Reflections from the Home Waters, 2011

I'll ask you to forgive me in advance if this post gets a little too sentimental for the average angler.  Then again, it's been my experience that fly fishermen are sentimental folks.  In my extensive reading of the various great fly fishing blogs that dot the landscape of the information superhighway, I've encountered folks with diverse fascinations.  Whatever the particular obsession - small flies, small streams, foam hoppers, fiberglass rods, vintage reels, tenkara rods, dry flies, a special river, a special fishing partner, or "fishertainment" (keep up the good fight, Owl) - fly fishing takes us beyond the realm of simply slinging bugs into a river.  If you're like me, fly fishing provides a steady stream of memories that multiplies with every trip to the water.  If that sounds cornball, so be it - I'm a sentimental guy.

As I look back on 2011, I realize why I didn't make any fly fishing resolutions at this time last year.  Privately, I had some pretty lofty ambitions, most of which remain unrealized.  Like most fishermen, I lament the fact that I fished far less than originally planned, and certainly far, far less than I wanted.  I never did get around to learning much about fishing streamers, nor did I experiment at all with tying any.  I missed every single trico hatch on the North Platte.  Constant crowds on the Big Thompson kept me fleeing back to the Poudre, a fact that I'm sure doesn't bother anglers from Loveland or Estes Park.  Regrettably, work and some personal obligations kept me from diving headfirst into the Rocky Mountain Frenzy, which sounded like too much fun to have missed.   

Far and away, my biggest regret is another summer come and gone without a trip to my childhood paradise, the White River valley at the foot of the Flattops wilderness  It's where I learned my craft.  It's where I hooked my grandfather in the ear on a back cast, just hours before a skunk strolled through his legs without so much as thinking about unleashing it's natural brand of chemical warfare upon any of us.  It's where Doc planted a fly fishing seed in my heart, many years before I ever set foot in the Poudre.  It's where, at the ripe old age of 13, I hooked, played, and lost what I still believe to be the biggest trout I've ever tied into.  And it's where Doc learned that a good cowboy hat is good for a lot of things, but netting a monster trout for your son is not one of them.

New Year's Eve isn't about regrets, however.  2011 had plenty of highlights:

1)  The Year of the Hopper.  I fell in love with the Hopper!  They came to my garden in droves yet again, but it was a record year for my tomato plants nonetheless.  And I learned how to tie decent imitations that proved to be tempting to some big trout on the Poudre.  It happened by accident.  As I was wavering between a pheasant tail nymph and a run-of-the-mill caddis, Doc started slaying some mighty fat rainbows with a big caddis imitation with rubber legs.  On a hunch, we tied on a giant hopper imitation I'd tied on a whim that just happened to resemble the vast multitudes of grasshoppers lining the banks of the lower Poudre.  The results were better than we could have hoped for on that particular day.  The fish were sitting in a fast, shallow riffle, the strikes were aggressive, and the big rainbows sprinted, thrashed, and went aerial.  The afternoon was a natural high that fly fishermen crave, a high that adds fuel to the fire.

2)  The Tazmanian Devil?  I learned that fishing can occasionally be scary.  Horror movie scary.  Biblical/Armageddon scary.  When I happened upon this guy as I waded out of the river at the end of a long day, my heart got more of a jolt than it needed.  I often hear people say that fishing isn't always about catching fish, and I think I understand what they mean.  On this occasion, I could just as easily have done without the extra "experience."  I enjoy seeing wildlife during my days on the water as much as the next guy or gal.  I just prefer to see it from a comfortable distance, and sans dangling entrails.  I guess even badgers have it rough sometimes.

3)  Battle Poudre '11.  It was a nail biter, but on balance I'm going to have to swallow my pride and declare Doc the overall winner.  I'm basing this conclusion on an afternoon in April when Doc tied into two monsters.  I don't suppose anybody wants to hear about the pig that I stuck that took the bug and proceeded to sprint for the nearest underwater bush, wrap my line around it, and snap the tippet?  I didn't think so. The battle goes to Doc.  This friendly competition, dating back to 2009, really exists solely on the pages of The Flywriter.  We don't keep score, and nobody cares who the victor is.  Still, I have to offer a picture of yours truly with a nice brown just to be fair and balanced...to myself!

