The Big Sky of South Park Over the Dream Stream

The big sky of South Park over the Dream Stream. (Picture taken by my friend Cody, manager of Anglers Covey Fly Shop).

We knew the big fish were not up from 11 mile reservoir but that also meant the crowds were not here yet. Why fish anywhere else when we could wander the meanders of the Dream Stream in relative solitude, in search of big trout under such a surreal sky?

The sky teaches me that I am not all that important and my all too often demanding ego can settle down.  Feeling small allows me to simply wander, consider my insignificant place among the natural world and to not even care about catching fish.

Why would I want to hold up my small catch (of any fish, no matter how big) against this vast sky?

Dream Stream: Sometimes a Man Needs to Keep Walking

Below is a revised re-post from two years ago when I learned the value of being willing to walk in search of big fish. It is that time of year already as some big fish are moving up out of 11 mile reservoir into the Dream Stream. Below are a few thoughts on the mindset of the big fish hunter.  A.S

Sometimes a man has to just keep walking. Such was the case when I found myself on the "Dream Stream" section of the South Platte River in South Park. I had to keep walking along the meanders on down toward 11 mile reservoir looking for a hole or run to fish in between the crowds. I carried 2 rods rigged and ready,  in case I found an opening; in case I spotted a big fish. However,  I never saw a big fish. I never found a good run. With the Platte flowing at a trickle of 50 cfs., I simply could not find good holding water not already occupied. Fly fishers were holding tight to whatever water they could find and were not budging.

At the inlet to 11 mile reservoir, I turned around, and started walking back up the river. I did see some small fish in marginal thin water, but I kept walking. I did not make a single cast.  I was not interested in casting to small fish. This is the dream stream, home to big trout and I had big fish on the brain. I was being as selective as big fish can sometimes act.  

When stalking big fish it helps to have this mindset of refusing to cast to smaller fish. It helps if you can be willing to catch nothing in hope of waiting for that one big fish. Why fool around with little fish and waste time? Better to keep walking. Better to keep searching. Keep waiting.

However, it takes a certain kind of nerve to be willing to report back to your friends that you caught nothing. It takes a certain kind of nerve to be ok within one's self not catching a fish. How much easier it is on the ego, at least to be able to say, "I got a few small ones."  Yet, this is what the big fish hunter must be willing to do. You have to be willing to "get skunked." And this too is part of the mind set of being a big fish hunter.

This is why it is better to go alone when fishing for big game. When you go with others, we often get wrapped up in the need to catch something as we forever try to measure up to one another.  We can become desperate and focus on catching something; anything, so we do not look bad. Have we not all felt this way while fishing in a group?  We start thinking, "I can't be the only one who did not catch a fish," and so, losing our focus, we start casting to small fish.   Better to stalk big fish alone, unconcerned about the demands of the ego that often takes us off course.

This is why it is better to not even tell anyone you are going. When your friends and family know you are fishing you then have to "give a report," of how the fishing went when you return.  In some sense that fishing report makes you not alone. While you fishing you are already writing the fishing report in your head, complete with excuses and distortions and that report will influence how you fish. On the other hand, to tell no one you have gone, is to truly fish alone and be free from their influence and the pressures we place upon ourselves and our egos.

This is why, on this particular day, I was free to  keep walking the Dream Stream.  I was alone and I had told no one. I was able to keep walking and willing to hold out for what I was truly seeking. If need be, I was willing to get skunked for that cause. I was willing to keep walking with knowing I might catch nothing. I was willing to not even make a single cast until I found a run that might hold one big fish.

It was after taking a two hour walk and when I was just about all the way back to the parking lot, that I noticed 3 gentlemen leaving the gauging station hole just below the county road bridge. I stepped in the tail out of the hole. Before casting, I thought about my long walk. I guess that was all I had done for the past two hours. I had gone for a nice walk along the Dream Stream looking for a fish that forever lives in my dreams.

No one was with me. No one knew I had even gone. I was free to not catch a fish. I did not have to report to anyone. I did not even have to make a single cast.

It was in that freedom that I made my first cast of the morning. It was in that deep, dark, and mysterious hole that the big Brown took the small red midge and I felt the pull of a great fish.

I found what I was looking for.  Sometimes a man has to just keep walking.

The Mainstream: Willing to Walk

I have most often been somewhat leery of the mainstream. If the crowds at school were all telling me I needed to try this or that, I was skeptical. I often walked away and found my own quiet place. This approach in life extends into my fly-fishing. 

If it seems that everyone is fishing a particular mainstream run I tend to shy away from such places. Of course, I know there are lots of fish in the popular holes and while guiding, I often feel a need to put my clients in these mainstream runs. Yet, when I am willing to wander from the mainstream, often I find nice fish holding in unlikely water. I learn to fish and live on the edges. I just have to be willing to walk.

