of the Eagle River in Avon that I’m particular to, and eventually got run off the river in the late afternoon by thunderstorms. Jason hooked up with 3 nice fish using dry droppers, and I managed to land just one 12” rainbow and lost another. We were both rather surprised by the lack of productivity in this stretch as we tried just about everything in the fly box.
Wednesday was our last full day of fishing available, so we made the most of it. We went out late morning to the Wolcott Rec Area on the Eagle, and I left one of my favorite Troutbitten Craft Fur Jig flies in the upper jaw of a beautiful 16”-ish rainbow. After he broke me off, he had the nerve to come sit in a stretch about 4’ away, and I spotted him easily with the big white craft fur swaying in his face in the current! Of course he was just out of netting reach too! I later hooked into a nice 14” rainbow on a hopper, and Jason caught 3 nice fish (browns and rainbows) on streamers in this area. Then at 5p we decided to break for a pizza dinner, before the REAL fun began…what we’d been planning for all week…NIGHT FISHING for monster browns!
We game-planned all week to get out and try it one night, and we finally pulled the trigger! We went to a productive stretch on the Eagle River that I was familiar with and planned out our night. We pulled into the parking lot at 6, and were fully suited up heading to the water with all our contingency night gear by 6:30. At 7:30, with still some post-sunset light, I caught a nice 16” rainbow on a hopper. After that, we had to commit to a single fly setup that we could fish the rest of the night, well into dark, so as to minimize fly changes. I settled on a dark blue-black streamer, and Jason put on an olive wooly bugger. It wasn’t long before it got dark and we had to really rely on our senses of hearing and touch, since there wasn’t much at all to see. That is until we began hooking up with fish in the complete dark, when we flipped on our LED headlamps while reeling them in! In total we each caught 4-6 big rainbows (Jason, despite breaking his rod tip) that were all 16” with each of us getting an 18”-er as well! It was exhilarating to say the least! It wasn’t til 11p that we decided to call it quits since we still had to hike back across river to the car, and then had a 1-hr ride back to Breck. Heads didn’t hit the pillows til after 1a! The only baffling part of the night outing was…NO NIGHT PREDATOR BROWNS were caught!!
On Jason’s last day, Thursday, we gave Clear Creek above Georgetown Lake a try. Jason hooked into a few nice browns, and I lost a couple, but it seemed a little early yet for the big influx of browns heading upriver to spawn to appear in this stretch. I’ve seen it loaded in the past and it seemed rather skosh today. After a few hours, I drove Jason back to DIA for his flight back home to Lexi and Claire awaiting his return in the Madison, WI area. Nothing like an I-70 road closure to cap off your trip on the drive back!
Our biggest Lessons Learned/Takeaways were these… When doing a big hike, be sure to pack extra water or have a Life Straw or other way to purify water as you’ll need it. We saw (and gave a ride to) some folks that set out without it! Pack up extra sunscreen and snacks, raincoats, etc, but also use an app like AllTrails to keep you heading the right way (especially the way out…the folks we picked up were lost). You can download their maps for off-line use like we did. Apple Watch and new iPhones also have the ability to use satellites for emergency services, and a great compass with waypoint and backtrack features. You can “practice” using these at home before setting out and needing them for real and/or under duress.
When planning a week long of fishing, bring an extra rod or two if you have them. In my case…you know why! Both Jason and I broke rod tips on this trip (monkey-see, monkey-do), so you want to have back-ups available if/when it happens!
As far as night fishing, pre-planning goes a long way. First of all, choose a stretch of water and river you know well, AND a buddy to go with you! We did it safely, despite having 2 river crossings in each direction, because we started out in daylight before sunset. Then, as we walked off-path and entered the water, we chose distinct landmarks to return to and, once across the water, turned back around to see how it looked going in the “return” direction. “A tall, dead tree here…a large stand of bushes there…and we will walk back between the two with the tree on our right”. Keep it simple but memorable. Also, when choosing your river, make sure it’s not one where the flows can change unpredictably or at all. We were able to confidently wade across two stretches under headlamps only, knowing the current flow wasn’t going to rise unexpectedly and trap us somewhere that we couldn’t get back across! Make sure your headlamps have fresh batteries, but minimize using them til you absolutely have to in order to let your eyes night-adapt. Due to cloud cover, we really didn’t have any beneficial star or moonlight to depend on, but I-70 was nearby so we could see headlights (and unfortunately heard road noise) from time to time. At night you will definitely depend much more on your senses of hearing and touch. Hearing, as I found out, in order to hear the bats flying nearby, the cows approaching from behind you, or the family of 4 raccoons that were plotting their sneak attack on me (closed-in to 10’ away before I heard them!). The road noise blocked out Jason’s and my ability to talk to each other at times when we were fishing further apart, and influenced my ability to hear the fly/streamer pop in to or out of the water so I could know when to cast again. Quieter is better to allow your sense of hearing to be an aid! Fishing with a rod you use nearly all the time is important in that you know how it feels, how it casts, how much line you’ve stripped out (I could feel the mono-rig leader transition point to the fly line in my fingertips and could reliably cast and then know how much line was out). Since I was stripping line in at times, I took note of how many large strips (7!) I could make on that amount of line (while it was still light out), so that I could do it in the dark and know when I could re-cast and/or my fly would be out of the water. I found that just letting the fly swing in the current so I could feel it under tension, then just twitching the rod tip slightly and making a small strip, then resettling, would be all the fish needed to find the fly and take it! Once hooked into a fish, I then took mental note of the number of reel cranks I made before turning on my headlamp to prepare to net the fish…the best part being that first glance of the beast thrashing about in the dark water! The drawback?? The incredible number of insects swarming your light!!
There are so many lessons and takeaways that time won’t allow, but suffice it to say…it was FANTASTIC fishing, and you just have to go out to experience it for yourself. I can’t wait to get back out and night fish at least one more time before the cold weather settles into the Rockies, because things will get dangerous in a lot of ways trying to night fish then. As I always say, if you want to get out and give it a try, give me a call and let’s plan a night (or day) out on the water!
Also an added Bonus… on Troutbitten.com Domenick and the guys are releasing a new series of Night Fishing episodes that I can’t wait to hear. I’m looking forward to learning more from them and seeing if our experiences, techniques, etc match up. They just released episode one for your listening pleasure.
Enjoy the pics, and let’s get out and fish!
Your Brother in Christ.
Greg
