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

RMNP Wild Basin, August 11, 2012

After a busy work week in NYC, I was looking forward to spend some fishing time in Rocky Mountain National Park with my buddy Graham Moran of Tenkara Grasshopper. We had initially plans to hit the West side of the park but my plane from NYC was delayed a few hours and I didn't get home until very late on Friday and had no time to do some research there. So Graham and I decided to hit Wild Basin since I know the area already fairly well.

I brought a new rod back home from NYC that I acquired from Chris Stewart, the TenkaraBum. A soft action zoom rod, the Daiwa Sagiri 39MC that zooms from 11.5" to 13" and weighs a whopping 2.0oz as per Chris' website. I fished this rod back in Utah before the Summit and knew I wanted one. Last week Chris got another shipment and I had one put aside for me. Although I thought that 11.5" might be a bit long in that section of the park, I had to fish it. And it worked remarkably well until we headed way further upstream where I had to get the Daiwa Soyokaze 27SR (9ft) out of my backpack.

Fishing (and catching was great) although it started a bit slow until it got a big warmer and fish became more active. As expected, most fish we caught were brookies with a few browns, a rainbow and a few greebacks in the mix. So we had a Colorado Grandslam combining our catch (I missed the rainbow and Graham missed a greenback).

The weather was a bit cool for the season, with a few showers in the morning but warming up to mid 70ies late afternoon.

first fish of the day - a typical brookie up there

a nice surprise, a good sized brown trout

Graham getting into position with tourists checking out the falls

nice water on the lower section

Graham sneaking up on some fish from behind a big rock

further upstream - perfect for the short 9' Daiwa Soyokaze

chunkie

  

it's getting tighter

nice greenback to close out the day

snowshoe rabbit 

Days on the water: 23

RMNP 2012 07 03

This was the day I was finally able to get back to my favorite creek in RMNP's Wild Basin. I was waiting for this day more than 6 months... Don't get me wrong, the two previous Sunday's family trips to the Alluvial Falls were great and the 2nd time around, I was able to catch 8 or 9 greenback cutthroat and a brookie (!) in less than an hour, in the midst of tourists. My friend overheard a woman say "... there are no fish in that trickle..." just when I hooked one of those wild colorful jewels. But Wild Basin is my personal fly fishing heaven.

I hoped all day for a Colorado Grand Slam and the first fish of the day was a brown trout so I got all hopeful, but alas, I only got two shots at a rainbow trout and both times the strike was too short.   

the first trout of the day, a brown trout...

... came from the the calm water on the far left.

Moving upstream, I hopped from pool to pool, trying to find water I could get into and fish - the water was a bit high at 80cfs and ripping particularly in the steeper sections. I sure was glad I had my wading staff with my that day. I caught brookies left and right, upstream and downstream. It felt like they were hitting anything that looked like food. I caught so many brookies (I really wanted to catch more greenback cutts) that anytime a brookie took the fly I was a bit disappointed. But by the end of the day I got two greenback cutts and I was a happy camper.

brookie - underwatershot (I need more practice!)

 first greenback

brookie chunk

brookie with orange butt sakasa kebari

greenback no. 2

Overall a great day, lots of willing fish, no other fisherman on the river, what do you need more?

I got home tired but very happy! Can't wait to get back up there soon!

River Statistics:
Weather: sunny, very light breeze, afternoon thunderstorm
Air Temp: 58F @8.30am, high 79F, 67F@5pm

Water Temp: cold!
Flow: around 80cfs
Day on the water in 2012: 14
Fish landed: 1 brown trout, 2 greenback cutts and 52 brook trout
Equipment: Daiwa Soyakaze 31SR, TenkaraUSA old geen fc level #3.5 9.5" with 6" amnesia, various sakasa kebaris only (no nymphs or dry flies!)

Some shots of the creek:

Rocky Mountain National Park - Meadow Creeks in the Fall

Last Sunday I headed up to RMNP with my friend Jason Klass of Tenkara Talk to Rocky Mountain National Park for some Fall fishing. The Summer. and maybe even Fall, is gone; because today, only a week later, I am sitting in my office and looking at the first snow in our front yard. Temperatures have dropped from mid 70ies this week to 30ies  last night and it's still snowing, I can't even see the mountains from our house.

Back to last Sunday. Jason celebrated his birthday the week prior and instead of having a party, he decided to head up to RMNP for some fishing. His intentions were to squeeze one more day of hopper fishing into the season. The idea sounded good, so we got on our way around 6am and reached Estes Park just before 8am for some breakfast before hitting the water.

The first stream we fished was the Big Thompson in Moraine Park. The river in this section is a meandering meadow stream with slow water, glassy pools and undercut banks. A river unlike the other streams I am used to fish in the park which are high gradient creeks with lots of boulders and pocket water.

