Poking a hole through a sudden snowstorm may seem a tough way to make a point about autumn fishing, but there’s really no other way to get around it.
If you want to break the Indian Summer logjam and start the bite moving, no matter what the location or species, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow — or at least turn on the cold-water spigot.
That’s the notion one gets after chewing the Wooly Buggers with several of Colorado’s most skilled and active anglers the day before a minor storm swept along the Front Range.
This minor dusting will be gone and forgotten in a couple of days by most area residents. But for those fishermen who keep one eye on the thermometer and the other out for moving fish, it is a harbinger of change.
Here are tips from local anglers for whom autumn is not just a time when summer ends:
John Barr
It may sound strange that the man who invented the best-selling trout fly spends many of his autumn days perched alongside a gravel pond, vulturelike, waiting for largemouth bass to move.
“I can tell when things are starting to get right when I feel the water feeling cooler on the legs of my waders when I’m out in the float tube,” the Boulder resident said. “I don’t have to actually take the temperature. I just feel it.”
This tells him all he needs to know about the way he plans to fish, which still involves flies, just bigger ones.
For Barr, there are two choices. One is a large, top-water fly with a rabbit-strip tail, a marabou collar, large eyes and deer-hair head tied almost vertically for maximum water movement when stripped.
“You want to be able to spray water, push a gentle bow wake or everything in between,” Barr says of a pattern designed for calm conditions.
Choppy water brings out the Meat Whistle, a deep-diving bullet head with a marabou collar, silly legs and plenty of flash. A 90-degree jig hook ensures that it rides point up.
“There’s no wrong way to fish either of these flies,” Barr says.
Nathan Zelinsky
What the veteran guide termed a “different” summer season found fish spending less time chasing shad in open water.
“They’re already moving back to structure,” he said. “Points. Road beds. Gravel pits.”
Zelinsky observes that fish move deeper during serious cold snaps and remain at stable temperature zones for a few days.
“They don’t want to deal with that temperature change on their bodies. Once they find that comfort condition, they go on a feeding binge, like a bear laying on fat for the winter.”
Jeff Looney
“When the water cools, the shad start dying,” Looney said of conditions at Chatfield and Bear Creek, reservoirs near his Littleton home. “As they flutter down, they give off this flash, and fish key on that.”
These baitfish are about 1 1/2 inches long, bite size, and Looney imitates them with Krocodile, Kastmaster and Dardevle spoons, trying for smaller sizes.
“Drop speed, matching the dying bait, is even more important than color. Shad don’t fall to the bottom very fast,” Looney said. “I don’t know if this first cold snap will do the trick. A lot of guys wait until October to start spooning.”
Phil Small
A Fort Collins resident, Small keeps the highway hot in the direction of North Park, where autumn action centers around spawning by brown trout. Small often targets the large rainbows that swarm in to eat the browns’ eggs.
“Most fishermen work the brown spawning beds, and they get agitated with all the commotion,” Small said. “Fishing gets tough when these fish get pounded. I find the best success by working along the outer edges beyond where the browns are spawning.”
In advance of the October spawning activity, Small continues to work damselflies, leeches, scuds and larger red midges.
“When the spawning starts, strip a streamer, olive or black, through the area,” Small advised.
Charlie Meyers: 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com
