If you happen to hook and land what may appear to be an odd-looking fish...something you have never seen in your local trout stream before, don't panic! No, it is not some exotic snake head hickey fish...or some new half marsupial half carp Frankenstein fish secretly introduced to Colorado streams by a mentally unstable Australian ichthyologist. It is a white sucker. And they may, in fact, be the only truly native fish you have ever caught in your favorite local stream. So treat it with respect!
I caught this sucker out of Boulder Creek the other day. When I hooked it I thought it must be a very nice-sized brown...nope! Guess that is what I get for fishing bait (i.e. San Juan Worm).
Alright…I have said it before, but tentatively. If you have not heard of The flyfish Journal yet, you will soon. I made this statement tentatively a few months ago because I had just received the first issue. And was blown away. But, by singing such high praise after only seeing the first issue kinda felt like I was predicting Oscar after only the first ten minutes of a newly released movie. Not tentative any more, though. Got the second issue yesterday. For starters…best cover shot I have ever seen on any fly fishing magazine. Ever. No… most awesome shot ever even in a magazine! The angler is Derek Bonn and the photographer is Andy Anderson. Have no clue who these guys are, but I declare them both the fly fishing bad asses of the year. So, that’s just the cover…let me give my honest assessment of this thing. And I’ll keep it simple and direct. This publication is set up in what we avid readers of sporting literature recognize as a true published “journal” format. Very much like we see in Grey’s Sporting Journal. So, yes…if you still have not learned how to read, feel free to pass. And the writing is good. I don’t like token, rehashed how-to articles. I want good writing. This has it. Now photography. Friggin’ awesome. I was already smitten by the cover shot, but I want good human interest stuff mixed up in my prose, thank you very much. Like juicy hunks of hot dog in my beans. This one has it. At the fly shop yesterday morning we all sat around the back table and dug into our individual copies and it takes WAY more than a bunch of sloppy grip & grins to get ooohs and aaahs from a bunch of salty fly fishing cynics. But we all made plenty of the appropriate noises. So, well done, guys! Looks like The Drake finally has a companion on the back of my crapper.
Yeah…it is getting cooler at night, football season is here and the leaves are changing. It is no longer summer. But the carp season ain’t over just yet! I got out to one of our local mud flats on my last day off and found plenty of active fish. It was a weekday…bright and sunny. With not a soul around. I completely blew the first five shots I had at feeding carp, but was not too bummed ‘cause it all happened in the first ten minutes. Once I got my shit together I began hooking up! The water levels were way low and the mud flats were extensive…and good-sized fish were cruising everywhere. I beached eight carp between six to nine pounds in the next two hours. I was able to make some long casts to visibly feeding (backs or tails out of the water!) carp…and connecting. One of the coolest things in fly fishing if you ask me! Because the water was so low and the shad had nowhere to hide, I was going with the Grey Minnow Backstabber carp fly…seemed to do the trick!
Russell Miller and I somehow convinced each other that taking a morning to drive up to Gross Reservoir in search of a big tiger musky was not just a wanton effort in futility. We traded semi-motivational pep talks the night before just to ensure that we would both be willing to wake up early. But it turned into a bright, cloudless morning and we were left standing on the large rock outcropping casting 12 inch flies into seemingly lifeless, but gin clear water. We gave it a hard two hours…maintaining the faith. But we had to call it quits sooner or later.
“We ought to fish the creek…seeing as we’re already so close,” Russ said.
And he was right. We were already there and it had been a while since either one of us had fished the tail water section of South Boulder Creek below Gross.
