There is Hope!

Finally!

The extra day off during the Presidents Day weekend allowed me to finally head out back on the water again. Yesterday, I teamed-up with my buddy Graham to harass some trout on the South Platte, on the only not frozen solid piece of water within a reasonable drive.

We initially wanted to hike into Cheesman Canyon since we heard that even the Deckers area had ice and slush. Driving up the river we saw a lot of ice and slush, even entire sections of the river completely covered by ice and snow. We even joked that we should have brought an auger to do some ice fishing, still hoping we would fine some water that's not "on the rocks".

When we got to Denver around 9.30am, the river was slush free and we decided that we probably should spend time fishing instead of hiking into the canyon.

We pulled all the way up to just below the cable, separating the public section from the private property of the Wigwam fishing club.

It was a beautiful but cold day, even my net froze to my waders. But it was a spectacular and beautiful day, there was just a bit of a snow blanket from the night before that covered the ground, rocks, hills, tress with a white sparkly blanket.

The water was extremely low and clear. I consider 150cfs a healthy flow but since the end of January, it was barely 40cfs. The fish of course were wary. We could see pods of a dozen and more fish not even a rod lengths from us. They could see us, too. The only chance to catch them was to present a fly from behind a obstacle where they could not see you prior to your presentation.

While walking upstream I was able to find some cover behind some brush and cast just forward of two feeding fish. The first fish ignored my offerings but the next fish up took the first drift of my Killer Bug1 I managed to finally hook and land one of the elusive winter trout, a chubby rainbow trout measuring 17". The moment I hooked the fish I also realized that my camera was still in the car. Too bad as this fish was a beauty.

I managed to hook 2 more fish, a 13" rainbow I was able to land and a bigger one that actually chased my fly, took it, and continued running downstream and broke off.

next time I need to remembe tohave the camera on me when I catch the big one!

Looks like I finally shook the winter skunk off...