I have been out fishing a lot this summer with the intention of getting some good pictures to write a blog update. Unfortunately I never catch any fish. The cache la poudre (pronounced pooter) is a pretty tough river, as it runs right through Fort Collins and so gets a lot of pressure. On top of that there was a big fire last year and we have been getting rains recently, the combination of which has led to lots of runoff, mudslides, and poor visibility. All of this typically leads to me fishing for 3 hours, missing a few fish and eventually hooking one on a nymph while I am not paying attention. To combat these issues, and my generally poor casting abilities, Lani, myself, and a couple friends decided to go far up river to a place I have had good luck before.
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| The pool I have fished before is about a 1.5 hour hike upstream |
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| The hardest part about this hike is bypassing all the early, amazing-looking pools, and looking helplessly at the inaccessible parts of the canyon that are teeming with fish like... |
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| this one- picture taken from about 35 feet above |
However, it is all worth it- the pool is the biggest I have seen on the whole river and we were so excited that we decided to take some artistic shots for D...
I fished dry-dropper all day...
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| We caught a lot of brook trout |
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| And some cutthroat |
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| And some really nice looking cutthroat |
Lani is learning to fly fish and is getting better at casting
She could use some work on landing fish- she hooked probably 5, missed 5 others and landed none. She fought the biggest fish of the day for a couple minutes before losing it. What she lacked in alertness in setting the hook she made up for in force, nearly ripping a fishes head off at one point with her spastic jerking.
On our way back out I was able to make my way down to the pool we had spotted fish in from above.
I fished it for 5 minutes and caught 5 fish, and missed about 3 others. I don't think I had a cast that a fish did not hit my fly.
All-in-all a good day, and it restored my faith that I can catch fish.
Here is another artistic shot for D. All photo credits: Lani (except for the one of Lani)
Nice. Where is this on the river? We just went fishing for the first time this weekend, too. On the Castle. I fished a green drake and a foam grasshopper, but had no luck with either. My biggest problem is knowing which patterns to use and when to switch it up.
ReplyDeleteExcellent composition, good use of unonventional angles, insightful nearctic musings.
ReplyDeleteI like the colours on that brookie, more green/coppery than I've ever seen.
Re: the spastic jerks for hook sets, was it with one of you guys that I set the hook on a 3" cutthroat which flew into the the air, spat the hook somewhere above me, and landed in the bush never to be found?
I've done almost no fly fishing this summer, and you guys are killing me.
Amazing! Joe, please pat Lani on the back for me. Her photographic skills and new found fishing interests are an inspiration to me.
ReplyDeletexo