RMNP North Inlet Creek 2012 08 26

This last Sunday, I finally made it over to the West side of Rocky Mountain National Park. I set my eye on catching a few Colorado River Cutts and I read that North Inlet Creek above the Cascade Falls would be a good bet.

I headed up there with Jason Klass of TenkaraTalk and Joe Egry of Dragon Flyfishing early Sunday morning but it was a bit farther than anticipated, so we didn't get to the trailhead until after 8am. Thank god there was still space in the parking lot, I would hate to have to change fishing plans just because we got late to a full trailhead parking lot.

Cascade Falls are about 2.3miles from the trailhead and for some of us, it was torture not to start fishing when we first saw the creek down in the meadow. I was somehow able to talk everybody into continuing heading further up the trail and past Cascade Falls but wondered at times how long it will take us to see the creek again. Especially one of my fellow anglers was getting increasingly inpatient and frustrated.

That being said, once we got to the Cascade Falls I was pleasantly surprised of the awesome pocket water.

Jason (downstream) and Joe working their pools

Joe

keeping the profile low...

Jason with his signature hat and - shocker! - a fishing vest!

Once I started fishing, I quickly got into a number of brook trout that took my sakasa kebari. I even think that I probably had a Colorado Cutty on but lost it - a yellow instead of a white and orange belly is what I think I saw.  The brook trout up there were just gorgeous, little jewels of white, orange, green, red and blue.

those colors are just stunning

Just a little upstream of Cascade Falls the valley widened and we found ourselves suddenly in a combo of meadow and forest with a low gradient and slow water.

You probably guessed it already, but the day yielded "only" brook trout, no Colorado Cutties. I guess next time, we will have to venture even further upstream, get up earlier and maybe even camp out overnight.

One of the highlights of the day was our hike out where we encountered 5 (!) moose, two of them only maybe 30ft off the trail. Those guys were sure impressive and we made sure not to disturb them.

Fall is approaching...

Days on the water: 26

Boulder Creek on Bastille Day

Last Saturday I finally had the opportunity to fish Bear Creek, a place I wanted to fish since moving here but always passed on the opportunity either fishing closer to home or driving for another half hour to RMNP.

I invited Jason Klass to join me and we hit the river first thing in the morning, driving up the canyon and up to the town of Netherland. There we fished the inlet, hoping for that some rumors I have heard were true - grayling above Barker. Well, I didn't catch any, didn't see any but the brook trout were pretty eager and made up for the lack of grayling.

Jason Klass with what I think was a rainbow

Both Jason and I did ok in the in-let and then moved back downstream toward Boulder, stopping here and there pulling over, fishing and moving on downstream. The water downstream of the dam was a bit off-color and the flow was good, almost a bit too much water for this high gradient section of creek. There was quite a bit of white water and our fishing was mainly focused on the area of water adjacent to the main current (see Jason's blog post here on trout hangouts). Yes, the trout hangout there and you can get them with traditional sakasa kebaris!

yours truly with a brookie

a brown trout fond of a sakasa kebari

Boulder Creek

I guess use any means to get into the right position...

... right?

Although the morning was nice and cool, it was one of those days that had a high in the 90ies so we called it a day around noon.

I am glad I finally paid Boulder Creek a visit. I know it will not be the last one.

Tight Lines, -K

River Statistics:
Weather: sunny, light breeze
Air Temp: 60ies in the morning, 80ies by noon

Water Temp: ok to wet wade for a bit
Flow: n/a
Day on the water in 2012: 15
Fish landed: 1 rainbow, 6 brook trout and 11 brown trout
Equipment: TenkaraUSA Ebisu, Tenkarabum hi-vis level no. 3, various sakasa kebaris

Bear Creek March 16 2012

I still had some leftover vacation days from last year and decided to take a half day to go fishing while the nice weather lasts. Sunday's outing to Bear Creek was still on my mind and I thought that fishing would be now even better with since it was nice and warm the entire week. Boy was I right...

I made plans with Jason Klass of Tenkara Talk to meet early afternoon; Jason took the whole day off and started fishing earlier in the morning, having a pretty good day himself. And he caught his first trout of 2012! Congrats, Jason.