The flow into South Boulder was very low and clear. At first it appeared as though only the largest pools had enough flow to hold fish, but we quickly learned that there were still trout everywhere. The fishing was almost easy…and we lost track of the numbers of fat, health rainbows we were catching. I took almost all of my fish on a #18 black “Two-Bit Hooker” nymph. But it may not have mattered what flies we were using. It did, however matter that we had packed multiple fly rods. Even for a quick, half-day fishing trip. We brought along a super stiff pike/musky rod, a 6 weight bass/carp rod as well as a 3 weight creek rod. We did not know what kind of trouble we would get ourselves into, but we wanted to be ready to shift gears if we had to…
Sometime toward the end of my first year living here in Colorado I met and fell in love with a woman. I remember it being sometime in the fall when we met. She was tall and beautiful…and wanted to learn to fly fish. We dated only briefly, but plenty long enough for me to pass on almost everything I knew about trout and rivers and flies. She was an apt pupil at first, but stubborn. Once she had learned the basics she would no longer take direction from me. But I was head over heels. And she was as hungry to fish as I have ever been, so all I was left to do was bring her along on every fishing trip I took. I would even plan my trips with the idea of exposing her to more and more completely different types of fishing. Furthering her education. We would drive hours to try out tail waters, explore remote prairie lakes…even chase pike and bass. And carp, too. She would always pretend to turn her nose up at carp, but could put a stalk and hurtin’ on a pod of feeding carp like few people I have ever met. But, like I said…we only dated briefly. She must have grown bored of me. I never did know for sure. That was years ago. And I haven’t even seen her in passing in a long time. But she still fishes a lot. I am positive she still haunts the same waters we used to always fish together. Every so often I find suspiciously familiar footprints along my favorite mud flats. And at least once a season I will make a poor back cast into an overhanging branch…only to find that my flies are not the only ones hung in the tree. Sure, they could be anyone’s flies, but I recognize these ones. They are the same type of flies that I have always liked to fish in these pools. And they are rigged the same way she learned to rig them. I just know they are hers. And I always pluck them out of the branches and save them…just in case she ever wants them back.
I have heard that the rise of the urban angler has to do with the recent decline in our economy. We can not afford to chase “real” sport fish, so we are forced to catch bass out water hazards and carp out of irrigation ditches. We are poor, awful wretches scrabbling for fish scraps in what amounts to an open sewer. Whatever. I don’t buy any of it. A modern day urban angler does not pursue the fish he does out of desperation. He does it because he is the new bread of cool. I have good friends, doctors and dentists with quite successful practices who are lucky enough to afford multiple saltwater fly fishing vacations a year. These guys now chase carp in the mud flats with the same gusto and enthusiasm as they do with permit and redfish. I also know fly fishing guides who spend in excess of 150 days a year teaching mediocre anglers to heave a thingamabobber in the general direction of “upstream”. Even these guys choose to wash a particularly frustrating day on the trout stream off the books (so to speak) by spending the evening with a cold PBR at a semi-secret bass pond. And I know this may be hard for the old guard—what is left of the cane and tweed crowd—but the urban, warm water fly fisher may be one of the more noticeable of the contemporary Guidon bearers for our sport. They are the best ambassadors, as well. They are the fishermen who are seen by the kids on the school bus, from the park swing…and looked down on from atop a bridge and a skateboard. The urban angler is the only one who has a chance of convincing a kid that being outside is OK and maybe (just maybe) a fly rod might be a bit cooler than some dumb ass Wii game piece. So I salute and celebrate all of you fellows of the mudflats, brothers of the bass ponds… Featured here are photos of Jason Ruybal, a friend of mine who lives in Ft. Collins and is obviously proudly hoisting the flag. He calls me every so often at the fly shop asking for more of my Backstabber carp flies. Keep sending me shots like this, Jason and I’ll keep the flies coming!
Just because the summer is over does not mean you missed out on your once a year fly fishing trip. O.K...obviously I am not talking to most of you. I'm speaking to that guy (or gal) who has been reading these blogs religiously from their office in Lafayette and promising themselves a trip "to the mountains" this summer. But you can't find your rod last time you looked, and you are pretty sure your waders got chewed up by that new puppy...three years ago. Don't worry about it. We got gear for ya to use. Lots of it. And guides itching to get you out (running out of beer money). The streams are flowing low and clear and the fishing is as easy as it has been all year. Call Rocky Mountain Anglers 303-447-2400 and book your trip.
