Beginner Fly Fishers Have An Experience It is Difficult for A Guide to Match.

I feel it every time I guide a first time fly fisher or a beginner or a child. They catch a fish and the thrill is something I cannot match. It is difficult for me to "guide" myself back to those early, innocent child like experiences.

T.S. Eliot implies that to "return to the place we started and to feel that place for the first time," is the goal of our exploration. "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring shall be to return to the place we started and to know the place for the first time."

 I wish it were easier to return. I wish I could feel what I once felt for the first time. What did that first fish feel like pulling on the line?

Perhaps, I can feel it, only in part, when I help a child or a beginner. 

Between "Ten and One" in Eleven Mile Canyon

Between "ten and one" is not a casting instruction. It is the inconsistency of fishing in the canyon right now. One day a beginner client, will land 10 fish but then the very next day, another client might only land one. I would like to blame it on inconsistent flows but I would hardly call the fluctuations extreme. The flow is consistently high. Fishing should be more consistent but often fish don't follow the established principles. The quality of fishing feels more like a "roll of the dice" or as we might say of a sporting event, "Depends on who shows up today."  Lately, I have been wondering what fish are going to show up for the game. Yesterday it was brown after brown; this morning it was only a rainbow. Ten browns to one rainbow, to be exact. "Ten and one."

Bugs are hatching: Tricos, PMD's and caddis, midges, but surface feeding is also inconsistent varying from place to place in the canyon. Some of the flatter water on the edges seems to produce rising fish but with the canyon flowing as high as it is, flat water is in short supply.  In the "raging" sections we are not seeing much surface activity because in a trouts mind, it is not worth moving through the heavy water column to inhale a bug that provides only a micro calorie of energy. It is just too much work and somehow trout can do the math. But if you do see rising fish or water that looks like it would be good, try an "Amy's Ant," trailing a small (size 22) parachute Adams or a trico spinner or a PMD emerger. 

Trout in the heavier water will lay low and feed on all the nymphs, larvae, drowned trico spinners and annelids getting washed down along the bottom. So, nymphing with double/triple fly rigs with a strike indicator and heavy weight is the way to go. Make sure you adjust the strike indicator high up on the leader to allow the flies to drift along the bottom. Bring two rods, one rigged for drys and one with nymphs.Gray and black RS2's size 24 seem to work best.

Who knows what kind of day you will have and how many fish you might catch. Somewhere between ten and one. Depends on who shows up. Good that you are at least showing up.

Eleven Mile Canyon South Platte River Slowly Dropping: Fish Found On Edges

Its hard to move around and fish 11 Mile Canyon because the water is still high but we are finding fish along the edges, behind boulders, islands and logs jams. San Juan Worms, sparkle wing RS2's, PMD emergers, caddis emergers, red Copper John's, are all taking fish. Some fish are rising to Tricos and a parachute adams is sufficient.

This kind of fishing in heavy flows (900 plus CFS.) is hard work. The banks can be slick and I have taken a few spills. I feel beat up after a morning of fishing. One has to hug the bank but then the willows often get in the way of our casting. And of course hooking a big fish that takes off in the main current can mean trouble. Expect to go through a lot of flies as the bottom has many sticks buried under the rocks and sand that results in snags.

In spite of all these obstacles there are fish to be caught. Wade carefully!!!

I must admit, it is kind of interesting to see such a raging, free flowing river racing to the sea. In the past 32 years,  I have never seen the river this high. 

Still Waters Run Deep

There is some thing about a still water that runs deep. We see the glassy surface and watch a fish come up from the depths to take a fly. All is calm. We strip a fly through those calm waters and suddenly feel a strong pull.  From within this stillness and calm place, a fish strikes. We may  also feel "some-thing"  tug on our hearts deep down. Still waters run deep.

As a child, I first learned to fly fish at a small pond. There was some thing about those still waters that I felt deep inside and wanted to understand. There is more that goes on below the surface of our lives. Still waters run deep.  

We may say of a quiet individual, "still waters run deep," when we finally hear how that person feels deeply and thinks about life. Sometimes I sadly think that individuals with deep still waters of the soul are becoming more and more rare. It seems that as a society we talk loudly, quickly and without depth. We pontificate. Blah, blah, blah. "How public like a frog."   Many of our rivers we visit have become loud places rather than still places to contemplate.

So, while the Platte remains high I have enjoyed some time on our still waters hoping to feel once again "some-thing" that runs deep and quiet in my soul. Still waters run deep.  And sometimes beneath those still waters a rainbow might rise.