Labor of Love

Today was a go for fishing.  After skiing the past two days, it was time to wet a line.  The temperature was around 15 degrees and the sky was overcast: perfect winter fishing conditions.  I made the two mile walk from the parking lot to the tailwater section of the Stagecoach.  It was truly a labor of love; the access road had about 1 fresh inch of snow on it.  By the time I remembered that I had snow shoes in the car, it was too late to turn around.  I pushed on through.

Trout Nirvana!
Trout Nirvana!

After the last bend, I finally hit the tailwater.  The water had a lot of structure: pools, pockets, and slicks.  It was perfect trout habitat.  I setup my rig for standard indi-nymphing.  I used two flies that I designed last year winter fishing the San Miguel outside of Telluride, CO.  A 8 Simple Stonefly at the end of the leader.  Off the eye of the stonefly, I tied a size 20 variation of an Al’s Rat (red wire body and dubbing on the thorax).  All using 6.5x TroutHunter Fluoro.

IMG_0877

I worked my upstream, nymphing for about 200 yards.  The fish were scattered everywhere.  I had to keep adjusting my split shot and indicator for the different conditions for each pocket or pool or slow riffle.  The adjustments paid off.  I pulled out 8 nice rainbows, indi-nymphing my way up.  Two on the stone and six on the midge nymph.

He wanted the midge nymph
He wanted the midge nymph
Sweet colors
Sweet colors
He wanted the stone
He wanted the stone
Back to the midge
Back to the midge
Ready to be landed
Ready to be landed
Fishy Looking
Fishy Looking
Yes it was!
Yes it was!
This guy was 20 inches and fought me through three different pools
This guy was 20 inches and fought me through three different pools

The beat that I worked had a decent amount of surface activity from the fish.  After I pulled out that 20 incher, I wanted to try some dry flies.  After re-rigging, I had a size 18 Grey Comparadun attached by 7x TroutHunter mono.  I worked two medium size slicks, and stuck two and lost two others.  It was surreal casting dries while it was snowing.

Al Caucci's Comparadun worked here
Al Caucci’s Comparadun worked here

It was an amazing day, but it was a haul to get back there in the winter.  10 bows in total and some dry fly action to boot!

 

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