Glenwood Springs – Fly-fishermen are a funny bunch.
We stuff our fly boxes with hundreds of the latest and greatest, then tack on a king’s ransom for a wide range of high-tech gear.
Then we subject ourselves to years of practice intertwined with countless hours of arcane discussion on the nuances of presentation.
Yet when all this preparation is said and done, much of our success depends on things happening beneath the surface that are totally beyond our control.
Putting it simply, when fish are ready to bite, we strike hero poses and blab our winning strategy to anyone who will listen. When trout get a collective case of lockjaw, we perform a speed run through our complete fly selection, all the while expounding on every conceivable theory for our misfortune.
Face it. Sometimes fish eat, sometimes they don’t. Just like you and me. We delude ourselves into thinking we exercise a measure of control we really don’t possess.
Take last Friday on the Colorado River below Glenwood Springs, for example.
When trout refused to respond to an initial offering of nymphs and streamers after a 10 a.m. launch from Two Rivers Park, guide Bruce Stolbach called for a change. Then another. And another.
When the Glenwood Springs resident makes a suggestion, anglers tend to pay attention. The town newspaper named him “Best Fisherman” in its local choice awards for 2003 and 2004, which covers a lot of people who know to row a drift boat.
As part owner in the Alpine Angling shop, which can be reached by calling 970-963-9245, he spends most days taking the pulse of the area’s prime fishing holes. Stolbach had theories to burn.
The obvious temptation was to blame the slow bite on water conditions after an intense rainstorm a few days earlier. Always susceptible to blowout, the Colorado finally had cleared to the color of green tea, with about 2 feet of visibility – not what you would call optimum conditions.
“It’s just clear enough to make you think it should be better than it is,” Stolbach said.
But that didn’t explain why, a couple of hours later, trout suddenly sprang to life, snapping like piranha after both nymphs and streamers. Or why, not much more than an hour later, these fish reverted to their earlier indifference, despite every concoction Glenwood’s best could contrive.
I’ll save the metaphysics for someone else. Sometimes fish bite. Sometimes they don’t.
That has been the general state of affairs for many Colorado streams in recent days. Hit or miss. Stop and go.
A thinking man might lay some of this to the fact that brown trout, now dominant in most rivers, are entering a sort of prespawn funk. Or that aquatic insect hatches have fizzled and grasshoppers are hunkering down against the cold.
But that requires too much mental effort. Let’s content ourselves with a report from various rivers around the area. Just the facts.
Arkansas: “It’s day to day, hour to hour,” Rod Patch of ArkAnglers said of the river around Salida, running clear at 250 to 300 cubic feet per second (CFS). “The fish bite during a different time frame each day.”
Although a few Blue-winged olives appear occasionally, there’s no main hatch. Try Barr Emergers or Pheasant Tail nymphs in flashback, size 18.
Blue: At 107 cfs, action is far from optimum during blue-sky periods. Only a few kokanee have headed upstream from Green Mountain Reservoir. Below Green Mountain, volume is a brisk 800 cfs.
Colorado: The stretch around Parshall is low at 253 cfs, with erratic action. A BWO hatch rallies trout during brief cloudy periods.
Gunnison: “Some guys are having good luck, others aren’t,” said Tra Lowell of High Mountain Drifters, who described action simply as “decent.” Try big attractors on top, with a Barr Emerger, BLM or WD40 nymphs below. Many kokanee remain in the river.
Rio Grande: Brown trout are warming up to large nymphs and streamers in a river flowing 212 cfs, reports Mike McCormick of the Wolf Creek Anglers shop in South Fork.
Roaring Fork: “OK to good,” is the way Drew Reid of Roaring Fork Anglers in Glenwood describes the action on a river holding at almost 700 cfs. “Go deeper with smaller baetis nymphs on bright, sunny days. Try streamers on cloudy days.”
South Platte: Action is erratic near Deckers, best in Cheesman Canyon, where the brown trout spawn is three weeks away. The brown trout run hasn’t started on the Dream Stream section near Hartsel.
Listen to Charlie Meyers at 9 a.m. each Saturday on “The Fan Outdoors,” radio KKFN 950 AM. He can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