Jason changing a fly

He told me all his fish in the morning were caught with a Utah Killer Bug, so I tied one on myself but it didn't quite work out for me. I switched to my standard searching setup, a dry (olive CDC & Elk) & dropper (midge larva at first, then RS2) and things started picking up. All my fish were caught on the dropper, go figure. What I really like about the CDC & Elk in this combination that it floats well and that it is a really sensitive "strike indicator". The slightest hesitation will pull it under.

I fished today with two new pieces of equipment, the Ebisu of Tenkara USA and the new yellow hi-vis level line of Tenkara USA*. These are my fist impressions, I will do more testing for a comprehensive review of both.

The Ebisu is a 12ft rod with a 5:5 action. It has a beautiful glossy black finish with gold letters. The "special" thing about the Ebisu is it's handle - made of pine instead of cork. The rod fishes well, it is definitively much softer than the Iwana 12ft. It feels a bit "top-heavy", similar to the Ito when fully extended. I suspect this has mostly to do with the relatively short pine handle that measures 8" and is rather short compared the other rod handles in Tenkara USA's lineup. You notice the "top-heavyness" at first when switching from the Iwana but you get used to it very quickly - as you do with the different casting stroke with this slower stick (I really start to dig the slower actions). One of the larger fish I caught today put an awesome bend in it but I hope I don't have to wrestle fish larger than, let's say 16" in swift currents; the Ebisu doesn't have the same backbone as the Iwana does. Don't get me wrong though, I really like this rod, in particular how nicely it casts a level line - such as the new Tenkara USA yellow hi-vis line. 

This new line does cast really nicely, I used today solely the 3.5. It performs in the same way as Tenkarabum's orange hi-vis no. 3 line. In fact, I measured both with my caliper and they have the same diameter. Anyhow, the lines perform almost identical, personally my first impression is that the yellow line feels slightly softer than the orange line. I am not sure if that makes any difference how it casts but the yellow seems to have, as advertised, less coil off the spool, although I wasn't able to directly compare this to the orange line since I didn't store it one a spool (figures...). I will make sure to test this later. In terms of visibility, well, I have to do some more testing also. The orange line appears to be more visible overall by having more contrast with various backgrounds. The yellow line is slightly less visible against backgrounds of similar color, i.e. beige, dead grass of Winter and beige/sand colored rock. 

THAT BEING SAID, I was fishing most of the time with a dry and dropper and I didn't have to watch the line for strikes - the dry fly took care of that. I will need to do more back-to-back testing with both lines when I actually would watch the line to indicate strikes.

So, without further delay, I know that you also want to see some fish porn, here are some of today's beauties. I was quite excited having landed 3 rainbows of the total 7 trout landed, rainbows are in the minority on Bear Creek and are purely catch & release whereas you can keep some brown trout (how many does escape my knowledge since I practice 100% catch & release). One of the rainbows put a pretty nice aerial show on, jumping 3 times trying to shake the fly.

gotta love them orange dots!

*) The yellow hi-vis level line of Tenkara USA was provided to me free of charge, the Ebisu was bought by myself (used).

River Statistics:
Weather: nice & sunny, little wind
Air Temp: low 70ies
Water Temp: 44F at 1pm
Flow: 23cfs, clear water with very little discoloration from run-off
Day on the water in 2012: 5
Fish: 14 hooked, landed 7

PS: don't forget the "Your Tenkara Story" contest, submission deadline is March 31st.  

Still Winter... and a new gadget

Yesterday I spent a beautiful day on the South Platte fishing with my tenkara buddies Graham of Tenkara Grasshopper and Jason of Tenkara Talk. The fishing was great, the catching not so much. In fact, we all got only one or two nibbles and neither of us could actually hook-up with a trout. Just another typical day of Winter fishing (for me). However, the company was quite excellent.

It is still Winter here on the Front Range, although yesterday was one of those days that signaled that Spring is just around the corner. The daytime temperature was in the high 50ies but the water was still pretty frigid at around 39-40F.

