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.