The South Platte is racing through
the town of Deckers flowing over
500 CFS. A real river. Real fish. Strong fish. A river that if you take a
tumble you are going for a ride. It holds the kind of big fish that only come out when the river is high and wild.
None of this fishing off the tip of your rod with fine 6x tippet and a mico-shot. Nothing of
weak and tame fish that come by your feet when you hook them. In these heavy flows the
fish go ballistic and race wildly with the heavy water down stream. Standing in
one spot and trying to pull these fish upstream against the current will not
do. You have to get up on the bank and and run down after them.
Such was the case when I took a father and his two sons to
fish the Platte just upstream of Deckers. The river was
raging. It was clear but, even as a guide, it looked
intimidating.
Kelly, the father, was a big strong guy. When he was younger he benched 425. As a
baseball player he would step up to the plate, not take the first pitch as my
Dad had taught me, but would swing away and often drive the ball deep into the
gaps if not out of the park. No messing around. Step up and swing away.
And this is exactly what he and his boys did on the South
Platte. I guess the boys had learned it from watching Dad. Step up
and swing. No messing around. Step up to the river and swing.. Cast, drift, set the hook and move.
Dad was fond of saying about raising kids, fly fishing and in life in general, “They will figure it out”. And they did.
I had left Dad downstream by the island. He would explore on
his own. I would work with the boys up river. But before I could even catch up to
the boys and show them anything about where to cast, one of them was chasing a big rainbow
downstream tripping over rocks, losing his balance, falling here and there. But he kept moving. Two hundred yards
downstream we netted a large rainbow that had taken a brown San
Juan worm.
And then another, and another, and another. I think we
netted 5-6 big rainbows (and one brown). Most took the worm. One on a PMD
nymph.
After a while, Kelly came up with his leader in his hand.
The flies had been stripped off. He was a bit out of breath. He had a stunned
look on his face perhaps similar to one of the few times he got caught looking as a pitcher had thrown a
fast ball down and away to strike him out. Maybe there had been a few times
when he just could not see that low and away fastball coming.
He did not see this fish coming. Earlier he had landed a
nice chunky 16 inch rainbow. But this fish that stripped him of his two flies
was “nothing in comparison”. He would add, “Twice as big as the one I caught”. I asked, “How big”? He opened his
hands to over 2 feet long. I said, “Twenty-five inches”? He said, “At least”.
He would tell us, “I thought I was snagged so I kept yanking it
trying to get it to come lose when all of a sudden the water exploded.” Several times through out the morning I would ask him again, "So, is it still your testimony that this fish was at least twenty-five inches"? Each time, "Yes", was all he responded.
Kelly is a Judge. He seems fair minded. Good sense of right
and wrong. Likes to tell the truth. Hates lies.
I believed him. I don’t think this is so much because he is
a judge. But rather it is just who he is as a person. I could sense this guy was not one to
mess around. Not one to tell stories. And I will never forget how he was shaking a bit when he put his
hands out to show me how big the fish was.
Kelly caught a few more nice fish with the boys. But, two times
he walked back down to the island where he had hooked the big fish. He wanted another shot at
it. I could tell he was thinking, “Maybe this time I will drive that low and
away fast ball off the right center field wall”. And I think he would have if he had been given the chance.
But he would not be granted this next at bat. No sign of the
great fish. But, I think Kelly and his boys will be back next year to step up
to this real river with real fish and swing away.
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