Since publishing the blog post last week about seeing a ton of Yellow Sally stones on South Boulder Creek I have had many local fisherman come into the fly shop and ask (a bit hesitantly) what an adult Sally looks like. And I felt silly (weird semi-pun intended) for not taking the time to get a good close-up photo of one of the many that were around me that particular day on the creek. I'll admit...I did not take the time because the fishing was good and I guess I couldn't have been bothered to reel in and hunt for the one adult stonefly in the area that did not appear to have ADD (i.e. was standing still). So, I felt obliged to go back and get the shot. For you. OK...that was a lie. I just wanted to go back because the fishing had been so good!
It can be easily argued that Charlie Craven's Basic Fly Tying (Headwater Books, 2008) was one of the top instructional fly tying books ever published. And, yes, I am comparing it to all the greats! Also, with the help of Jay Nichols, one of the best looking books of its type ever put together. But I did have one complaint...purely out of my own selfishness, I wanted more of Charlies own, original fly patterns in the book. He is considered a local treasure here in Colorado and his flies are found in every one of our fly boxes. But, the first book had a different scope. It was covering more basic-skills, basic flies (hence the title). Now, his NEW book on the other hand....I can't wait to get my hands on it!
We got in a brand new flavor for your cookout! Just in time for fall streamer fishing and the last six weeks of good carp and bass season. The "Olive" Backstabber! This new color was not supposed to be available until early next year, but Umpqua Feather Merchants came through early. Try these on your favorite trout stream next time you head out...and be sure to use at least 3x tippet. Even the 10 inchers will hammer it hard enough snap 4 and 5x. And, if you are a carp head...well, this is a must have. May replace black as your favorite flavor!
Yes, it has been agreed upon...Colorado is beautiful and it is great to live here. But most of us still have to spend the vast majority of our time locked away indoors. Stuck behind a computer or in a cell-like cubicle. Even us in the fly fishing industry...look, I'm at a computer right now! WTF? Five days a week I have to come into the fly shop and explain to people why it is important that waders be waterproof. Or, why it may not be a good idea to take a 4 wt rod on a tarpon fishing expedition. But, the best part of living here is the close proximity to good fishing. Take advantage of it! You see your fellow workers going for a run, or bike ride before office hours. They are doing it for a couple reasons...one, they are weird. No (sorry) actually that is their chosen medicine. Just like we have chosen fishing as our opiate. And taking your medicine before going into work can put you in such a better mood. Your entire day will seem more bearable.
South Boulder Creek is running low and clear these days. And the bugs are pouring off it like an assembly line. Fast fluttering bugs in the sunlight over the water and slashing surface strikes from the resident brown trout. Caddis mainly? Right? Or, I should say it looks like nothing but caddis flies from a distance. But, get closer…get ankle deep in the creek and take a better look. They will land on you. Crawl up your wader and dart into your open fly box like they’re shopping in a red light district. They have no fear. Little yellow sally stoneflies. About the size of your average caddis adult, but lower profile. And I swear they taste better than caddis…or should I have been leaving the culinary reviews to the trout? Either way, the brown trout seem to prefer them as well.
Union reservoir. I remember the glory days. Wasn’t all that long ago, really. A few of us could wade out off DogBeach and almost expect to hook up a few good wiper. We would have to wait for the rumors to surface about them moving in close to corral shad…and the right weather, but it was reliable. And the carp fishing was about as good (i.e. easy) as you could find in the state. The carp fishing was so easy it was annoying. Myself and other hardnose carpers would be working tirelessly on flies and strategy, only to run into a Longmont carper…compare notes….and realize that while we are having to resort to sneaking around in camouflage and tying sparse, light weight carp flies, these chodes were drinking beer and catching good numbers of fish on big, chartreuse streamers. Like I said, friggin’ annoying. But the state of the Union has changed. I can’t remember the last wiper I’ve caught out there. There is an absolute TON of baitfish. Shad everywhere. But where are the wiper? I suspect we all know…every fly fisherman who has spent any time at Union can tell stories about the buckets of fish being removed by the “mussel” drowning, forked-stick crowd. Yeah, it’s depressing. But, on the bright side, the carp fishing out there has finally begun to be comparable to other local mud flats. The fish have become educated. Fly fishing for carp has gone mainstream. Most days you can see at least one or two carp crews out at Union. Some in fancy flats-style boats, others just pushing around an old johnboat with a makeshift pole. Kinda cool to see! And “real” carp flies like the Backstabber and Clouser Swimming Nymph are what you need to have in your fly box.