Jae's Pretty Brown

The Flywriter's Rainbow

4)  Jae and the Giant Peach.  My friend Jae served as my informal guide up the canyon and got me on a stretch of the Poudre that I should have known about but had never fished.  It's always more fun to fish with another fanatic, and Jae fills the bill on that one.  Calm, focused, and serene, Jae is my kind of fishing partner.  An added bonus to fishing with Jae arrived at lunchtime when he tossed me a peach the size of Montana.  I swear, I'm still shampooing the nectar out of my beard.  It might just have been the best thing I've ever eaten.

5.  The RS2.  I had a fun year at the vise too.  In addition to my newly found love for all things foam - on top of the hoppers, I discovered a foam-back humpy pattern that I much prefer to the elk-hair version - I managed to put together an RS2 that I'm not absolutely horrified by.  It took awhile to bring the split-tail up to a respectable level, but thanks to the Hopper Juan's tutorial, I'm much improved.  I'm also happy to report that they're catching trout on the Poudre. 


As much as I didn't accomplish as an angler, I look back at 2011 through the lenses of gratitude.  Grateful that I have a loving, personal God who walks every step with me.  Grateful to have a family that could have justifiably written me off when I wasn't anywhere near my best, but simply refused to.  Grateful to have a job when others don't.  Grateful to have nephews who still look at the world with wonder, optimism, and joy.  And yes, grateful to have a hobby - nay, an obsession - that I share with so many others out there.

I'll finish in a way that I know all fly fishermen will appreciate.  An unexpected afternoon away from work coupled with some mild temperatures afforded me one last opportunity to create a final 2011 memory.  By the skin of my teeth, I managed to net one last trout in 2011, approximately 36 hours before the ball dropped in Times Square.  I can't think of a better way to close out the year.

That's the year in review from Flywriter HQ.  May God bless and keep you in 2012.

Happy New Year...
The Flywriter

Springtime Glory (or, Doc's Sweet Revenge)

It was bound to happen sooner or later.  The sight of a magnificent Blue Heron sticking out like a sentinel in mid-stream should have been a clue that I was in for a special day.

The stars must have aligned over northern Colorado last night, for when I awoke this morning, the temperature was perfect, the skies were just a bit overcast - hazy would be a better description - and most of all, there was no hint of a wind.  Mercifully, the gusts of the past week finally eased up.  All the elements were in place for the creation of another memorable day on the Poudre.  And boy, the old girl didn't disappoint today.

Some of the more knowledgeable angling folks in the area (check out Liarflies, by the way) have generated some promising recent fishing reports for all segments of the Poudre, from the upper canyon to the stretch near and through Fort Collins.  Based on today, I'd have to say they were right on target.  We arrived on the river to find a decent hatch with fish rising aggressively to the surface, not only in glassy slicks and holes, but also in shallow, fast water.  I don't know why I always insist on rigging up before I get to the river, but the surface action on the water today caused me to break down a double-nymph rig I'd prepared just minutes earlier and replace it with a single, homemade BWO.  Between BWOs and a couple of PMD mayfly patterns, I fished dry flies all day.  Kinda makes me wonder why I spent all those winter months experimenting with various patterns at the bench, but truth be told, I did it as much for simple enjoyment as as for expected success on the water.  In any event, a box full of BWOs sufficed for today.   

Doc, meanwhile, must have felt the stars aligning as well, because he came out of the gate with a vengeance fueled by a seven-month hiatus from fishing.  He initially struck first blood on, of all things, a San Juan worm.  I think that's primarily because it was what happened to be on the end of his tippet from last season.  He landed a nice, fat rainbow in the range of 13 inches, which would be about the size of my standard catches for the remainder of the day.  Having broken the ice, he then switched over to a BWO and proceeded to absolutely destroy it with two huge rainbows serving as bookends around several smaller fish.  It was a stunning start to his 2011 season, and I suspect a healthy helping of sweet revenge for last April, when he landed a nice 18 inch rainbow only to see me follow up later that day with an ugly trout that easily broke 20 inches.  There would be no out-dueling him today, and the pictures don't lie.

     

I found myself remarking that this last fish was the biggest one "we" had taken out of the Poudre to date.  Isn't it convenient when "he" becomes "we?"  After all, I tied the flies and took the pictures!  (Oh, just hush and let me live vicariously for a minute).

I didn't have a bad day myself, landing about a dozen fish and being slow on the hook-set on too many others to count.  I didn't hook into anything tremendous, but most of the fish were healthy and chunky, and all of them put up enough fight to leave me smiling from ear to ear.

Every time I think this hobby/obsession/passion/addiction can't get any better, a day like today comes along and blows me away.  There aren't all that many days where I lose track of the number of blessings I really do have in life, but I think today was one where I couldn't tally them up if I consciously tried.  Watching Doc clearly surge into the lead in the third iteration of our annual seasonal battle for angling supremacy was a special treat.  Seeing tangible results of my still basic but ever-improving tying skills was another.

A friend from the blogosphere once gently chided me after reading of one of my several skunkings, pointing out to me that the occasional troutless days on the river are a necessary reminder of how special the truly epic days on the river can be.  Wise words, and never more true than today.

Slingin' homemade BWOs in my dreams tonight,
The Flywriter

The Benefits of Restoration (or, Quit Your Whining)

For the past two years, trout have been laughing at my expense.

I've taken to riding my bike to work as often as possible.  It's a blessing in many ways.  It keeps me on the verge of becoming physically fit, although my Saturday night soccer games prove that I haven't quite crossed that threshold yet.  The biking also does wonders for my mental fitness; particularly the morning ride, during which I cut loose the background noise that seems to seep into my subconscious during the night and prepare to think and communicate with some semblance of coherence throughout the day.

More than anything, the morning ride takes me along the banks of the Poudre for miles before I have to veer south into town. Just as I begin the morning trek, I cross under a bridge that serves as a boundary line between some public and private access areas of the Poudre.  I've fished every inch of water on the public side, but being respectful of private property, I stop at the very last inch before that imaginary line in the river.  Naturally, I see trout rising freely, with impunity, 25 yards downstream from the demarcation.  I'm certain they're smiling at me as they do so.   

The trail crosses over the river again about a hundred yards later, drawing another demarcation line between private access and no access.  On the "no access" side of the trail lies a natural preservation area, with a tasteful, subdued sign reading "restoration in progress, no access allowed."  In other words, Flywriter, don't even bother dreaming about what might be in the water for the next mile or so.

I have to admit, the restoration area is like a big never-never land.  Each morning, I stop at the end of the bridge, just before the bike trail extends into a flat prairie for the next mile, and glance into the forbidden forest.  I have no idea what lies in the water downstream from that point, and it kind of drives me nuts.  There's no doubt in my mind it contains some big fish.  I envision them all congregating there, safe from the heavy fishing pressure their brethren endure just half a mile to the west.

Still, I'm all in favor of the restoration project.  If nothing else, it allows my imagination to wander.  And today, just at the edge of that forbidden trout-haven, I caught a glimpse of the results of restoration:

The trout will probably keep laughing at me from the safety of private access and "no access" water as I pedal away the morning cobwebs, but somehow I'll keep arriving at work in a better mood.  Each day, I'm restored, and restoration's a good thing.

Riding to Wonderland...
The Flywriter

What's That Smell???

Something stinks here at Flywriter Headquarters.

It's a slightly familiar stench - I swear I've smelled it before, but I can't quite put a finger on it.

Wait...could it be...?  Yeah, it's THAT stench!














The animal pictured above is symbolic, of course, and really doesn't deserve such an unfair, slanderous commentary on my part.  He's really just the namesake for the most offensive, embarrassing, and dreaded catch phrase a fisherman can hear:  the "skunking."

Unfortunately, I received one today, the first in many, many days on the water in 2010.  Today's skunking was so incredibly thorough that I began to wonder if I really know anything about what I'm doing when it comes to fly fishing.  Not only did I not catch a single trout, I'm fairly certain that not a single fish so much as sniffed one of my budget-conscious flies.  While I could come up with a litany of excuses - the water was too high (it wasn't); the water was too murky (just slightly); the sun was too bright; the barometric pressure was radically different; the river gets too much fishing pressure - none of them would be plausible to even the most naive among us.  More likely "operator error," as they say.  I was fishing lazy and shaking off rust from two weeks on dry land.  

It's like anything else, this obsession of mine.  Use it or lose it.  Practice makes perfect.  Blah, blah, blah.  


I'll stop short of bathing in tomato juice, but tomorrow it's game on.  I'm declaring jihad on the Poudre's trout.

Fall on the Poudre, 10/10/10

All too often, I tend to lose sight of the blessings that God has granted me in life.  I'm prone to bouts with self-absorption, and quick to whine to myself when life just doesn't go according to my wishes.  It's one of my many imperfections.  So, I'm fortunate to attend a church where service to others is not only something that's preached from the pulpit, but something that's supposed to be put into practice.  Today, the congregation broke into small groups and embarked on a series of efforts to live those principles.  Among other things, some visited nursing homes, others prepared packages for the homeless, and still others wrote letters to soldiers and missionaries.  It's something I should do a heck of a lot more of.  It keeps me out of my own head and puts me in a position to practice humility while reminding me that my challenges in life aren't quite so dramatic as I sometimes make them out to be.

Fat Poudre 'bow

It was a fitting lesson for today.  My afternoon on the river with Doc was one that might have normally caused me some minor annoyance.  We arrived to find the wind blowing steadily; hardly the ideal weather condition for fly fishing.  Right from the get go, things were challenging.  I lost three flies to the trees across the bank.  I dropped a full container of split shot into swift current, hopeless to retrieve it.  Somewhere along the way, I lost a pair of forceps, so I had to be extra careful removing flies from the fish I managed to land.  All this within the first hour.  Through it all, we managed to land a few small trout.

My pretty brown

The wind briefly stopped, and a few fish started rising to the surface.  No sooner had I replaced a double-nymph rig with a dry fly when the wind picked up again and the skies opened, unleashing a deluge of rain and small hail.  So much for dry fly casting.  As I sat drenched in the passenger seat of Doc's pickup, it occurred to me what a great fall day it was.  The air was crisp, temperatures nice and cool - very "Octoberish."  The great outdoors always feels a little more wild when the wind blows.  How could I possibly complain about that?

As it turns out, we managed to do OK on the fishing as well.  All it took was a little patience and some serious trial and error with the bugs.

Doc bends the rod again...

...and a quick catch and release

I can't speak for Doc, but I had the most success with a size 16 gold stone fly nymph, with a bead head providing enough weight to get down to where the fish were feeding.  I also had a good run with a size 16 pheasant tail, as close to the original PT as I have been able to tie.

BWOs, RS2s, and H2O (or, Something Other than Caddis)

Every now and then I get lucky.  It's rare in my fly fishing world that the weather, water levels, and bug choices mesh perfectly into a nicely executed two-and-a-half hours of trout stalking.  Today was one of those days.  A nice taste of early Colorado fall put a positive spin on a day that had previously been painfully monotonous and mind numbing.

 

It's been a long, hot, dry summer here in FOCO, NOCO (that's Fort Collins, Northern Colorado).  The fishing this summer has been fantastic, and progressed through a familiar seasonal routine.  After a spectacular opening to the season back in April, when tiny blue-winged olives netted me a number of 20+ inch rainbows, the Poudre settled into early summer nymphing, with fish hitting largely on small nymphs - pheasant tails and princes in particular.  Caddis hatches have dominated late August and September to this point - at times, it seemed like the trout in the lower Poudre wouldn't dine on anything else.

Today, we finally got some overcast weather with a brief period of light rain.  On my bike ride home from work, I noticed a significant amount of surface feeding, with subtle little rings of water suggesting the fish were feeding just beneath the surface.  No dramatic, splash-creating rises, just little kisses at the surface.  My mind kicked into high gear - a rare occurrence on most days - and I started formulating a plan for some evening trout catching.  In the last few minutes of my ride, I decided on a mid-size caddis as a lead fly with an RS2 trailing behind.

An hour later, I stepped into the Poudre in the middle of a very slight drizzle - actually more of a mist - and a full feeding frenzy.  The combination of the overcast sky and the light rain seemed to be the dinner bell for the fish, and within ten minutes I'd taken three nice little fish.  The caddis was simply window dressing at this point, serving no other purpose than functioning as a strike indicator.  The fish were sucking the RS2 out of the film just the way I thought they would.  Unfortunately, I'd only managed to tie one RS2 before leaving.  I'm at a loss as to why my box isn't filled with them; with the exception of the split tail, they're an easy tie, and all the wisemen in fly fishing Blogdom (here, here, and here, for instance) consistently sing the pattern's praises.

After three fish, my lone RS2 had taken too much of a beating.  The light rain stopped, but the feeding continued and the fish got more aggressive and began rolling over flies on the surface.  Noting that none had bothered to hit the caddis yet, I decided that a small BWO might be a nice substitute for the RS2.  After tying one on behind the caddis and immediately nailing a few more fish, I stuck with the caddis/BWO combination the rest of the night.  During the second hour, the fish alternately hit both flies in almost equal proportions, although I'd give the BWO the edge.  All told, I netted somewhere between 15-20 trout, all in the 10-12 inch range, with the exception of one really nice cutthroat that was probably around 14 inches.  The Poudre slam eluded me once again - the picky browns apparently didn't like the bugs I was serving up.

 

So there you have it.  No nymphs were harmed in the making of this blog post, but a number of dry flies and one emerger sure had the hell beaten out of 'em.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  It's a beautiful thing, this obsession of mine.  I'm pretty sure there was nowhere I'd have rather been between 5:00 - 7:30!

Old-School Dry Flyin'

Like a lot of things, fly fishing has gotten gadget-happy, with all sorts of toys and accessories ranging from the ornamental to the useful.  I'll admit to having spent my share of dough on some bells and whistles over the years, but I've tried to make sure that I keep the hobby itself in perspective.  I fish with a pretty cheap rod, a small bag to hold a flybox, and a lanyard around my neck for quick access to tippet and various small tools (nail clippers, forceps, etc).  The frame on my net is aluminum; while I prefer the classy look of the wooden frame net, my wallet prefers the aluminum.  When the water cooperates, I go without waders, which always seem to spring a leak anyway. I did, for obvious reasons, recently splurge on a new pair of boots - the old ones were becoming a safety issue!

When you get right down to brass tacks, fly fishing doesn't really need to be all that complicated.  My most enjoyable days on the water have been those that required the least amount of planning and the fewest number of logistical challenges.  So Doc and I went old-school yesterday afternoon - pretty much on a whim, thanks to the Poudre's proximity.

The river is lower than I've seen it in months, and the nightly caddis hatches have been ridiculous lately.  When you combine those two variables, you've got an ideal equation for some good, old-fashioned dry fly fishing.  Grab your 5-wt, tie on a big ol' stinkin caddis with plenty of hackle, grease it up with some Gink, and cast to the rises.  Old-school.  No frills.  The way you did it when you learned as a kid.

Turned out pretty well.  The Poudre continues to fish great.  Numbers-wise, I had a solid double figure day, and Doc did the same, only he nailed a couple with some serious girth.  I toyed briefly with a Prince nymph when the surface action seemed to slow up a bit, only to abandon that idea as Doc tied into a big rainbow.

Doc puts a bend on the rod.

Fat Poudre rainbow

By 8:00 p.m., we were looking for any excuse to keep fishing.  The flies were impossible to follow, but we rationalized that if we could simply follow the flyline downstream, it stood to reason that the fly would be floating somewhere in the near vicinity.  Just before the last bit of light, Doc saw a fish rise not too far from the end of the fly line and instinctively set the hook, landing one final chunky rainbow to end the day on.

Tough way to spend a Friday afternoon.  Somebody has to do it, and it might as well be me.

No moral victories here...

You won't see any photos in this post.  That's because I blew it - twice - with two of the nicest browns I've tied into in quite sometime.

For over a month, I've been seeing signs of big fish in a certain holding lie along the far bank of one of my favorite stretches of water.  The don't show themselves very often.  Normally, I'll hear a big splash and then turn my head to see evidence on the water of a large trout taking a bug off the surface.  They hang out under some overhanging tree branches, and they're difficult to cast to because the water in front of them tends to run pretty swiftly on most days, making the drift of the fly difficult to control without sinking it.

Tonight, the water level was just perfect and the caddis hatch was in full force.  When the sun set in the west, the trout started their characteristic evening feeding.  After landing a few normal (10-12 inch) rainbows and chatting with a couple other anglers, I noticed some aggressive feeding starting to happen.  I tied on the biggest caddis fly I had and started casting directly to the spot.  After a few drifts, I saw a large, golden flash on the fly and set the hook.  Too gently, I'm afraid.  Just as the angler downstream was remarking that the fish looked considerably bigger than the others I'd landed, the fish thrashed once and spit the caddis back at me with disdain.  I'm embarrassed to say that an expletive escaped from my lips, hopefully not loud enough for the kids upstream to hear. 

By 8:00 p.m., I was having difficulty seeing the fly, and was growing frustrated that fish continued to rise somewhere in the vicinity of a fly I couldn't see.  On the final drift, I tried to imagine where the fly was on the water and decided to set the hook at any rise that could have conceivably been directed at my fly.  I'll be darned if I didn't briefly hook up with another one, who promptly threw the fly back in my face. 

Fun respite from the world at large.  I now have a keen sense of what other anglers mean when they refer to fish that are destined to be caught on another day.  I'm just serving notice right now that I'm going back for one of those two.  I'll post the picture when it happens.

