Post by gui on Aug 30, 2017 21:43:06 GMT -6
Long story short: a VW golf TDI buyback and big incentives from a Volkswagen dealer in Denver took my wife and I on a flight to Colorado last Thursday night.
We picked up the new car in Denver and on our way back to DFW, we camped two nights and fished in the Eleven Mile Canyon. I've been in the US for a bit more than five years now and have visited several parts of the country, but had never been to CO until now. And wow, what a first experience it was!
The scenery down there was fantastic, with the south platte river flowing through a canyon filled with lush vegetation and huge boulders.
And the fishing definitely matched it up!
It took us a little bit of time to figure out what was working, but once we did, it was pretty much on all day.
With no real obvious hatch or obvious signs of fish rising, our approach at first was to nymph-prospect the deeper runs, which, besides a fish or two here and there, ended up being pretty slow.
The ticket was instead to fish the faster water. We quickly found out that every riffle and pockets of broken water were likely to hold a fish willing to grab our offerings.
And when come the fish, come the happy faces!
We had pretty much non-stop action all day, dead drifting a double nymph rig in the riffles. Tried a hopper-dropper and a bit of dry fly, but nymphing was much more productive for us and too much fun. The fish we caught were about 80% browns and 20% rainbows. But the rainbows were stunning strong fish, proudly showing off their vibrant colors and large pectoral fins hanging out on both sides like sails. Something that I've hadn't seen on a rainbow trout for a quite a while. Stocked bows close to home are still fun though
.
Most fish we caught were somewhere in the 12-15 " range.
After a while, we started to anxiously wait to see the fish after each hook-ups, hoping for a flash of red and the elusive (at least for us!) cutthroat trout.
I did not happen, and we still each have to catch our first.
It means only one thing: we have to come back to Colorado really soon!
We picked up the new car in Denver and on our way back to DFW, we camped two nights and fished in the Eleven Mile Canyon. I've been in the US for a bit more than five years now and have visited several parts of the country, but had never been to CO until now. And wow, what a first experience it was!
The scenery down there was fantastic, with the south platte river flowing through a canyon filled with lush vegetation and huge boulders.
And the fishing definitely matched it up!
It took us a little bit of time to figure out what was working, but once we did, it was pretty much on all day.
With no real obvious hatch or obvious signs of fish rising, our approach at first was to nymph-prospect the deeper runs, which, besides a fish or two here and there, ended up being pretty slow.
The ticket was instead to fish the faster water. We quickly found out that every riffle and pockets of broken water were likely to hold a fish willing to grab our offerings.
And when come the fish, come the happy faces!
We had pretty much non-stop action all day, dead drifting a double nymph rig in the riffles. Tried a hopper-dropper and a bit of dry fly, but nymphing was much more productive for us and too much fun. The fish we caught were about 80% browns and 20% rainbows. But the rainbows were stunning strong fish, proudly showing off their vibrant colors and large pectoral fins hanging out on both sides like sails. Something that I've hadn't seen on a rainbow trout for a quite a while. Stocked bows close to home are still fun though
. Most fish we caught were somewhere in the 12-15 " range.
After a while, we started to anxiously wait to see the fish after each hook-ups, hoping for a flash of red and the elusive (at least for us!) cutthroat trout.
I did not happen, and we still each have to catch our first.
It means only one thing: we have to come back to Colorado really soon!