(I dug out this story from deep within my hard drive the other day. I had written it back when I lived in rural Ohio and was regularly bass fishing with one of my best friends from high school. I have paired the story with some recent photos from Russell Miller…from a very similar fishing trip a decade later.)
The reservoir is near perfect. It’s close to home, well hidden and few people know exactly where it is. It’s not tiny, but easily small enough to fish entirely in an afternoon by two driven individuals with fly rods and float tubes.
There are lots of fish. Most of them aren’t big, but there’s plenty of healthy one-to-three-pound largemouth bass. The bass there have this spunky, naive cockiness that makes you laugh and want to refer to them as friends, not combatants. It’s something about the way they strike a large fly and then jump over and over again—like a roped mustang that knows he’ll never be ridden. Something about the unbeaten, feisty look they give you when you’re holding them firmly by the bottom lip. Then the indignant splash in the face with the caudal fin when they’re released. And the water is always clear, so their black lateral markings are always dark, distinct and beautiful.
But, like most things perfect, pure or beautiful and within reach of man, the reservoir is slated for a few rounds of raping and defacing. I’m sure there will always be fish there, so it won’t be utter ruin, but their wonderful innocence will fade when the bulldozers come.
The township has owned the reservoir and the land around it for long enough to round up and say forever. But it has now been sold. The rumors, from those with both knowledge of the reservoir and of township politics, are that three local men went in on the venture together. Some are saying the three plan to divvy it up into a half-dozen smaller lots and make a killing in real estate.
With that in mind, Jason and I rationalized that trespassing would be, by comparison, almost innocent. And, after further thought, we figured sneaking back past the No Trespassing signs was our duty. We couldn’t justify not doing it – to ourselves, anyway. We had to do our part to preserve the reservoir, even if it was just saving the once fantastic fishing in our memory.
* * *
I had set the alarm clock to go off before light, but, although there is plenty of motivation to get up at the crack of dawn, it is Saturday morning, so it just doesn’t happen. The sun is already up by the time I load my rod, fishing vest and float tube into the truck and leave the apartment.
Two young whitetail deer bound across the road in front of me and stop in someone’s front lawn to look back at me. I slow down and the deer and I stare at each other as I glide by. Their red spring coats make them stand out vividly against the lush new greens around them. I notice one of them has velvet knobs on its head, the beginnings of his first set of antlers. They flip their tails as I pass and I watch in the rear view mirror and see them stripping leaves from a young ornamental tree. The homeowners are still in bed. The curtains are drawn.
Seeing the deer renews my enthusiasm to fish the reservoir. They make me feel fleet and a bit brazen…like a righteous outlaw. Like a whitetail on a front lawn. I drive on, only faster because I know Jason has probably been ready to go for better than an hour. I regret sleeping in.
* * *
Melissa comes to the door in pajamas when I knock.
“Jason up?” I ask.
“Come on in,” she says, still partially asleep. “He never came to bed last night. He was up messing with his flies.”
I see Jason sprawled out on the couch in shorts
and no shirt and his mouth is open and his eyes are closed. A stool is pulled up with a fly vise attached to it. Bags of hooks and feathers are everywhere. Some deer hair dragonflies are embedded in an arm of the couch.
Melissa leans over and shakes him awake.
“Is Jay here yet?” Jason mumbles.
“Yes, he’s standing right here,” she says.
He stands up quickly, staggers, and then starts picking out assorted fishing gear from the mess he has made on the living room floor.
