Among the minor perils involved with being an outdoors writer is that sometimes I start to feel like Dear Abby. You know the one. That columnist who never runs out of advice.
When I attach my phone and e-mail address to a column circulated among several hundred thousand people, many of them who hunt and fish, questions come with the territory. The thing that amazes me about these exchanges – along with just about everything else in the current sporting world – is the degree to which so many people no longer try to figure things out for themselves.
To an outdoors traditionalist, the really scary thing is the way we’ve allowed electronics and assorted gizmos to assume the tasks once performed by our senses and intuitions. The way I see it, we’ve become so strapped for time and orientated toward success and instant gratification, we’re no longer willing to pay the dues that come with research and practice. But that’s a separate matter that begins to stray from the path of this advice issue.
The best thing – maybe the only good thing – about being asked for advice is it puts you in touch with folks who share that seemingly ethereal passion for the outdoors. I meet lots of nice people that way, if only briefly through such a highly impersonal medium as e-mail.
A more negative aspect of an outdoors writer giving counsel is that it sort of gets to be habit-forming, like preaching or being a talk-show host. Thus having confessed my personal psychosis, I now can lunge forward with the real recommendation behind all this.
The sermon for the day: The fishing season is slipping away. Take advantage of every opportunity you can muster.
That realization swept over me last week while launching a kick boat at Spinney Mountain Reservoir, where chill air hovering a few degrees above freezing sucked warmth from the water in the form of a dense fog.
If one needed any further evidence of changing times, rafts of migrating ducks gathered in shallows and, once, a flight of teal came streaking down from on high with that curious break dance that seems to shatter some sort of avian sound barrier.
All this is at once exciting and sad. At Spinney, it signals the beginning of the end of a grand seasonal fly-fishing escapade that finds large numbers of muscular rainbow trout in shallow water, eager to eat.
The most reliable activity occurs toward the west end of the lake, where a broad, shallow and often weed-infested flat produces an abundance of insects that attract trout. Late last week, the fog lifted to reveal the rise rings of rainbows sipping on the fading remnants of midges, with an occasional gulp for the large caddis flies that punctuate the end of summer.
On such occasions, an angler has two choices, neither bad. He can present a dry fly and play a delicate waiting game, or take a more aggressive approach beneath the surface. If catching the most fish is the aim, try a red Bomber chironomid as large as size 12, or a tan caddis pupa, perhaps even larger.
These patterns catch fish in preamble to the main event, the midday callibaetis hatch. These lake mayflies appear about 11 a.m. and continue until about 1:30 p.m., an intense feeding period that, again, can be matched either with a dry fly or nymph.
Try to find expanses of relatively open water amid the weeds. You’ll find more feeding fish in these zones, along with much better luck landing them. A stout 5-weight rod and a 3X leader are essential to keep these powerful fish up out of the vegetation. Such a thick tippet may seem counterproductive, but the trout seem not to mind.
For Spinney and similar impoundments where insect activity is the key to success, heed this advice. The end is near. Catch it while you can.
Staff writer Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
