A Good Old Fashioned Fish Killin’

The fishing the day before had been brutal. It was a good day, mind you…just tough on the body—like a good night drinking. But I don’t do that to myself anymore. The reward for surviving ones youth is to take better care of yourself, I suppose. So I slept in and did not pry myself out of bed until late morning. The lure of caffeine and the head was far too strong. I am getting old, I thought as I sat at the dining-room table with a mug of coffee and a laptop computer opened up in front of me. Yesterday’s fishing was more of an adventure than a fishing trip…very much deserving of a story. And my back still pained me because of it. But I could not concentrate on the keyboard. I sat, enjoying the peace and the warming effects of the coffee, and gazed out the big plate glass windows with a view up my steep side of the mountain as the parade of mule deer came down. It is fall up here in the canyon. It comes a bit earlier than down in the flat land. The mornings are frosty and the aspen leaves are turning yellow. The weirdo tourists will be coming soon.

This is the time of year I miss where I come from. Miss my first family. Because this is the time of year when we would set aside all of life’s nuisances in favor of real things. It was hunting season. The time to fill the freezer with meat. A time for some killing. I was reminded and sidetracked by this as I sat, alone, at the heavy wooden table and watched the deer. They were close…mere yards away. Only heavy glass and some tall grass separated us. I had to move the mouse and type slowly…as not to spook them. In my youth, on deer stand, I had to raise my bow slowly, take aim slowly…never had to worry about moving my bloody mouse slowly! This all made me feel a bit soft and pathetic. And hungry. But too lame to put food on my own table. So I got up off my ass (spooking all the deer) rounded up a six weight and a soft cooler and drove out of my canyon on a mission. I was in the mood for a good old fashioned fish killin’. I knew of a lake overcrowded with crappie and yellow perch—to the point that a little “thinning of the flock” would actually do its inhabitants some good. And that is the lake were I found my fresh fish sandwich…which I enjoyed hours later back at the heavy wooden dinner table!

Walter Mitty Fly Fishing Contest (First Winner: Cody Burgdorff)

It only took a couple of days for us to have our first winner of the first annual "Walter Mitty Fly Fishing Contest". Cody Burgdorff of Lafayette, Colorado went out for a day of warm water fly fishing on June 1st...he landed a nice Smallmouth Bass (1) on the first cast...with a #6 black Backstabber, and it was only just legal! Almost too big... Then Cody landed five good sized carp on the same fly, but they were way too big to count (well over ten inches). But then he got serious about completing the contest and whacked a Green Sunfish (2) a very tiny Bluegill (3) a Yellow Perch (4) a Shinner (5) a Largemouth Bass (6) and as a bonus species a Crappie! (7).

Good job, Cody!

The Walter Mitty Fly Fishing Contest

1. Catch six fish species with a fly and fly rod.

2. All fish must be caught on same day.

3. Each fish must be UNDER 10 inches long!

This contest is to help get you through the runoff doldrums and to remind you all of the reasons you began fishing…and still love it. To enter, send me photos of your six fish (take photo of the fish in hand, so we all can see how small it really is!) and a short anecdote about your day on the water. Email them to me at jayzimangler@yahoo.com

Every entry will receive six free flies (of my choice…dictated by the tone of your entry) and have their photos and story published on the Colorado Fly Fishing Reports blog. Send your mailing address, as well…if you want the free flies.

I’ll kick off the festivities with my own entry. Here goes…. I woke up late on my last day off and found I was in the middle of missing one of the sunniest, most awesome mornings so far this spring. This didn’t necessarily pose a problem of neglected responsibilities…as I am a single dude living in a studio apartment with a cat, but it did mean I was situationally obligated to go fishing immediately. So I began reluctantly gathering gear…rounding up rods and deciding if it was a wet wading type of trip…or not. And I found that I couldn’t get myself excited about what I was doing. It might have been that it was the twelve thousand five hundred and seventeenth day in a row that I had woken up and prepared to either fish, talk about fish or fantasize about fish (and only a couple of those had anything to do with a hot dinner date at Sushi Tora). I guess I was finally burned out. I had been guilty of taking myself—and my fishing—way too seriously. I was far too programmed to stay at home and feel sorry for myself, so I rolled the windows down on my truck, found a good station on the radio…and drove around Boulder looking for inspiration— which got me as far as the irrigation overflow ditch behind some inexpensive CU student housing. I strung up a 4 weight and caught one tiny ditch fish after another…pumpkinseed sunfish, four inch largemouth bass, shiner, baby crappie, skinny catfish and bluegill. I left the ditch sunburned, dehydrated and as giddy as hell! I had not had that much fun since I was a kid playing in the creek by my parent’s house swinging wet flies to little creek chubs and pretending I was a well known river keeper and they were Atlantic salmon. Thus the conception of the Walter Mitty Fly Fishing Contest.

For all you beauty school dropouts…Walter Mitty was a character who would have routine heroic daydreams while going about his rather mundane life in a famous 1939 James Thurber short story entitled “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” . Google it or something…

Fly Fishing off the Rocks

All the local Front Range reservoirs are really beginning to warm up. Once their water temperatures get into the low to mid 60's (They are right about 62-63 degrees as of two days ago) the crappie and smallmouth bass (as well as some young carp!) will begin to get active and take flies aggressively. You often find them in large numbers, pushing and corralling minnows and other young baitfish up against the rocks and rip-rap of man-made dams.

I have never understood why more fly fishermen don't take advantage of this great local fishing resource. I usually only have conventional gear/spin fishers as company when I go.

This has with a ton of local warm water lakes and resevoirs. Take a 6 weight (but a 5 will work) and a handfull of Bellyache Minnow streamers!