“How long ya been here?” he asks.
“Just walked in. Just woke up myself.” I rub my eyes and yawn. “We can do this later in the day if you want.”
“Hell no,” he says.
We discuss strategy once Jason has all his gear in my truck. Not fishing strategy, evasion strategy. The plan we cook goes something like this: drive out to Jason’s parents’ farm and drop him off so he can get his 4-wheeler. From there I’ll drive the mile or two out to the reservoir and stash our float tubes and flippers. There’s a house right at the entrance of the gravel lane going back to the reservoir. The lady who lives there is the self-appointed guardian. She’ll call the sheriff if anything seems fishy… Once I have the tubes dropped off, I’ll quick drive back out past the house and meet Jason back at the farm. We’ll wait there for a while, until we feel everything has settled down. The lady might see my truck come and go and think it doesn’t warrant a call for the law. If she calls anyway, there won’t be anything to find. The coast will be clear. That’s when we make our move. Jason and I will come in the back way, along edges of fields and down deer trails on the 4-wheeler – brandishing fly rods. If we need to make a getaway, we’ll hide the float tubes again and take off on the 4-wheeler. We’re untouchable. Sneaky like a coon on a chicken farm.
* * *
“No sign of anybody back there, huh?” Jason asks.
“Nope.” I fiddle with a piece of straw from the floor of the barn. “No people. No tracks. I bet it ain’t been fished all summer.”
The first part of the plan worked. I got the tubes and flippers stashed behind a brush pile with leaves and branches draped over top of them. Now there’s nothing to do but wait. So far, so good.
Jason looks out the open barn door and flicks a wadded up piece of straw in the general direction of his dads’ cows. “How was the water?” he asks.
“Good. Really clear.”
We stand and look out the barn door some more.
“My dad can’t plant anything straight,” Jason says.
I follow his gaze out past the cattle, out
to the wheat field. The crop is thick and vibrant. It ripples slightly with the light morning breeze, like nervous water on the surface of a calm pond.
“Looks like a drunk man planted it. It’s bad. Look at it!” He flicks another piece of straw out the barn door. “With wheat you can really tell, too. You can still see it’s crooked. You can see where the planter went. It looks like he just let go of the wheel…looked back and let the tractor go wherever. Oh, man. Big gaps. He missed three…four foot wide gaps.”
I nod my head and wonder how the fishing will be.
“Looks like dog shit,” Jason says.
“whatta ya think?” I glance at Jason. He’s still peering out at the wheat field. “Think it’s safe to go back yet?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s your call.”
* * *
We drive in slow, in first gear. The four-wheeler is still too loud, so we stop occasionally in the tall, wet grasses and listen for voices or engine noises. Once we’re close enough and can see
reflection from the water through the trees I dismount the four-wheeler and recon up ahead. I used to do this sort of thing back when I was in the service. It was the fun part of the Army…the part I was good at. A young sheriff’s deputy doesn’t stand a chance at getting the jump on me today.
I approach the reservoir from one of the wooded sides, so I can’t get a great view of the entire bank. But I’m concealed by a grove of poplar, sumac and maple, with a good view of the other side—the side where our gear is stashed and where the gravel lane connects us and the reservoir to the road, civilization and the law. There is nobody here. Everything is just as serene as it was an hour or so ago. There is very little evidence of people back here…even old sign. No trash, no tracks, no fire pits. But at the far corner, near the one good stand of cattails, is an old, dilapidated outbuilding. It’s a prefabricated steel hut and the door is left open. On its’ floor lies a dirty yellow life preserver covered with bits and pieces fallen from the rotted shelving and drop ceiling. At the edge of the water near this building is a concrete drain. From a distance it looks like the remains of an old dock. There is a single metal picket post sticking out of the water at an angle with a sunken fiberglass dinghy lashed to it. The water is so clear that if viewed from above, you might not realize the boat is on the bottom.