Graham working some good looking water

Graham still smiling despite no trout

Jason watching the end of line intently

I started out with my adaptation of Pat's Rubberlegs in size 10 (yes, not a tenkara fly) but lost it soon along other flies, such as a what was my try at a brown/golden stonefly sakasa kebari, to the elusive rock bottom trout (it must have been a huge one!).

Pat's Rubberlegs

BH Golden Stone Sakasa Kebari

The wind made things a bit challenging at times, the occasional wind gust tugged at the line lifting the entire rig out of the water. However, the heavy 14ft hand-tied line of Tenkarabum performed quite nicely on the Ito. I also wanted to finally fish with my Tenkara USA Ebisu, but unfortunately I did not remember I had it with me until late in the day when we started wrapping-up things. I am getting old. Maybe next time.

One thing that I got to test was a new line spool I received this week from Japan, Jason has a friend who was kind enough to order and send us a batch of Oni Tenkara line spools. In anticipation of trying the spools I removed my current line management system of choice, the Fuji Hook Keepers. The spool is made of fairly hard foam with a plastic "crown" featuring notches where you can place the fly (although Jason prefers to place his fly in the slit of the foam). In any case, the spool, at 65mm diameter is a valid alternative to the Fuji Hook Keepers, although the Fuji Hook Keeper is still my favorite for immediate line storage while moving around on stream because you can wind your line faster and you can store the rod in the Ebira. But the spool definitively looks much cooler. And it's harder to come by, so it's somewhat special.

I will soon have a giveaway for a few spools, so please stay tuned.

River Statistics:
Weather: sunny, some wind gusts
Air Temp: in the mid/high 50ies
Flow: 285cfs, discoloration of water due to some run-off and increased flow/release from Cheesman Reservoir. 
Day on the water in 2012: 3
Fish: 0

2012 Fly Fishing Show in Denver

While living in the NYC area, I used to go each year to the Somerset/NJ Fly Fishing Show and the Fly Tying Symposium but felt each year that it is pretty much the same show with nothing really new and interesting to me. Once I moved to Denver in 2008, I went twice to the ISE just to realize the same. Actually, the ISE wasn't really my kind of a show since a large part of the ISE is about hunting and other outdoor pursuits than fly fishing that do not really interest me.

Fast forward to 2012: This is the fist time that Tenkara USA is represented at the Fly Fishing Show in Denver through RIGS Fly Fishing and in Somerset/NJ with their own booth, so Jason Klass of Tenkara Talk and I decided to visit the show and provide some support to Daniel Galhardo of Tenkara USA. I was curious how tenkara will be received at the show given some folk's hostility to it on forums and blogs.

Well, let me say that I was pleasantly surprised by the interest visitors showed at the RIGS Fly Fishing booth and Daniel's casting presentation. I counted something around 60-70 folks watching Daniel's presentation at Pond 2 and whenever I walked by the RIGS booth, someone was engaged in a conversation about tenkara and/or actually buying tenkara equipment. It looks like tenkara is starting to be accepted by the "establishment". I hope my observation is true and will continue with Daniel's presence at the Fly Fishing Shows in Massachusetts and New Jersey. 

Other than that, I was surprised by the number of booths and visitors since the Fly Fishing Show was in direct competition with the ISE that was taking place during the same weekend in downtown Denver. I have to say that I actually liked it better than my previous visits back in NJ. Walking the isles, I did not see any new earth shattering developments or products (other than tenkara of course). But I did take advantage of browsing some fly tying supplies and equipment that was to be found at a discount compared to regular retail prices, but at the end of the day I did not find anything that I "needed" to have, so I left the show with  some stickers, business cards and freebies (Allen Fly Fishing was giving out samples of their hooks). 

It was also a very nice opportunity to catch-up with some friends and make new contacts and introductions. Oh, and I finally got to meet a friend of Daniel's, fly fishing author and trout bum John Gierach:

your's truly and John Gierach, photo courtesy of Jason Klass of Tenkara Talk

Did you go to the show or do you plan to visit the upcoming ones?

Tight Lines, -K  

Cheesman Tenkara

My most recent trip was to fish the South Platte in Cheesman Canyon with Jason Klass (of Tenkara Talk) and Daniel Galhardo (of Tenkara USA) while Daniel visited Colorado late October (click here).

