Last weekend we visited friends in Ft Collins, so I had a little time to explore Front Range fishing streams.  Timing wasn't great, as run-off started that week, but you do with what you have.  The guys at St Pete's told me the Cache la Poudre was now running at 3 times normal, and they were pretty discouraging about it.  The Big T was lower, given the dam above it, but still higher than it had been a week before, and off-color.  Given the choice between the 2, they said ",Well, you can fish the Big T and deal with the crowds, or you can fish the Poudre alone and not catch fish..."  The answer to that is "Duh!" 

So on saturday we fished the Big T.  It's true, every pull-off that had some quiet water near it had a truck in it.  No wonder Colorado friends suggest a person drives up to the (relatively un-populated) North park.  But we did find some water on the lower half of the Big T that was all to us.



The water to the right was awful fast for fishing; to the left, there were fish between the 2 almost-submerged rocks in the foreground, then in the seam between fast and slow water all the way up to where the slick starts.  It took lots of casts, but fish did take the sparkle-back pheasant tail, hung behind a heavy nymph and under an indicator.

Mid-day these guys started to hatch, explaining why small pheasant tails would work:

Except in one small slow channel next to an island, the fish would not look at our BWO dries however.

A couple browns came up out of the cobbles to take the nymph I was using as "weight": a size 14 bead-head black squirrel nymph.  That fly works pretty often - which explains why I'll swerve the car on the road if I see a black squirrel on the asphalt!   This rod, by the way, is one of those Martha Marie's Perfectionists - 7-1/2 ft 4wt, and it was a joy to cast - tight loops upstream into the wind, softly under overhanging bushes... just a great rod.

I can't say fishing was great (I am sure I could have caught more and bigger fish on Verdigre in the same amount of time), but it was new, pretty water, we were in Colorado after all, and it so often seems true that your first few times on a new water, you don't do very well.  Usually, you stick to it and things eventually "fall into place" for you.  Each place is different, requiring that you learn about it, and after all, isn't that part of the fun of fly fishing?

Lee

 

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