We were not the only fisherman to fish the Big T that day and we were glad that we got a head-start before the crowds arrived. The fairly low and slow water made fish very spooky, you had only a few chances to catch fish in each spot. I typically like to fish spots right after another fisherman and pick-up trout he wasn't able to entice, but that was out of the question this day. We had to hop pools, giving each other the opportunity to fish a stretch first to get a shot at the fish.

The fish were not overly selective, they took our hoppers and other attractors (such as my CDC & Elk of course), but the fishing was far from hot. Since it was Elk season in the valley, we decided to retreat after a bull Elk came a bit too close for comfort and find a new spot on the river.

What we did not anticipate were the masses of people in the park, drawn by both the Elk Festival in Estes Park and the Aspens being in full color. The roads in the park were jammed and traffic was very slow. Wherever there were Elks, folks decided to stop in the middle of the road and take pictures. We wanted to fish the Big T further upstream, but every single parking lot and spot was taken, so we decided to head over to Horseshoe and fish the Fall River. We parked just off 34 and hit the Fall River making our way upstream. But the fish were mostly hunkering down, being put down by other fisherman and hikers, so we decided to walk along the road to the Alluvial Fan area and to fish downstream. Well, let me just say that we might have just continued upstream, there fishing was no different.

However, it was a very beautiful day to be out in the park; the wildlife was out, the Fall colors amazing and we caught a few trout, too (although we hoped to have a bit more action).

Next time I will head to the park though, I will make sure to check the event calendar and pick more remote streams.

Looking out the window now and seeing the first season's snow, I wonder how much Winter fishing I will get done this year - given the fishing success of the last few Winters I probably will spend more time behind the vise tying flies. And I might consider taking up skiing again.

Tight Lines, -K

Save the Date: Daniel Galhardo of TenkaraUSA will present on-stream in RMNP

Daniel Galhardo of TenkaraUSA will be visiting Colorado on Saturday October 22nd and offer an informal on-stream presentation in Rocky Mountain National Park. Please check event details here.

This will be a great opportunity to meet Daniel if you missed him at the Tenkara Summit this Summer in West Yellowstone and learn a thing or two. Daniel will also have selection of Tenkara rods and lines with him which you will be able to give a try.

Best of all, the event is FREE!

RMNP Trip with Chris Stewart and Brian Flemming

While TenkaraBum aka Chris Stewart visited the Wild West (Tenkara Summit in Yellowstone, Colorado etc.) I got a chance to fish with him the week after Labor Day. We have been going back and forth where to fish but settled at last on heading to Rocky Mountain National Park and fishing the NSV.

While the intention for this trip was to fish a stream together that Chris hasn't fished for decades (I will not disclose how many decades...), we also had another Tenkara Angler join us, Brian Flemming of Learn Tenkara, who has been working on shooting a feature-length documentary on the introduction of Tenkara to the US. Brian fished only very little that day, but the few casts he managed to squeeze-in yielded a first for him, a Colorado native Greenback Cutthroat. Most of the time, Brian was kind enough to be content with taking pictures and video footage of Chris and I fishing and talking shop about Tenkara.


Chris approaching a difficult spot by using a boulder mid-stream to hide. The spot he is targeting is on the far side, to the left of the rock in the upper right corner.

Success! Chris hooked a trout, now how the difficult part, landing it.

Conditions were not the easiest; while the high flows of the run-off have subsided and dropped a few days before the trip to a more normal 60cfs, the few days before our trip were unseasonally cold with quite some rain which made the NSV swell up to around 95cfs the day of our trip. We were lucky though, even some rain was predicted, we stayed dry all day (that means there was no precipitation, we got plenty wet by wading, including some water spilling into someones waders) and air temperatures ranged from the mid 40ies in the morning to the mid 60ies in the afternoon. We mostly concentrated on pockets, pools, slower water and feeding lanes to present our flies to hungry brookies, greenbacks and brown trout and fishing was very good. While Chris used sakasa kebaris most of the time, I stuck with my personal Summer favorite, a CDC & Elk size 16 on an emerger hook. Both of us did equally well, confirming that high country trout on a high gradient stream are not very selective, they bounce on anything that looks like food if it is presented well.

Some of the beautiful bounty of the day:

Brook Trout- an non-native (some would say invasive) species of RMNP

Greenback Cutthroat



This one might be a hybrid - love the spots!



Chunkster of Greenback Cutthroat

 

Picture book markings on this Greenback Cutthroat


During lunch, we had a feathered visitor. I wonder what flies you could tie?

As much as I like fishing alone, fishing with like-minded friends is always a special occasion and treat.

And since we busted two rods during this trip, I will be including a "Lessons Learned":


Lessons Learned:

• don't hike with a collapsed rod fully rigged with EZ Keepers in your backpack or similar if the the top sticks out
• try to always fully collapse the rod, even if it s a bit stuck (use Tenkarabum's Tip-Grip if nothing else works)

Tight Lines,
-K