This winter I spent $600.00 on a Summit County Ski Pass so I can ski the wide "main-stream" runs of Breckenridge, Keystone and Arapaho Basin. Yet, how strange that while I am skiing among the masses on these beautiful runs, I find myself looking for narrow, quiet little runs through the trees. Once again, I tend to slip away from the noisy crowds. I just have to be willing to walk a little.

I know of other fly-fishers who also have this approach to fly-fishing. I guess we are looking for a quiet narrow tumbling stream that we can call our own and offers us a true sense of belonging and solitude.

Sometimes we just have to be willing to walk. 

Winter FlyTying

My friend Scott Hartwig and I enjoy tying flies on a cold winter day while sipping on hot coffee and reminiscing of past days on the river. We look forward to warmer days ahead and what flies might work. I must admit, this is one of my favorite winter activities. Of course there is a time to brave the elements;  hit the river or to ski the slopes but sometimes it is nice to just sit, keep warm, and talk about life, in one of the local coffee shops. Tying flies is part of the ritual and the preparation of fly fishing.

Fly Fishing Deckers In Mid-January

It was cold with snow flurries but not as cold as last week when a friend said there was ice all the way across the river!  I was hopeful that the winter weather would keep other anglers home. I was wrong. I looked up river to the cable hole and I saw eight anglers. I looked down stream and saw 3 anglers. We were lucky to be in the parking lot hole and have some space. Hard to believe it was so busy on a mid-January morning.

. 

We found the fish willing to take a variety of midges. To me, there really is not a lot of true science to fly selection while on the South Platte River in the winter. Midges, midges midges. There was no "secret fly."  Black, red, white, olive. They all worked and none of them worked. Some with beads and some without.  When none of them worked, we went smaller;  22-26 hook sizes.

The South Platte River in Solid Form

It is a bit strange to look at the snow, or even ski or snow shoe on the snow, that will become the South Platte River. How strange to see the river in solid form; beautiful yet life-less, at the source.

Stranger still to look farther out into the clouds that seem to merge with the mountains. I think of a line from the book of Job, "Have you seen my storehouses of snow?"  I ask myself, Are these the storehouses of snow or are they still farther out, beyond the gray? 

The melting will begin soon forming rivulets moving down from the highest mountains, that will join and form the river that we will fish. How strange to be at the beginning of the river. It is quiet up here. Downstream, the noise has already begun. Fly-fishers, such as myself, looking for a hole to fish. I think I will sit here for a while; just a little while longer, and enjoy the quiet solitude. 

Snow pack is already exceeding normal levels. I try to picture what kind of a river we will be standing in and fishing in June.  We have had some dry years and the fires but we have also had some flood years. What will this year bring?

For now, I will imagine the fish moving under the snow.

The Year in Review: Guiding the South Platte 2016

What a busy year of guiding!  I am so grateful we had fabulous fishing on the South Platte, from the Dream Stream, down to 11 mile canyon, Cheesman Canyon and down through Deckers,  to provide fulfilling fly fishing experiences to fabulous clients.

I was most impressed with the willingness of folks to “get out” and fly-fish; many for the first time. As a guide of almost 30 years, and an educator of 31 years, I think it is healthy for us, both kids and adults, at least at times, to find our way to a river.  We need a break from the madness of our culture and the madness of our lives. Too many of us remain “stuck” on our couches, and rarely encounter nature.

How wonderful it was to take many folks fly-fishing who were looking for a reprieve.  On the river, we talked about why the fish took the fly on one cast but not another, and countless other questions we might encounter, while dealing with an ever changing set of conditions on the river.  We also talked about life.  I remember many great conversations with folks about hopes and dreams, along with some heartache that is also often a part of life.  These intense feelings often have a way of surfacing like the emerging mayflies and perhaps the river is the best place to talk of such things.

As we casted in the river, my clients were willing to consider what would increase our chances of catching a fish. We tried to consider every variable under the sun; from accurate casting, to proper drift and the right fly, to knowing how to play a fish once hooked. We constantly problem solved. Sometimes we solved the problem and caught a fish and sometimes we did not.

We often considered psychological factors. Does it help to stay positive and hopeful? Did it help to believe we were going to hook a fish? Did it help to pray? It was so exciting and rich for me to stand with folks in the river and together, while working on fly-fishing technique to contemplate these questions which, at the same time, are probably also the bigger questions of life.  

And then how almost magical it was, even when we might have been doing everything less than perfect, and we couldn’t see a fish within the stretch of water we were fishing, and I, even as a guide was not very hopeful, a large fish found its way onto the line and was suddenly pulling out line.

Perhaps, in that moment, we were “receiving the river’s grace,” and we caught something and took home something that could never be counted, measured, or photographed.

What a great season of guiding and catching the immeasurable.