1984 Fly Fishing; How Good Was The Fishing On The South Platte's 'Dream Stream' ?

 In George Orwell’s “1984” novel describing a dystopian society the main character Winston Smith is fascinated with what the past was really like. In his society all historical records have been fabricated and altered so he does not know what is true and what is propaganda.  Yet, Winston has “some kind of ancestral memory” of life being different and through out the story he seeks to know the truth.

In the novel, Winston seeks out an older gentleman and says, “You are very much older that I am. You must have been a grown man before I was born. You can remember what it was like in the old days. People of my age don’t really know anything about those times. We can only read about them in books, and what it says in the books may not be true. I should like your opinion on that”. 

As much as I hate to admit it, I am now one  of those older gentlemen who remembers what the fishing was like back in “1984”, or, if not specifically1984, then at least during  the 80’s and 90’s . And like Winston I too am seeking the opinion of others who may remember.

I can say with relative certainty that I have not seen the 'dream stream' as good as it was in those early years. Every run and riffle had dozens of large fish rising to tricos, caddis, PMD’s and midges. During the trico hatches it seemed as though the whole river was covered with hundreds and hundreds of rises. I don’t think I am distorting the past. I am sad as I remember. And I wonder what went wrong.   

As I lament the “good old days” for the dream stream I also think about what I can learn from this loss. Perhaps the most important issue is to know that there are no guarantees in regard to any high quality trout fishery. Just because a fishery is catch and release does not mean it will last forever. Tremendous pressure is placed upon our high quality waters.  While I do believe catch and release is our present day best solution and strategy for helping maintain a high quality fishery it is not the perfect solution. In my opinion more is needed to relieve the fishing pressure from the masses of fly fishers who hook and handle fish every day on such a river as the dream stream.

What can we do?  I think the first thing we need to do is to remember and lament what we lost.  Like Winston in 1984,  I ask older folks what they remember. What do you remember about the dream stream?  Then and only then can we figure out a way to bring it back.

Twenty Minutes

William Butler Yates describes in prose how for twenty minutes he felt overwhelming happiness. He felt it in his body while on the street he gazed;

My body of a sudden blazed;

And twenty minutes more or less

It seemed so great my happiness.

The poet waits 50 plus years to feel such happiness and apparently it came out of almost nowhere. It was while sitting alone in a crowded shop with an empty cup and open book and looking down the street.

“My fiftieth year had come and gone

I sat a solitary man,

In a crowded London shop,

An open book and empty cup

On the marble table top.”

The happiness was of such a great intensity that his “body blazed” and gave him the awareness that he could now bless others. There was something different about this happiness experienced. It was more than merely, “having fun” or merely “being happy” or being grateful or even being joyful. He felt blessed to the point that he then wanted to bless others.

Perhaps it is most interesting  that he describes this blaze of awareness taking place for only “Twenty minutes”. I immediately want to ask, “Huh. That’s it?  For twenty minutes”? You waited 50 years for twenty minutes of happiness?

“Why only twenty minutes”?  

And to complicate matters even more, I don’t think the poet means twenty minutes a day or a week or a month or even a year. I think in regard to a  blaze of happiness that can  then be a true blessing to others he means twenty minutes for his life time.

So, now as a reader you may want to ask, “Are you saying that we are only granted twenty minutes of happiness in our life time”?

To which I would have to answer, “Perhaps; Or, at least perhaps  for this type of happiness.”

When I honestly examine my own life of 50 plus years (as my fiftieth year has also come and gone), I would have to agree with the poet. It has been about twenty minutes of feeling that blaze.

There have been those moments of blaze, sometimes when  I have taught a young person to catch a trout for the first time and it was a blessing for both of us.  Twenty minutes. 

Unexplainable Common Ground On the South Platte River

“Do you fold your pizza”,  my client Jerry asked me as he was trying to get a good drift with his tiny dry fly?  He had spent a good part of his life in N.Y.   I had just let him know that I grew up in New Jersey and how I sometimes missed good pizza. So we talked about thin crust N.Y style pizza in contrast to doughy pizza.

We immediately had common ground.

