It's been Awhile

I have been on the water quite a bit, but had no time to post. I'd say more than half the days on the water were at pikeview reservoir, chasing carp. It is definitely an urban fishery. I have hooked a few carp in many visits. The casting is not ideal from anywhere, and the carp are very picky, often following your flies but at the last second cut away.

How many can you see?

Also made the haul to the pan when flows were just under 1000 cfs. Since it was during peak run-off, all the guides from the roaring fork valley were there, all with multiple clients. I met a friend on the river, and upon arriving he left because of the terrible vibes the flats full of 55 people can give. I had just driven over 3 hours and was not going to just drive back. No one moved from their spots for most of the day, so I fished the non-fishy spots and casted around the feet of all the fisherman. Sure enough fish were in non-traditional spots, escaping the pressured areas. Though a few fish were landed around 5 lbs, I didn't see a single monster, and after two hours, headed toward basalt and fished pmd's to rising browns on the lower pan.

Since then I have guided a few times, and given the Dream Stream a few Sunday afternoons.

There are a ton of quality fish in the system, but of course if you want them, show up in the morning on a weekday, before the fish are either hooked or put down. Unfortunately, I have only had time on Sundays to fish the dream, the afternoons have been really quiet, but fish are hard to find. 

Thank God my brother saw this prickly fellow on the river bank. My eyes were glued to the water, and would have walked right on top of him.

Court with a nice Brown

Summer "go to"

21.5" bruiser

I was casting blindly in the rain with an indicator rig in front of a fishy rock, and on the first drift a big brown came up and crushed the indicator. I spent the next twenty minutes changing my rig to a range of dry dropper set-ups...he didn't turn up again. My brother caught up to me and twenty feet upstream, we saw a big golden fish rise again. We casted to that spot for another 10 minutes, no dice. Eventually, we started walking up the bank to move on, and a big fish swam right off the bank and away from us. Muscle memory had us drop to the grass immediately, even though we had already spooked the toad. But after about 20 seconds my brother said, here he comes, and the fish moved within feet of my brother and began feeding heavily right in front of a submerged log. After a few drifts I got a hookup, and landed the golden alligator above. The difference between a successful day sight fishing on the dream stream, and a skunking is always due to so many factors: who has fished the run before you, how long before you got there, where the sun is located, how heavy the wind is, etc... but my brother and I really believe if you pay your dues (time on the water), you will be rewarded.