This trip was special for me on many different levels, starting with finally meeting Daniel Galhardo and share some water with him, observing his techniques and strategies and exchange thoughts. But also by fishing the entire stretch of Cheesman Canyon. Having two cars, we were able to drop one car at the bottom of the canyon and park at the top, allowing us to hike and fish the full 3 miles of water. 

We got to the Deckers area around 8am and it was surprisingly cold - only 22F! However, the hike to the river warmed us up very quickly and the sun, once it crested, made it a very pleasant day to fish. The hike in was long and steep, the main reason why I don't hike to the river from the top - the return trip after a full day's fishing is just brutal (I did it once, pre-tenkara, during Summer when it was in the high 80ies, with my waders on and a fully loaded fishing vest).

Just below the dam of Cheesman Reservoir

Daniel in action

That's the hole I hooked with my first fish, after Daniel fished through it

Once we reached the water, Daniel was quick to start fishing and got a big brown trout to turn but unfortunately she did not take the fly. After I rigged-up with my new 14ft hand-tied line for the ITO from Tenkarabum, I got surprisingly quickly into a very nice rainbow, somewhere around 17", but I was not fortunate enough to land her (I really need to look into a tamo or landing net with a long handle!).

Daniel working some pocket water

Daniel with the only "landed" fish of the day

What seemed to be a good start proved soon to be pretty tough fishing, with the water level being very low (around 80cfs) and the river having lots of green, whitish and black algae. We were concerned that this would be Didymo, but a biologist of  Denver Water to who I reached out after the trip, confirmed, to our relief, that it's NOT Didymo. Over the course of the day, Daniel hooked two and landed one and I hooked two and lost both of them. I fished almost exclusively tenkara flies and both hook-ups were on a Sakasa Copperbari of Tenkarabum.

We had a great day on the water besides the "not catching many fish" part, the weather was great and the company was even better. Cheesman confirmed it's reputation to be a difficult river, but we were able to fool a few fish with flies that were not quite the "standard" fare for this technical tailwater, which really encouraged me to fish more with traditional tenkara flies.

new friends, tired but happy

Tight Lines, -K

Heaven

I am a truly lucky man. I have wife and daughter that love me. My family is healthy. We have jobs and are able to pay our mortgage. And I have some of the best fly fishing in the World available “in my back yard”.

This last weekend, September 11 & 12, 2010, I was “sent” by my wife on a two day overnight trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. She say’s I needed a mental vacation since work has been crazy busy and family schedules did not leave much personal time lately.

The days leading up to the trip were spent planning where to fish, checking weather, tying flies, updating pack lists etc. After living 2 years in Colorado, I wanted to scratch the endangered and native Greenback Cutthroat off my list. From what I was able to research, they are plentiful in RMNP, in particular the Roaring River. Accessible by a moderate/difficult hike via the Lawn Lake trail, you will be rewarded with the stunning beauty of the high country and one of the most beautiful Tenkara creeks there is. Clear, cold water is tumbling down from Crystal Lake at apx. 11,400 ft. down to just below the Alluvial Fan area where the Roaring River joins Fall River in Horseshoe Park at about 8500ft. The Alluvial Fan area was created by the Lawn Lake Flood in 1982, which carved out much of the valley to how it still looks like today - lots of gravel, rocks (big ones!), dead trees etc.

Fishing was easy as long you remembered the length of your Tenkara rod and trees, brush and dead trees surrounding you. On the first cast I had a little splash rise but no hookup. I continued hopping from pool to pool and catching nice little Greenback’s.

My first Greenback Cutthroat!!!

I changed flies, and the fish did not particularly care about the pattern, I got ‘em all on CDC&Elk, Balloon Caddis, Parachute Ant, Charlie Boy Hopper etc. I stayed all day long with dry flies which is so much fun after having nymphed for the better part of the last 5 years.

