Eleven Mile Canyon Fly Fishing Report: You Know the Fishing is Good When You Go 0-4! Trico Madness

 

The large Cutthroat was about 400 meters above the double tunnels. I have seen it before. He laid in a run on the far side of the river up against a rectangular shaped rock. For those of you who know the area, this run is right across from what my friend Greg calls the “whale rock”.  The fish was sipping on trico spinners in the foam line totally unconcerned that my client and I were right upon him dropping our trico imitation in the foam line. My client did a great job of putting the fly on top of him and the fish took the fly but the fish managed to get free after several seconds. We dropped the fly in again and once again the fish took the fly and once again shook his head a few times breaking free. This scenario played out the same way a total of 4 times and it all took place in only several minutes. We were zero for four with this fish.

It was a bit comical. I usually brag about how smart and finicky the fish of South Platte River can be but with this fish I kind of poked fun of it for taking the fly 4 times in the row and not learning. However I have noticed over the decades that the Trico hatch can bring about some strange feeding patterns in trout. The fish go nuts for these tiny bugs because there are so many of them. And since they are so tiny the fish have to eat a lot of them to get any nutrition. So, they gorge and gorge, selectively on this tiny bug, yet sometimes lacking caution. The fish get so caught up in the rhythm of feeding that they will sometimes take an artificial fly again and again. Years ago, one day on the dream stream, I once caught a rainbow that had 4 flies broken off in his mouth (and they were all my own hand tied flies that my client had broken off that morning).

As my client and I kind of laughed at this fish we wondered if the fish was laughing at us. My client reminded me of that comical definition of insanity; Of doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting different results.

But regardless of who was laughing at who the fishing sure is good when you go 0-4!