I turn to motion the All Clear to Jason, but see he is already off the four-wheeler and headed toward me with our fly rods. The four-wheeler is parked for a fast departure—facing the way we came. I give a thumbs up. And a grin. The reservoir is ours.
“Where’d you leave our shit?”
I nod in the direction of the other side.
* * *
Putting flippers on your feet while on dry land, then waddling over to an inflated doughnut of a float tube, climbing in, strapping yourself down and then trying to get into the water has got to be one of the most uncoordinated, clumsy things I’ve ever attempted. Barring a certain drunken late-night episode on a trampoline that I’m still struggling to erase from my memory. And I’m sure she is too.
I can’t help but feel silly, even though the only person who can see me is a good friend who is struggling into the same sort of contraption. But everything changes once we’re free floating and in water deep enough not to touch bottom and risk getting feet and flippers lost in the mud. Now I feel as graceful and commanding as a big goose on a duck pond. I can move in any direction with the slightest kick, I can spin all the way around without falling down. And my face is close enough to the surface of the water to give my mind the illusion of swimming.
Jason kicks out next to me and then we drift slowly apart—intent on getting rigged to fish. We’ll be tying on the same thing: a Krystowski Minnow. We tie them in various sizes and colors, but the one I fish the most is about two or three inches of black, chartreuse and white Icelandic sheep hair from the Erie Outfitters fly shop. I tie them on size 1 stinger hooks with small, painted lead eyes—tied so the hook bend rides up and makes it less prone to snagging weeds. I tie all the sheep hair in right behind the lead eyes and use the butt ends of the black hair (which I put on last) to wrap a few times around the eyes to give it sort of a bulky head. The sheep hair undulates through the water and makes it look alive. The white eyes with round black pupils make it look scared shitless…which makes bass a bit nuts.
I hook my first fish before I’m ready. I’m stripping line off the reel and kicking out away from the bank. The bass takes my fly, but there’s too much slack line out on the water for me to set the hook, so I promptly lose him. I look over to see if Jason has seen what has just happened. He has.
“I wasn’t ready yet.”
He nods. Then his fly line jerks and he raises his rod tip, setting the hook firmly. “Whoa!” he says.
I quick get my line under control and make a short cast back to the edge where we entered the water. Jason’s bass jumps twice, barely reentering the water before coming back up. I hear him laugh. I strip my own line back toward me as fast as I can, making the Krystowski Minnow dart through the clear reservoir like a panicked bluegill. And a bass strikes it hard enough to make a swirl on the surface of the water and yank line out of my hand. “Whoa! Shit!” I say and set the hook proper into this one.
The bass keep hitting at a feverish pitch. Hitting hard, too, and jumping. We have one on every third or fourth cast. Most times we’re fighting fish at the same time. We quick release them and position ourselves for another cast. I’m so cranked up I’m close to hyperventilating, but neither one of us dares slow down. We know this action can’t last. It’s crazy.
But it never lets up. After two hours we have each caught and released over three dozen largemouth bass, most over twelve inches and some around sixteen inches. We’re working our way around the edge of the reservoir, leapfrogging each other down the bank in our float tubes. The action doesn’t slow down, but we do. Our arms are tired from casting and then frantically stripping in line. I decide to slow down my retrieve, but then get even lazier and just leave my line out and troll. I’m giving my legs a workout, but resting my arms. My fly sinks deeper because I’m kicking along slower than I was retrieving, but there’s obviously plenty of bass down deep as well. I’m still getting hook ups.
I see Jason has taken a different approach. It looks like he has gone with something top water. That way he can cast and rest. I cruise past him to see what sort of fly he’s using. I get close enough to see for myself, without asking. It’s a grasshopper pattern with a clipped deer hair head. A good-sized bass swirls and takes the fly as I’m watching. Jason lifts his rod fast and snaps his four-pound tippet.
“Damn,” he says. “Got too excited!”
By this time we have both caught enough fish. Losing one, even if it is a good one, is hardly a disappointment.
Then we hear gravel crunching. Gravel under tires. We freeze. Jason lets a back cast fall to the water behind him and I stop kicking with my flippers. Deer in headlights.
