Thursday, April 7, 2011

Opening Day

Wednesday, April 6th 6:10 am: opening day of Spinney Reservoir


Not the Reservoir... Wes catches a healthy 20+ hen

After crushing a 5 hour energy each, we departed toward Spinney Reservoir at 5 am. Going up Wilkerson Pass we were passed by multiple trailered boats, most likely headed to the same destination. As we approached the Chaparral General Store, a line of headlights cut across predawn South Park, and we all thought this might be a circus.

Court with his first of many 20 inch trout this day


We started fishing from the shore at Spinney, but lost interest when the chocolaty water and lack of action brought us through the first 2 hours of sunlight. The only fish we saw caught were from anglers on a party boat, trolling windchimes as bait, and cacklin' over bent rods

Add 1 more 20+ to the list

So we moved to the river above Spinney... and it was crowded but it didn't matter: the water was not too muddy yet, and fish were everywhere.

Eggs and attractor nymphs were the ticket

We saw fish on beds, fish in riffles, fish in runs, fish in deep corner holes, fish in front of structure, fish behind structure, territorial fish, non-feeding fish, rising fish: it felt good to see fish acting like fish. However, we all know that this won't last long, as each fish is caught continuously, until he or she decides to hide below rocks, and tight to the bottom in the deeper runs.

This buck looked like a miniature steelhead

We fished for 12 hours and went through 2 dozen otters eggs and a few other attractor nymphs. We stopped fishing at 6:30 pm due to a lack of flies, not a lack of action. Definitely, a day to be remembered, one of those rare days you find yourself trying to break off fish in order to try to get to their bigger buddies.

2 comments:

  1. There's nothing quite like the South Platte in the spring time. It makes me home sick. Nice work court, chuck.

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  2. Thanks man, that first day was epic...it must been an absolute shock to those fish to all of a sudden see fisherman everywhere

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