Last 2011 trip to Bear Creek

After being banned to the indoor activities of fly fishing - fly tying, making lines, blogging, work on the man cave - I finally got a chance to head out for the first time in 5 weeks.

Considering the flows of the local rivers and creeks, I opted to pay one final visit to Bear Creek before the year is over. Heading to the creek, I knew that flows having been moving daily from 10cfs to 20cfs and yesterday was no different. I got to the creek around 9.30ish and it the air was 42F, the creek was flowing at about 10cfs. Well, it was flowing alright but it was iced over in the slower sections (i.e. the slow deeper pools where I was expecting fish to hold). This makes it somewhat challenging to get the fly down to the fish, doesn't it? I took the temperature mid-day and the water was a chilly 36F, still.

I decided to move around a bit and see if I can find any water that holds fish and is "mostly" ice free. I saw some nice trout, 14-16" in size, but unfortunately, they did see me as well and took cover (under the ice, that is).

I took the opportunity also to test some lines, namely a new horse-hair line that I made a few weeks ago and a new hand-tied line of Tenkarabum. Both were made with the 11ft Iwana in mind that I fished with yesterday. The horse-hair line performed wonderfully, casting was a breeze (as long as there was no breeze!) and it would just lay-out perfectly. The hi-vis tip I added is a perfect addition, making it able to detect hesitations in the line just as well as with full hi-vis lines.

Around mid-day the wind kicked-in considerable and I switched to a 11ft long, light, hand-tied line of Tenkarabum. I noticed that the line was definitively light and had much less "mass" than the horse-hair line. Initially, I had troubles adapting my casting stroke but eventually I figured it out. The line was a on the light side for the type of wind I experienced and I wish I would have brought my other lines, but alas, I decided to bring only those two lines and had to stick with it.

I only brought one brown trout to hand, the only strike of the day (if floating ice does not count). The fish took a sakasa kebari, a purple & snipe tied by Ashley of LearnTenkara.

Overall, it was a beautiful day out on the water. By the time I left, around 3pm, the air has warmed-up to an almost balmy high 50ies.

Tight Lines, -K

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