At some point, I approached a pool only to see a guide with clients up on the bank having a rest. I asked if they mind fishing the pool which they were ok with (I honestly believe they were thinking that the fish were down since they have just been there). 2 casts later with my 12ft Iwana I hooked the biggest fish until that point, a pretty Greenback pushing 10”. I could see the disappointment in their eyes…

Roaring River valley - marks of the flood:

A little bit later I was hiking further upstream when I saw a guy with a backpack loaded with Tenkara rods – what are the odds this happening? Turned out that the guy, Chris, was up there with Jason Klass of Backpacking Light, to take some pix for Jason’s website BackpackFlyfishing.com. It sure was nice to catch-up with someone who has been practicing Tenkara a bit longer than the 2 months or so that I have been addicted to it. Click here for his blog post about our meeting.

Jason Klass:

Tight quarters for casting:

After a full day of playing with the Greenbacks, I started hiking (and fishing) back in the afternoon once the sun started to cast it’s shadows over most of the valley. I was amazed at home many more Greenbacks I was able to pick just dabbling an CDC&Elk October Caddis (orange CDC feather). On one of the last pools, I was rewarded with a very soft rise and once I set the hook, I knew this was “the” fish of the day. I landed the most colorful fish of the day, the belly almost purple, big huge spots and pushing 13” – a giant for this little creek. She was fighting and struggling hard and unfortunately I couldn’t calm her down to make a picture. I should have used a net… Anyway, I prefer to not to stress fish too much just for the sake of a picture so I let her go. Maybe we’ll meet up again, I know where she lives!

Another beauty:

Once back at the trail head, I headed over to the Alluvial Fan area to see if I could entice a few more trout, but all I caught were some wet sneakers and sock. I should have kept my wading boots on.

I was heading to Estes Park where I found a last minute accommodation (note: during the Scottish Heritage Festival it’s REALLY hard to find a bed in town). After checking in I went out for a pint of delicious Fat Tire and an Elk Burger which was a disappointment, the cook must have been daydreaming. Not sure I will go back there to eat.

The next day, I decided not to get up too early since the mornings are very chilly. Went to my favorite place in Estes Park for breakfast and then headed down on 7 to the Wildbasin entrance to fish the North Fork of the Saint Vrain River.

First Impression of North St. Vrain:

This river is at a much lower elevation (apx. 8500 ft.), but holding a much more diverse trout population (Roaring River features “only” Greenback Cutthroat). Once I got to the trail head, I was sort of disappointed by the cloud cover; in combination with the wind it was really cold. I bundled up with my wind proof fleece, got my backpack on and headed to the river which I was drooling over already by driving up the dirt road to the trail head.

First Brookie:

This river is situated in a heavily wooded valley, so you really have to pay attention to your casting. Lot’s of pines , rocks, brush, dead trees, shallow runs, deep plunge pools define this river. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect to catch, but it soon became clear that this river, downstream of Ouzel Creek, is mostly a Brook trout stream. All but a handful of fish caught were Brook Trout. That being said, I was lucky enough to probably land a Colorado Grand Slam: Brook Trout, Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout and Cutthroat. The Rainbow was caught on my way back to the trailhead in the big first pool of Cascade Falls. Who would have thought…

Beautiful pool:

Cascade Falls:

Break on-stream:

Also here it became obvious that a Tenkara rod is so much more effective that a “Western” fly rod. The additional reach and light line let’s you manipulate your flies in way you can’t with any other technique. When I didn’t get any response on a dead drift, I would follow-up with a few drifts twitching, pulling, skating and dragging the only dry fly I used all day (again, CDC&Elk, tan) with a sakasa kebari purple dropper (which got munched up and was later replaced with an as effective blue sakasa kebari).

One more Cutt':

Very happy and very tired I packed up in the evening and drove back home. This trip was one of my best fishing trips ever, only rivaled by a trip to the Catskills 5 years ago where I landed 3 of my 5 biggest brown trout to date.

I am falling more and more with Rocky Mountain National Park and can’t fathom why it took my 2 years of living in Colorado to go up there and fish. This has become one of my favorite places in the world (and believe me, I have seen a good chunk of the world!).

Tight Lines & stay tuned for more.

-K

Mountain Flora:

Pine Beetle damage: