What a Smile!

Near as I can tell, I have loved fishing since I was old enough to know what it was. Some of my very earliest memories involve fishing, wanting to go fishing, pretending I was fishing, planning fishing trips. I grew up reading stories about Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer fishing from log rafts or from sand bar islands in the Mighty Mississippi River. I would lay awake a night and thumb through tattered worn out issues of Field and Stream, and Outdoor Life magazines reading about exotic far off fishing wonderlands like Key West FL, and Chesapeake Bay. Stories about Bass lakes in the deep south with names I couldn't even sound out. Yes, I have always loved fishing. But growing up on a dusty corn and wheat farm in Eastern Colorado yielded very little to budding angler ambitions. My dad was and still is a very hard working Farmer/Rancher. And it wasn't that he didn't want to take his son on fishing trips, but a Crops and Cattle don't allow much time for recreation. We went as a family every year to the Free Fishing day event and caught stocked slimy rainbow trout out of a warm water pond. And we usually threw a rod and the tackle box in the truck when we went down to the local reservoir for a beach day. But fishing just wasn't a priority. Until I became a licensed Colorado driver with my own pickup. Suddenly my time was spent evenly shared between moonlight beer guzzling nights with my buddies, working as a cook,waiter, dishwasher, at a diner for minimum wage, and fishing. Notice I didn't mention school work and grades. I focused very little on that. I no longer cared if my dad had time to take me fishing, because I was bound and determined to do it without him anyway. Now let me clarify at this point that I'm not now and never was mad at my father over this. My pops is a great man for whom I owe nearly everything in my world to. He just didn't have time to take a lot of fishing trips. I don't know if I ever said it out loud, but the day my first son Kevin was born I can remember thinking to myself, "I will always find a way to make time " not just for fishing, but all things that matter to little kids. I'm now in my late thirties. We have four amazing children. And if this blog has shown nothing else to anyone who has read it, I love taking my kids fishing. In one of my entries several years ago I talked about "Firsts". Well last week I got to experience a first and a last at the same exact moment. My youngest and last child Javen caught his very first fish. It also was the Last, First fish I will get to celebrate with my children. Kind of a sobering moment really. But man. Look at that smile. His excitement. That's one of the all time greatest "First Fish" faces I've ever seen. 

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Playing Hooky

 So I woke up the other morning at my normal 4 a.m. and started my day like any other. Make coffee, check my phone for messages from employee's, check NOAA for the weather.... what's this? It's going to be 70+ degrees today? In early March? Sorry work, but I'm feeling a little under the weather all of a sudden. Better not come in just in case I'm contagious. Yeah I'm guilty, I played hooky so I could go fishing. And it was totally worth it. After about an hour walking the river out a the "Sage" I drifted my fly through a deep curvy bank and ended up setting hook on a beautiful 14 inch, buttery golden brown trout. First of the year I might add. Best part is I felt no shame.

Summer Fun

As summer starts winding down here in North Eastern Colorado and the kids get ready to go back to school tomorrow. I felt it was due time to reflect back on the past few months and compose my thoughts on our fishing adventures. This summer was unlike any I have experienced so far since I moved home 9 years ago. It was probably the coolest temps I've ever seen for starters. We had a few days that broke the 100 degree barrier and a couple weeks were it stayed in the high 90's. But for the most part it stayed in the mid to high 80's for the better part of the season. So with all that nice weather you would think I had been fishing every single day if I could. Sadly it was not so. I got out a few times but nothing like I have in former years. The bass fishing was alright when I did get some reel time in. I never caught anything over 3 lbs though. That being said I did get to share some more than usual quality fishing moments with my girls. Natty and Addie are 8 and 5 and both have taken to fishing like ducks on water. Natty is quite the fly angler already and I can see her becoming a very skilled angler before she hits her teens. Addison or AJ for short doesn't really have the patients for it yet, but she enjoys going along and can throw a rock at the water like nobody's business. For our first outing the girls and I just went down to the boat dock at Stalker Lake and tossed poppers to bluegills. The Colorado State bluegill record hails from this lake and there is no shortage of decent sized cousins still hanging around. Both girls managed to get several hookups and in an hour or so we were pretty well fished out and ready for a cold drink. I'm going to take a line or two here to reinstall that during the summer months I rarely if ever go fishing for trout in the Republican. And there are several reasons for this. Number one the grass is usually way too tall and thick along the river edge to be much fun for fly rodding. Number two is the insane amount of ticks, chiggers, and rattlesnakes you are sure to encounter. And Three is the warmth of the water and outside air temps. While the brown trout are here and thriving I know that the warmer the water is, the harder it is for the trout to breath, and the acids that build up in their blood while fighting an angler plus the oxygen deprived water will kill a lot of fish. Not worth it.
Back to the girls. On our second trip we used a friends small electric pontoon boat. We went all out and brought snacks, drinks a trolling rod and a fly rod. And we spent the entire morning scooting around the lake trolling a rattle bug lure behind us and casting poppers into lilly pads and weedlines. All total we caught 7 large mouthed bass and a few big sunfish. Natty even caught a sunfish that was then eaten by a very large bass right in front of her. Priceless! Taking kids fishing is one of the most rewarding a enjoyable parts of being a parent or grandparent. They ask all kinds of fun questions and have a refreshing insight to the world. They giggle when a beaver slaps its tail on the water. They marvel at the enormous dinosaur looking grass carp as they slowly skim the surface of the lake. And they are truly excited to catch a fish, any fish. They don't worry about size, or species. Their with Daddy and they are fishing. And he brought snacks and soda along. I love the magic in their eyes.

First Brown of 2017

When the fishing GODS hand you a 73 degree day on a Thursday in late February, you don't sit around at work dreaming of fishing. YOU GO FISHING! And that's exactly what I did yesterday. I left work a couple hours early, mumbling some goofy excuse around the would free me from my obligations for the afternoon and I headed to the river. Oh what a gorgeous day for the river too. Sunny, slight breeze, birds chirping. I encountered several pairs of drake and hen mallards along my river walk. Started things off with a Red Tag Woolly Worm. Something I haven't used on the river yet but I have used it for pan fish and its been a slammer. But after a few drifts through some usually productive pools and nothing hitting, I switched it up to the old standby. I started tying my SSS (Sand Sage Special) flies with a small gold cone on them to get a little faster sink rate and to achieve that nice head over tail turn you get with a wounded bait fish. They really seem to do the trick. After I picked off a few smaller chubs in a shallow run, I flipped the fly downstream from my position. Let it sink a second and then gave it a twitch. The fly popped upward slightly and a big silver flash followed right behind it. A nice 13 inch Republican brown came to hand after a quick fight. Very pretty fish. She had a nice silver color to her rather than that butter color that some of  the others have had. Anyway after a quick picture I wished her farewell and slipped her back into the cool clear waters of the mighty Republican creek.

The Red Tag

 Happy 2017. Not going to lie that's hard for me to say. New years always make me sad just a little. My kids are getting older, my body is getting older, things in the world are always changing. That being said I also like new years because it means that another year of hunting and fishing is upon us. So this year I have decided to undertake yet another new task. With each post I am going to try and feature a fly. Some of them will be of my own design and some of them will be tried and true patterns, and some will be Classic old styles that have fallen out of favor for newer patterns. I like old stuff personally. My deer rifle is a 1951 Savage Model 99 chambered in .300 Savage. It was my grandfathers and its from a golden age of American hunting. My favorite fly rods are made of fiberglass, a material that never got to be great before it was replaced by Space Age graphite. Though in the last 8 to 10 years it has made an amazing comeback. My favorite reels are classic Click and Pawl style reels that play to the classic trout rods they should go on. I have a soft spot for Bamboo rods as well, sadly I don't have a fondness for their price tags. Maybe that's why I like fiberglass so much. Working mans rods at working mans prices. Anyway on to the fly. This posts featured fly pattern is called the "Red Tag". Its origins come from England, mid 1800's. A time when nearly all flies were fished "Wet". Labeled as a Greyling fly the Red Tag is very simple in design. Comprised of Hook, red yarn, peacock herl, and brown hackle. The "Tag" of red yarn is tied onto the back of the hook at the bend, the peacock is then tied on and wrapped forward for the body, and the brown hackle is wrapped at the head. Simple and effective. Two words that encompass almost all good fly patterns. The pattern made its way to Australia in the late 1800's where it became more known as a dry fly beetle pattern. Tied with more herl, and hackle to give it a bushy beetle appearance. Fished wet or dry the fly is a Classic. I like to tie mine in a more traditional style. Though I like to change out the red yarn for red Zlon, which gives it a nice flashy hot spot at the end. I feel it looks like an emerging insect more than a beetle, and I like to fish it upstream on a short cast and dead drift it. But fishing it across and down on a swing is another very productive way to use it. In the winter months I will fish it with some split shot to get it deep, but its also really good to fish it dry on the surface during a hatch, or just under the surface much like a soft hackle spider. The versatility is mind blowing. So if you fancy trying something different this winter besides the same ol bead head nymph under an indicator, try tying on a red tag. I tie them in sizes from 10 to 16.

First and only post of 2016

So I'm sorry again. I haven't written anything in 2016. That doesn't mean I didn't fish. In Aug 2015 I changed jobs. Going from a Grain employee at CHS back to being a chef. I took a job at my local hospital as the head chef, and its been wonderful. In Aug 2016 I was promoted to Dietary Manager, leaving me with very little time to sit down and write entries. So just as a reminder that I am here I am going to post some pictures of the trout I caught in 2016. It was a very good year. Starting in January I hooked and landed the second largest brown trout I've ever caught in the Republican. It measured in at just over 16 inches. Then throughout the winter and spring I hooked and landed several other smaller trout. All beautiful and wild. I promise that 2017 is going to be a better year for TRRE.

The best part of catching these small fish is knowing that the population is still reproducing here. A 6-8 inch fish is only a year or so old. And the last known stocking of any brown trout in the Republican river was back in the 1960's. And that was by a private land owner. So these truly wild fish.








                                                           

And now its Summer!

So the last month and a half have just been a whirl wind. Its summer now and that means little fishing on the Republican. But not little fishing. May was sweet. After that first day of the month catching three fat bass, the rain started coming down and didn't stop for almost a whole month. So bass fishing was pretty much shot. That being said I spent a few more days on the river than normal and it paid off in spades! On the 17th I took a friend fishing who had been wanting to go with me for a while, but could never quite find the time. We set out at the Sage and for what ever reason, be it the stars aligning or just an act of god something wonderful happened. The previous weekend I saw a huge fish. Nothing like what I have ever seen before out there. At first I thought it was a decent carp. Until I saw the spots. A massive brown trout swam by me like he didn't have a care in the world. I knew if I move he would see me and be gone. So I just stood still and watched him cruise by. The following weekend I quietly snuck over to the run where I had seen him and made one cast, just upstream and right on the edge of the bank. The " Sand Sage Special" drifted right along the bank and suddenly the line paused briefly. By pure force of habit I set the hook and was connected. From under the cut bank came the big trout. He swam straight out into the current and was 20 yards downstream before I knew I had him. The fight was short but intense and before I really knew what was happing I was scooping a 19 and 1/2 inch wild brownie into the net. A truly amazing fish. After a couple pictures were taken I slipped him back into the river of which he is clearly the King. This was by far one of the most  lifting experiences in my fishing career. Very few people even fish out here. I fish it roughly 20 times a year and never dreamed of even seeing a fish like that out there. Let alone actually catching and landing one. The following weekend I took yet another friend to the republican and I managed to catch two more brownies. Neither one compared to the brute from the previous week, but they were both beautiful and wild and just as amazing. The mythical brown trout I set out to find three years ago not only exist, but some of them are true giants. The reality is that by putting my time in and learning the river and the fish in it, I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and knew what to do when the big one struck. Since then its gotten warm, and I have spent many early morning in pursuit of largemouth bass. I've taken on teaching a really neat lady that works with my wife how to fly fish. Caught some really nice fish. One bass was well over the 5lb mark which is pretty good for out here. And there is still plenty of summer left to find some bigger ones. But harvest season is almost upon me and I may not get a chance to write for a while. So until then have a safe and fish filled summer. Take a kid or a new friend with you once in a while so that they can learn what its all about. With out new generations learning and loving our sport, the future of our rivers, streams and wild fish could be rough. They need allies. And we need to fight for them