I found the question a bit humorous. Here we were with his son standing in the middle of the South Platte River in Eleven Mile Canyon, trico mayflies and BWO’s  were all over the river, and fish were rising everywhere.   We were trying to tackle one of the most artistic and technical aspects of fly fishing: The presentation of the dry fly; a delicate task that demands all of our engagement and skill.  And he asks me if I fold my pizza.

I thought of the questions many of my beginner clients of the past ask me during such a hatch. Questions such as;  “So, how long do these mayflies live”?   Or, “How do the fish see such small flies”?  Or, “How am I suppose to see the fly”. Or, “How can you even see that thing to tie it on”? Or, time and time again, I hear, “I drifted the fly right over the fish why did he ignore it”?

Just then his son Robert yelled up from down stream that he had another one on. And he did, a nice Brown that was peeling out line and heading downstream over boulders.

Some where in the middle of this discussion on pizza Jerry caught a nice fish on a black and white parachute trico, and then another and another. And Robert got several more. Somewhere in between netting fish,  we also found out that we shared a common faith.

More common ground:  We shared in the common experience of how to delicately lay a tiny dry fly over a trout with a down and across ‘reach mend” cast and watch the fish rise. Surely, this is one of the marvels of fly fishing and requires a hope that is not so explainable.

The marvel of catching a rainbow or brown trout on a tiny dry fly is one of those things that simply cannot be explained. It has to be experienced in the same way that a perfect slice of pizza has to be folded.

Finally, I just told Jerry, “Of course I fold my pizza”.  

Don’t ask me to explain.

Funny how some times the simple things bond us and makes me feel “back home” or perhaps already  in the “home to come.”

Cheesman Canyon Challenge: Fishing Edges

While my client Bob and I were walking the gill trail to drop into Cheesman Canyon he said, “It is worth it just to come here and walk this trail and see the river below”.  It was a beautiful image indeed; Walking on the narrow trail along the edge of the canyon with the boulder spewed river below glistening in the morning light. 

I was somewhat relieved by Bob’s comment thinking in my mind, “Well, if we don’t do very well fishing at least he is enjoying the scenery”,  knowing that Cheesman Canyon can be tough and  a bit less predictable in terms of success. I have had good fly fishing buddies of mine get skunked in the canyon or sometimes just  get a fish or two in the net. I had no idea how Bob and I were going to do.

Bob had fished the South Platte before. He had fished 11 mile quite often and done well. He was looking for a greater challenge. “I would like a chance at some bigger fish. I would like to try Cheesman”, he said. . He wanted the Cheesman challenge and was willing to take the risk.  

I knew I couldn’t back down from the challenge. We were committed.  

As I often do when I venture into Cheeseman I tried to prep Bob saying,  “These fish are as wild as trout get in the West. No stocking is done here. The Canyon has a self sustaining population of rainbows and browns that have survived for decades. These are fish that have survived the fires and mudslides, floods and droughts, and thousands upon thousands of fishermen trying to hook them.  They are wary. They are tough. They are educated. They have seen it all. We will have to work for them.”

When I think of what makes Cheesman trout so tough to catch is how they live on the edges. It seems these fish live on the edges even more so than trout in other places. These fish love to hide and feed on seam lines. They love those edges where two different current speeds and often two different depths lay side by side and form a “line”, a “seam line, an edge.   It seems to me that I  just don’t catch that many fish right in the middle of the main runs. They want to be on an edge and so I knew Bob would have to find good natural drifts on those seam lines.

We started working in the upper “ice box” hole. Then quickly, a rare event for Cheesman Canyon; Bob hooked a large Rainbow on his third cast. The fish was right where we knew it would be; on a seam line. The fish went catapulting down river before throwing the size 24 sparkle wing RS2. Bob asked, “What did I do wrong? What could I have done”?  I said, “Nothing, this is what makes this place so wonderful and challenging”.  And it was.

We worked both sides of the “Ice box” hole moving up and down, across and back again. We rested fish and came back to them. We worked on good drifts and good high stick nymphing techniques. We hit those seem lines hard and were rewarded with a good number of fish hooked, fought and landed and just as many lost. We fished the edges and also at times dared to add more weight to get the fly down. I explained how that is another “edge” one has to approach in the canyon. You have to be willing to take a chance and risk hanging up in order to hook fish. And it seemed that every time we added a tiny bit more of weight we hooked up.

