The last month has been challenging. Everywhere I have attempted to fish has
either been high and fast with this season’s runoff, or low and stagnate due to
the drought that was experienced throughout the year. It has made finding a nice place to cast a
line difficult to say the least. However,
with enough perseverance and a good understanding of the flows that are occurring
right now, a fly angler can still find a stretch of river just right for some trout
action.
This weekend, Connor and I took a look at the Blue
River. Now this has never been one of my
favorite places to fish as I have always found most of the area crowded or
worse, devoid of feeding trout large enough to inspire me to hang around. This feeling was compounded once we took a
good look at the conditions on Sunday.
Most of the river between the Dillon Res and Green Mountain was dark and
experiencing a pretty quick runoff.
After seeing this, we headed toward Kremmling, but found the water there
low and only sluggishly moving as it entered the Colorado. Green Mountain Reservoir being so low, those
in charge would clearly only be allowing the bare minimum of water to be released
down river. The only saving grace this day was the tail
water of Green Mountain Reservoir. While
conditions there were questionable at its 73cfs flow, the water was clear and
we could see the beginning of a BWO hatch starting to form.
It didn’t take long, once we found our first pool, to hook
into some larger rainbows and browns. Staying hidden on the opposite side of a
faster run, we were able to trick a few hefty trout to our lines with the RS2
and a Pheasant Tail Nymph. While the
bottom was pretty much covered in sludge, if you managed to adjust your dropper
about 2 to 4 inches from the bottom, it was easy to keep a nice drift and reduce
the amount of casts that would end with you needing to clean your flies.
