South Platte 2012 10 13

Yesterday was a BWO day if there ever was one. Not your usual Colorado weather (sunny) but cold, overcast, drizzly, windy and rain. The sun tried hard to get through the cloud cover but it never happened.

My new friend Phil Echelman and hit the river hoping, in vain, it would warm up at least a little bit. With the wind setting in early afternoon, windchill set in to make things worse.

Fishing began a bit slow, I started with a Copperbari and teased a fish to flash but that was it. I decided to add my a small purple something from a tenkara fly swap and promptly hooked up with a acrobatic rainbow that I lost to bad know. Since it looked like they were into the small stuff, I tied on my old friend the RS2 as a dropper and things got a bit more interesting, hooking another fish or two. 

We moved downstream around the bend and started working some interesting looking runs and pockets I knew were holding fish. Remember I mentioned it was BWO kinda day? Bingo, around noon I started seeing noses of some nice fish come up and picking up little sailboat like BWO duns off the surface. I watched a few them floating through the seam just to be picked up leisurely by a trout. I cast my Copperbari into the seem, kept a tight line to drift the kebari as high as possible in the column and promptly hooked up and realized that those were not the same trout I was catching during the Summer in various creeks, those were trout with shoulders from a quality tailwater; well fed and strong. 

Since the Copperbari was a bit too heavy, I tied on a green kebari tied with thread and some grizzly hackle that I found at the bottom of my fly box. This made it a bit easier to keep it riding on top and the trout surely approved. I hooked and landed a good number of feisty rainbows and brown trout and Phil joined into the action also. But as suddenly as the hatch started, it ended as quickly. 

Phil in action...

... but unfortunately my camera finger was too slow to capture the fish before it slipped back into the river

The rest of the day left us in search of more trout further downstream, hooking up here and there before the wind and rain had us pack up. 

I sure was glad having ventured back to the South Platte for some quality trout before "really" cold season.

Tight Lines, -K

PS: Jason - even you would have lost your South Platte skunk today.

Days on the water this yer: 28

Amago - on the water

Last Sunday I was able to take my new Amago from TenkaraUSA for a first spin. I chose the South Platte River downstream of Deckers, around the junction of Pine Creek - a stretch I am most familiar with.

It was another beatiful day in Colorado with blue skies and temps in the 50ies in the morning warming up to mid 80ies in the afternoon and it was fairly windy with some gusts.

Most of what I thought of the Amago casting in my back yard (see previous post) turned out also to be true on the water. I was surprised how much heavier the rod feels compared to my Iwana 12ft. Much of this I am sure is the added lenght, but also the butt sections seems to be a bit wider. The difference in weight is less than one ounce but at the end of the day you might think it's more. My arm was significatly more tired compared to a full day's fishing with the Iwana 12ft, but this is also attributable to the added wind resistance of the longer rod while casting into the wind for most of the day. Also, I fished only with one line, a 13ft tapered furled line. Another line choice would have made a difference and should be tested soon (I hope).

I do like the added reach and ability to fight bigger fish with more confidence than the Iwana, the fish I caught during the day were all in the 13-14 inch range and the Amage was more than able to deal with those spunky trout.

I also tried to be true to Tenkara and fished with an Ishigaki Kebari - Adams

but after noticing huge moth like bugs (October Caddis?) the size of my thumb fluttering around, I switched to a CDC & Elk that proved to be the right choice.

My favorite is still the Iwana, but the go to rod for the big guns in the river is definitively the Amago. I am looking forward to fish it some more, with different line setups and see how it goes.