A 'Not So Secret' Place On the South Platte River

How to Avoid the Crowds on the South Platte at Deckers?

Question: So, how do you avoid the crowds at Deckers? 
Answer: Go during a spring snowstorm.
Next question: How was the fishing? Answer: Good.  
What were they biting on?  San Juan worm and a gray RS2 (same old flies).
How do you keep warm? Answer:  We didn't.The snow came down harder and harder.
Was it fun? Answer: Not sure.
Was it worth it? Answer: Yes, because I went with my friend Gary Karbo and he is one of the best men around.
How do you get home alive? Leave while you can.
So, we did. 

Dream Stream Fly Fishing: Being Willing to Just Keep Walking (Mind set for a big fish)

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 that was not already occupied. Fly fishers were holding tight to whatever water they could find and were not budging.

At the mouth 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. It was I who was being as selective as big fish can sometimes act.  

When stalking big fish it helps to have this mind set 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 just keep walking. Better to just keep searching.

However, it takes a certain kind of nerve to report back to your friends that you caught nothing. It takes a certain kind of nerve to be ok within one's self with not catching a fish. How much easier it is on the ego to at least 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".

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 thing." Or, maybe the people we are fishing with have not caught anything and now we have to help them. Better to stalk big fish alone unconcerned.

This is why it is even better to not 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.  In some sense that fishing report you know you have to give makes you not alone. While you are fishing you are already writing the fishing report in your head 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 I was free to just 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 be getting skunked. I was willing to not even make a single cast until I found a run that might hold a big fish.

It was then, when I was just about all the way back to the parking lot, that 3 gentlemen left the gauging station hole just below the county road bridge. I stepped in the tail out of the hole after  taking a two hour 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 fish that live in my dreams. No one was with me. No one knew I had even gone. I was free to not catch a fish and 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.

I was alone. I had told no one. There was no need to catch anything at all. I just wanted to go for a walk and day dream of big fish and sometimes, even in dream we feel the pull of a great fish.

I found what I was looking for by just walking. 

Eleven Mile Canyon: Snow Falls As Fish Rise on the South Platte River

It still feels like winter in Eleven Mile Canyon. Deep snow still covers the north facing wall of the Canyon. Parts of the road are covered in ice. Cold wind whips down the canyon from South Park carrying snow.  Huge slabs of ice and snow cover large sections of the river. But, up closer to the dam, in the open waters, life stirs.

Midges: Some fly fishers call them "snow flies."  I don't care much for proper entomology. All I know is that while I guiding three gentlemen, as the snow was falling, the fish were rising to these tiny creatures as vigorous as a trico hatch on a July morning. With cold, feeble hands, we cast and caught fish after fish.

The midges were tiny. Perhaps a size 30. We did not have to fish flies that small as they were willing to take our 24's and 26's. Midges, midges, midges.  Red ones, black, tan or gray. With beads and with out. It did not matter. Dry flies, nymphs, emergers. A variation of a Rojo red midge size 24 and our old standby gray sparkle wing RS2 worked as well as anything.

We stood as out of place as a snow storm in the middle of summer. This winter snow fly hatch continued most of the afternoon. The snow fell and blew all around. Or were they bugs? It did not matter. The fish rose, even as something also rose up inside of us. Awakened from our winter slumber

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Fly Fishing In March on The South Platte River

March is one of my favorite months to fly-fish and be in the mountains. It is a month in transition and of "considerable frustration" as Winter and Spring spar for a hold on the land. It can be sunny and warm, "With the breath of April stirring"  and yet a storm seemingly always looms, not too far away, threatening to unload blankets of snow.

Rainbows are feeling the urge to move upstream and reproduce and then to feed in the warming waters. Early spring insects such as B.W.O's and midges are stirring. March is the time when the river almost calls me to fish.

"With Spring in the air, a mild March afternoon, . . . I am alone in the quiet, looking for some old untried illusion- some memory asleep."  Antonio Machado

And within myself, something still sleeping, stirs.

Getting A Rise: From a Fish Or the Millions of Snow flakes

Some people fly fish to get a rise. Some get a rise only by fishing a dry fly; Others, only by stalking big fish.

Skiers can get a rise from a steep slope blanketed in deep powder.  Some just like the experience of a quiet walk in the woods on snow shoes. There are many ways people can interact in nature and feel "some-thing" profound.

I try to change up my outdoor activities. During those beautiful Colorado days of bright warm sun I love to fish. I love summer days on the river when a million Mayflies are hatching all over the water and fish are going crazy. Of course, some of us know that even in winter, fly fishing can be phenomenal.

However, this past week with the frigid temperatures and persistent snow falls I am back on my skis. I had just about given up the hope that it would ever snow again along the front range and then this series of storms hit.  Skiing on new pure white snow that blankets the Earth does something for me.  I would imagine a person could get the same feeling of "some-thing" profound by partaking in any number of outdoor activities. I just prefer to ski.  And I prefer to ski close to home. I skied today in upper Crystal Park gliding on untouched snow that was 3 feet deep. That sensation gave me a rise.

What do we mean when we say, "We get a rise" out of something? This can mean many things to different people and I respect each persons unique experience. I would like to share what I think it means to me. For me to get a rise out of something means that I have a slight change or rise in consciousness. I think and feel differently and hopefully I live a little better because of that experience. If nothing else I am in a better mood and that is "some-thing".

Sometimes when in the middle of a snowstorm and I am gliding through the woods and the millions of snow flakes are falling and swirling all around me I think about what those snowflakes might be "saying."  No doubt there is some kind of energy in snowflakes and in a great storm.  I take it a step further and ask;  Do snow flakes, because they are part of God's creation have consciousness? I also wonder while fly fishing if all those millions of mayflies we sometimes see hatching on the Platte have consciousness? If they do, then what are they conscious of and what might they be thinking or saying ?

I never hear their voices. Nor can I read their minds. The good Book tells us that all of creation is praising their creator. Maybe all those snow flakes and all those bugs really are "singing" praises to their creator. When I participate by being in nature skiing, fishing or whatever it is, I get a rise and I think it is a rise of consciousness, however slight, to join with them. So, I try to join in with them. Why not?

How could millions of snow flakes or bugs in their absolute innocence be wrong?  

Dream Stream Feb.19, 2015

Big fish meandering in the South Platte River, "Dream Stream" section of South Park.