A black SUV rounds the final bend in the gravel lane and comes to a halt at the edge of the reservoir. We can’t see inside, but the tinted drivers-side window glares at us. Jason and I stare back. We’re prepared for this…but we do nothing. Suddenly the vehicle is put in reverse and turned around and then it is gone in a cloud of gravel dust.
“That was her,” Jason says.
My arms are numb and my heart is racing.
“Yup,” I say. Then I finish my retrieve. And a bass hits. I hold my rod high and the fish leaps, spraying water back at me. I cackle loudly. Jason hoots. No sense in being sneaky now. We’ve been compromised. The law is in route, no doubt.
I let the bass go and look over at Jason. “So…whatta we do?”
“Well,” he says as he winds in his fly line. “I hate to leave.” He looks at me and arches his eyebrows to express the importance of what he is about to say. “But we sorta have to!”
* * *
We kick to shore and climb out of our float tubes with a strange sense of calm urgency. We know we don’t have much time, but we know we have enough. I drag all of our bulky gear back behind the brush pile were I had hidden it all before and cover it with dead leaves and branches. By now Jason has located the four-wheeler and gotten it started. I take only my fly rod and fishing vest with me.
I climb onto the back of the four-wheeler with Jason and we beat feet, move out, di di mau…vacate the area at a high rate of speed.
Somewhere near the middle of a large, overgrown field we cut the engine and hunker down. The grasses and weeds are tall enough to completely conceal the four-wheeler, and once we are down beside it we have all but vanished without an easily noticeable trace.
“Damn. Was that some hot fishin’ or what?” I say as more of a testament than a question.
“Yeah,” Jason says. “Too bad ya can’t write about it.”
Hot August evenings…the urge to just leave the bulky chest waders at home and wet wade is almost too much to bear. You can get away with it easily in any of the local trout streams, in fact I recommend it. You can move around easier without waders. Get in position to get just the right drift. Most fly shops sell a wet-wading sock that allows you to use the same, good Simms wading boots you normally wear with your full waders. They are thick neoprene just like the feet of most stockingfoot waders. And they are only about $30. But thing hard about the consequences before you step into any bass ponds with exposed flesh! They will find you…and get you!
(A trick I have found is to buy a big box of cheep women’s knee-high stockings…your buddies will call you a cross dresser, but they are inexpensive enough to be disposable and make it harder for leeches to adhere to your ankles.)
Bass feed quite heavily in August when the water is the warmest of the year. Bass consume the majority of their food during this time, this is when they grow the most and have to keep up with their heightened metabolism (remember, fish are cold blooded). But they will concentrate feeding to very select times of day. The best times to fish will be at dawn, dusk or at night. During these periods of hot weather, bass will hang in loose schools along deep weed lines or other structure. They will move into shallow water to feed in mornings, evenings or other low light conditions. But this time of year also brings very low water levels in most of the lakes here in Colorado, coupled with heavy weed and algae growth. This can seriously hinder fishing. Because of the bright conditions bass will hold tight to cover, staying well entwined in the underwater maze of vegetation. It is often impossible to get your fly in front of a bass, and if you do it is usually completely wrapped in slimy, green gunk.
So, be persistent...and vigilante with cleaning off your fly (sometimes after every cast) and concentrate your efforts at the best times of day and you my catch some of your best bass of the year!
More and more women take up fly fishing every year. Companies like Patagonia and Fishpond have noticed this trend years ago...hence the ever widening selection of female specific waders, boots and vests. No longer do women get asked "Are you shopping for a gift?" when they walk into a fly shop. No longer can you assume the young gal on the creek is just there to keep an eye on her husband. She is very likely there on her own...and there is a possibility she knows the creek better than you. There is an ever growing number of women who have mastered fly fishing to such a degree that they are now working summers as fishing guides,chasing more challenging or exotic fish species (like carp) or just devoting the bulk of their best years toward the never ending pursuit of the next big grip & grin!