The rainbows and Browns took mainly the RS2 but we also took 3 fish on the brown San Juan worm. We also took a few on a black midge that was probably taken as a trico as there were fish actively feeding on tricos. At times the fishing seemed to go dead only to turn on again.

It was a wonderful day and I was thankful for being able to take the chance with Bob to fish the edges of Cheesman canyon.

Waiting At Deckers; But Rewarded 8/17/2013

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Often fly fishing is about waiting and that seems to be the case at Deckers lately. One just has to pay their dues and keep working the river. But when you do hook a fish your are often rewarded with a  healthy fish of good size. "It is all in the waiting". 

August Trico Hatches On the South Platte River: Trying to Fool Seasoned Finicky Trout

T.S Eliot starts his poem “The Waste Land” with these words, “April is the cruelest month, mixing memory with desire”.

If I wrote this poem about fly fishing the South Platte I might say that August is the cruelest month. August has often been a tough time of year to fish. The fish have been fished over by the summer crowds, the spring crowds and even the late winter crowds. The fish have grown wary and ultra selective. We might think back of memories of easy fish caught in the winter and spring time on nymphs and we look ahead with desire for the cooler and less crowed  months of Autumn.

Late summer is trico time. In fact it is predominantly trico time, therefore the fish seem to really key in on this one bug. Again, this results in ultra selectivity. I have found that during August the effectiveness of nymphing (which for many is far easier than dry fly fishing) diminishes significantly. I can show up on the river bright and early and think I am going to catch all kinds of fish on nymphs only to be disappointed. Over the years, during the month of August, I am fond saying, “It seems that these fish are just sitting around waiting for the big trico spinner fall”.  And that may indeed be the case. The fish become conditioned to this daily ritual and so it seems they wait for it to happen. When it happens the fish go crazy earning a living by feeding on hundreds and hundreds of tiny tricos.  It is the one significant time frame, the window of opportunity, for us to catch the fish off guard. And for the most part we have to fish dry flies. The fish are looking up.

So, what is the fly fisher to do?  I would suggest that we “play their game”.  I would go to the river rigged with two dry fly rods with different combinations of dry flies and wait for it to happen. There is nothing wrong with standing on the edge of the river and just looking around for bugs and rising fish. Just watch and wait. Don’t nymph fish. You will just postpone the event by putting the fish down.  

There are many different types of trico imitations. I don’t think the exact imitation is all that important. As long as it is small, floats and is presented properly (and hopefully you can see it) you can fool trout. The best techniques seem to involve reach mend casts and parachute casts where by you present the “fly first” to the fish.  These casts take some practice.

When the hatch and spinner fall is over, I would go home and take a nap. Give the fish a rest. August can be a bit cruel on the fish as well.

So, while August may be a bit cruel it is a great time for fly fishers to take afternoon naps.

Glorious Trico Hatches On The South Platte River: Not Caring To Catch

"Teach us to care and to not care"  T.S Eliot

I know the fishing and the trico hatch is glorious when my clients are standing  in the river and looking around in awe at all the bugs shimmering in the air and all the fish rising all over the water. And they just stand there for a moment.  Mesmerized.  Perhaps, several minutes.

Sometimes then something wonderful happens as we are watching this glorious natural phenomenon.  It seems that the fly fishers do not care as much to actually catch the fish.  They don’t care about counting fish landed. Oh, don’t get me wrong, depending on the person, most folks want to catch some fish. But after a while, what seems most  important is to just be a part of it all and do more watching.  And while we are looking around of course we are often  still trying to drift our little imitations among the naturals, using our best technique and tricks, to get a rise out of a trout. We might  hook a fish, let it run  and then let it shake the hook free. This process of making the presentation, watching the fish rise to the fly,  seems to offer enough satisfaction.

I often tell my clients that for me, 99% of it is to simply make a nice cast with one of my own hand tied flies, get a great drift,  watch the fish rise and then momentarily hook the fish. I often ask, “Do we really need to land the fish”?

And the answer I always have inside me is, “Not during such a glorious hatch and rise of fish. It is enough to be part of it all and to have fooled a fish". 

These two young boys below who were first time fly fishers were lucky enough to land fish but at the same time did not seem to care about the ones that got away. It was enough. They were a part of it all.