Sanctuaries

Forgive me for digressing from the topic of fly fishing for just a moment.  I know, it's unnatural for me too, but given my experience on the river yesterday, it seems to be an appropriate jumping off point to wax just a little poetic, or philosophical...or something.

I make it a point to stay relatively uninformed about the happenings in places like New York City or Washington, DC these days.  There's only so much room left in my brain, and for better or worse, I prefer to reserve that slowly declining vacant gray matter for things that bring me happiness and warm fuzziness.  I'll pick up the local paper and occasionally check out the Washington Post online, but it's usually only to check in and see how my former home team is doing (apparently not too well at the moment).  My smarter, more liberal friends would undoubtedly shudder to know that I occasionally tune into the O'Reilly Factor on - gasp - Fox News.  If nothing else, I enjoy the froth-at-the-mouth banter between the host and his guests.  It entertains me.  That's about the extent of my news consumption.

With that in mind, I had to take a crash course in civic awareness when I started reading tidbits about a proposed mosque that, depending upon whom you ask, might or might not be built on a site that might or might not be at Ground Zero in New York.  In typical fashion, I tried to fathom what all the hullabaloo was about.

I quickly learned that the construction of a place of worship in a free country is suddenly cause for an apparent long-term news-a-thon.  I started to hear all kinds of ugly things again.  People who support the mosque are "insensitive," never mind the fact that what happened at Ground Zero killed Muslims.  People who oppose the mosque are "bigots," never mind the fact that at least some Muslims oppose it as well.  Marginal, retrograde churches hold "Quran burnings" while marginal and even more retrograde terrorists are likely still trying to kill us.  Virtually as soon as I had lifted it, my self-imposed moratorium on news, particularly of the politico-religious variety, fell rapidly back in place.

While mosques and churches figure out whether they should be built, I'll savor my own sanctuary here at the edge of the foothills in northern Colorado.

The sun usually shines.  Deer, ducks, foxes, racoons, snakes, skunks, rabbits, and an occasional tomcat all feel welcome here.  There are a lot of bugs - mosquitos, caddis flies, grasshoppers, and slimy larvae - and they all worship here too.

Some of my favorite congregants showed up for services yesterday morning:

No bigotry or insensitivity here.  Just a tip for all visitors:  bring your Bible or Quran if you must, but don't leave home without a box full of size 18 elk hair caddis flies.  The trout are going crazy on them right now.

Peace,
The Flywriter

Cutts on a Caddis

Wow.  I certainly wasn't expecting the last two hours of sunlight yesterday to go the way they did.

I stood knee deep in comfortably cool water yesterday evening.  Dried house primer and paint splatters blended with spare tire soot had seemingly seeped into my skin, leaving me looking like some sort of alien.  Prior to 6 p.m., my day had consisted of a flat tire, hours of waiting for it to be fixed, priming some siding on my sister's house, waiting for it to dry, painting over the primer, and helping Mom get ready for a BBQ.  It doesn't sound like much, but it had eaten up most of the day.

Which brings me back to 6 p.m. on the Poudre.  Finally able to take a breath, I settled into a familiar, comfortable routine.  The first five minutes were frustrating as I tried to keep track of the size 16 caddis on the surface of the water.  The sun was in just the right spot to cast a severe glare on the water.  I could see upstream, and I could see downstream, but there was a window of about 20 yards of river where the fly would disappear. 

Mercifully, the sun dropped below the horizon and the water became completely visible.  Seemingly at that very moment, I heard a small splash and quickly looked upstream, making note of a ring of rippling water in a calm slick, a clear indication of a rising fish.

As if on cue, fish started popping up all over the river, feverishly devouring the fruits of what was by now a significant caddis hatch underway.  Much to my surprise, they started going after my artificial imitation as though it were the prime morsel on the water.

By 8 p.m., I'd taken somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 trout, a great many of them cutthroats between 10-15 inches.  I'm not sure where they came from; cutthroats aren't uncommon on the Poudre, but the majority of the fish I take out of the river are rainbows accompanied by an occasional brown. It was certainly unlike anything I'd ever seen on this stretch of water.  My eyes strained to watch the caddis on the end of the line - the 3rd one I'd tied on by this point.  The fish just wouldn't stop feeding.  Finally, unable to see the fly any longer, I turned and started making my way out of the river, the fly dragging downstream behind me as I waded out.  As I started to step onto dry land, I felt the rod tighten and heard  a splash in the water.  I turned to see another fish on the line.  It had taken the fly and run with it.

Unbelievable finish.