Big Thompson Mid-November

Erin Block, David Goodrich and I fished the Big Thompson River yesterday. David came up from Colorado Springs the day before and spent a half day fishing the Thompson directly below the dam at Estes Park. He had a good day, so we went into our day with a fresh and reliable fishing report. Small stuff below the surface. Water way low…17 cfs. David had stayed up high, so I figured we would mix it up a bit and drift farther down the canyon (along highway 34). It would prevent a boring repeater day for David and possibly avoid other fishermen.

We spent the majority of the day on the water, and it was low and cold and the trout wanted the smaller stuff sunk down to them. For the brief period during the day when the sun was reaching the water a nice cloud of midges appeared over the pools, but I only saw two trout rise. Two different fish, neither one came up a second time, which would have possibly tempted me to discard my nymph rig. The water was a tad off-color, due—according to rumor—some construction going on in or around Estes Lake, so a midge pupa with a bit of flash seemed to work better.