Luyen’s Reel-Time FLog

Our annual EduStat conference was held in Colorado Springs this summer, and it gave me an opportunity to fish with Jonathan and Greg Wilborn on Greg’s home waters on the North Fork of the South Platte. We headed out to The Peak Fly Shop in Woodland Park Monday morning to get outfitted by Mike Keith. Though our original plans were to hit the Elevenmile Canyon section below Elevenmile Reservoir, Mike encouraged us to fish the “Miracle Mile” or “Dream Stream” section between Spinney Reservoir and the Elevenmile Reservoir. This section is a meandering meadow creek that flows clear and cold from the bottom of Spinney Reservoir. Apparently, the flows had diminished to a very fishable level (roughly 300cfs), and there was a good morning caddis hatch (Mike thought it was early for good trico activity, and that the PMD’s had subsided , but the fish would be focused on these #18 grey Trichopteras).

As we arrived at the stream, a fair number of tricos did mistake our windshield for the water; in fact, there were few of these bugs as we made our way to the stream itself. Though we were itching to get on the water, and I was personally feeling a bit like a slacker for due to our 8AM arrival, there was little activity for the first half-an-hour. As I worked likely holding water with an elk hair caddis and a fluorescent green pupa dropper, I gradually started to notice infrequent, subtle rises. I fooled my first fish on the dropper – a small brown that took my fly as it dangled suspended at the head of a downstream riffle. I took my next fish directly upstream on the dry. This one was working the inside edge of a bend between a rock and the main current. After hooking a couple more fish at this spot, I moved around the corner and fished a long, broad pool. Almost immediately, I spotted a bigger fish porpoising in the middle of the pool. Five or six casts later, and I was fastened to an 18” ‘bow that eventually came unbuttoned as he played tug-of-war with me from the main current. That got the adrenaline going! Soon afterwards, Jonathan, who had been fishing a narrow run across the creek from me, yelled for me to come over, and I found him locked in a similar tug-of-war. This time, Jonathan won the battle, and hauled a beautiful 18” ‘bow out of the water. We had several more wonderful hours of this sort of fishing – battling big, strong, smart fish that preferred dries to nymphs and tested our 5X tippets and blood knots. Jonathan lost a big 20+” brown after fighting it downstream for several hundred feet. Greg lost a big brown that took off downstream as well, darting between boulders and under deadfall. We left the stream around 3, oblivious to the hummingbird-sized Rocky Mountain mosquitoes, grueling sun, and dry heat. What an incredible outing!

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