I made the comment last fall that I would love to get some big grass carp on film. Don Bousquet said, “I got the spot.”
Oh yeah? Big grassies on demand? They ain’t easy ya know…
“Yeah, whatever,” Don assured me. “I’ll call you in the spring.”
OK…?
So I got the call and met Don and Gregg Friedman at 7:00 in the morning along some random back road. They were stringing up rods and fussing with a drift boat when I arrived and there was a rising sense of urgency as the wind was beginning to pick up.
A quick plan was formed…Don and Gregg would launch the boat and I would sneak around the bank of the lake with my video equipment. I would do my best not to spook any carp and wait to see what transpired.
Well…the wind got worse, something that would normally dissuade a serious carp fisher, but not these guys. One would stand up on the casting platform taking long shots with a #6 Backstabber at carp in the wind as the other stood crotch deep in the water holding the stern of the drift boat and slowly positioning it for the other to get a better shot at the next carp. It was fun to watch. And they hooked up often…and the reel screaming, dripping grip and grins and high fives made awesome footage.
The Krystowski Minnow is one of my early original fly designs. I began tying this fly long before I was part of the fly fishing industry and a contract fly designer. It was at a point in my life when I had very limited time to spend behind a vise and, more influentially, when I had very little money to spend on tying material. I needed an all-purpose baitfish streamer that I could use for every occasion. I could not afford to have multiple fly boxes for every species of fish, but I was fishing everywhere and often. I needed a fly for river smallmouth, farm pond largemouth, Spring steelhead, Fall browns, wiper, walleye and northern pike. If I had a handful of Krystowski Minnows in my box I was all set. The fly needed to be cheap to tie, fast to tie and never fall apart...even after being chewed on by northern pike. I have old fishing buddies back in my home town who fish this fly over everything else. The fly is named after a family in northern Ohio who owned a small bass pond and would let me fish and invite me in for dinner. The earliest prototypes of this fly were fished in their pond.
"Here is an unusual coming-of-age memoir of a young man passionate about fishing. From a northern Ohio boyhood, through four years in the military, to a season on Kodiak Island, Jay Zimmerman's growing through life's awkwardnesses are revealing, and realistic. Most startling are his stories of his time in the service. The best passages call to mind a blue collar, Midwest Norman MacLean,"--Ken Waldman, author of Nome Poems and To Live on this Earth
"There are moments of Zen clarity in these stories of Jay Zimmerman's fishing journey toward selfhood, and thank goodness, for they counterbalance moments of great uncertainty and intemperateness, nearly always refocused by the presence of creeks, rivers, oceans, and lakes. From Panama to Alaska and back to the Heartlands, the author finds in fishing and fish and the art of fly-tying a way to find his path into love and life. Think of Melville's Ishmael, reborn as a culture-shocked ex-paratrooper, struggling for meaning and accommodation in these contemporary chronicles of water, wildness, and meditation. This is a fine first book by a writer who has emerged."--Richard Hague, author of Alive in Hard Country
If you happen to hook and land what may appear to be an odd-looking fish...something you have never seen in your local trout stream before, don't panic! No, it is not some exotic snake head hickey fish...or some new half marsupial half carp Frankenstein fish secretly introduced to Colorado streams by a mentally unstable Australian ichthyologist. It is a white sucker. And they may, in fact, be the only truly native fish you have ever caught in your favorite local stream. So treat it with respect!
More and more women take up fly fishing every year. Companies like Patagonia and Fishpond have noticed this trend years ago...hence the ever widening selection of female specific waders, boots and vests. No longer do women get asked "Are you shopping for a gift?" when they walk into a fly shop. No longer can you assume the young gal on the creek is just there to keep an eye on her husband. She is very likely there on her own...and there is a possibility she knows the creek better than you. There is an ever growing number of women who have mastered fly fishing to such a degree that they 
are now working summers as fishing guides,chasing more challenging or exotic fish species (like carp) or just devoting the bulk of their best years toward the never ending pursuit of the next big grip & grin!
