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

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

The Devil

Originally my plan for this weekend was to ski, but the little blizzard that came through yesterday made travel on the Front Range a bit challenging, so I had some time today to spend at my tying vise. Having had a conversation with Graham of Tenkara Grasshopper earlier today about red hooks and how they probably would catch trout without any dressing, I thought I would tie some with at least "a bit" of dressing.

So I tied what I call the Red Devil Sakasa Kebari with one of the red octopus hooks, some black wire and a jungle cock spade feather (thanks Jason!):

And then I rememberd having picked-up some free black octopus hooks of Allen Fly Fishing at the Denver Fly Fishing show, so I had to see how it would look like when I reverse the colors, aka the Black Devil Sakasa Kebari:

I hope to give the duo a workout soon, maybe tomorrow on the Blue after some skiing...

Tight Lines, -K

A Slow Start into the New Year

Against all odds and common sense, I headed out yesterday, Jan. 2, 2012 with my friend Graham of Tenkara Grasshopper to the South Platte up in Deckers for some Winter Tenkara Fishing.

We got to the river just after 10.00am and it was 12F.... The river looked almost like a slurpee with all the sludge coming down river. We started heading upriver the 10 miles or so towards Deckers where the temperature was a balmy 22F and the river was ice free. It was actually quite nice and warm as long as you stayed in the sun.

You can't tell from the pic, but it is a slurpee alright

I used this opportunity to do some long line tenkara (18ft level line plus tippet with my Tenkara USA Ito in the 13ft position) but soon realized that for the type of water we were fishing, this line setup was the wrong choice (we were fishing the close pocket water). But from a casting and testing point of view, it was beatiful to see at what distance I could hit some pockets with all the line off the water. This will be a very promising technique on the South Platte and bigger rivers once it warms up a bit (hello Spring!).

Graham in action 

Both Graham and I pounded the water blind casting for a while before we found two nice fish in the 18-20" range and started sight casting to the fish, but after half an hour and no interest of the big bow we packed-up and started heading downstream to escape the usual Deckers crowd.

At Pine Creek, we (well, ok, I) spooked maybe a dozen fish from under the ice shelf (go figure) but continued our efforts, oftentimes thinking that the bump we felt was a fish (turns out it was just ice that got snagged on our flies). I switched to a baby bugger on my Amago (what a difference after casting the Ito) and managed to get a flash of a fish but no take.

The day ended for us just after 3.00pm, feeling cold but happy having escaped a day stuck in the house or office. There is hope that this skunk is not an omen of the new year but only for our Winter tenkara fishing. And I think I am about to repeat myself by saying that maybe I should focus on skiing in the Winter.

River Statistics:
Weather: sunny, no wind
Air Temp: 12F at 10.00am with a high of 48F in the afternoon
Flow: 130 cfs, clear (slightly off color in the afternoon due to warmer temps and snow melt)
Day on the water in 2012: 1
Fish: 0