It's been awhile, I'm still around and here is a quick fishing report from today

Took a little break from blog, thanks for every one's patience. Been dealing with a very busy home life. Fly tying and fly fishing has taken a little bit of a back seat. Excited about the rest of the year and the new year.



Got the kitchen pass to hit the river. Took off to the South Platte at Decker's. While I was getting geared up had this red fox come up a watch.

 Now lets talk about the fishing. the morning started out a little slow. Started out right below Decker's, flows where at 140cfs and the day was gorgeous.

 Dropped down below Turnbull at around 11:00am and that was when things really heated up. 1/2 dozen fish in about 45min and it stayed steady for the next hour. I haven't been down that far in a while and I was pleasantly surprised. The quality of the fish was great, nothing under 16" was brought to the net. Quite a few fish at around 18"

 

The flies of the day was a sparkle wing RS-2 and Mercury Black Beauty in a size 18. The "D" rib golden stone nymph did pick up a couple fish.

South Platte River - Deckers 12/20/10

 Had the chance to sneak away on Monday for a few hours of fishing. Headed up to the South Platte river above Decker's. Thought I would try my hand there since the lot is closed for the canyon. They are replacing the culvert under the road to Cheesman Dam, they are using the parking lot for the Gill trail to stage there equipment. Arrived at the the river around 9:30am, flows are a little low at 57cfs. A couple cars in the lot. The weather was more like a spring day in the Rockies, not mid December.The high temp for the day was around the high 40's degrees.  An hour to the west, the Rockies are getting dumped with white gold.  Rigged up the rod with a three fly nymph rig, golden stone nymph, stuffed olive and a Young's midge on the bottom. Started fishing at the bend pool above Decker's. Spotted a few nice fish feeding, pretty quickly hooked up with a nice little rainbow. Ended up with a dozen fish in about 4 hours of fishing. Packed up about 2:00pm and headed home, counting down the days down to our annual New Years Day trip.

 2nd fish of the day

 The fish of the day, a real fat 18" rainbow.

The fly of the day, Stuffed Olive. Accounted for all but one of my fish.

Fly Fishing the South Platte River - An Anglers Guide by Roger Hill

 I got this idea from a video that Juan Ramirez blog, he did a video of Ed Engle tying the stillborn midge. This pattern came  from this book, Fly Fishing the South Platte, An Anglers Guide. This was the first fly fishing and fly tying book that I bought. Roger Hill the author was one of the first to write fishing and tying flies for Cheeseman Canyon. He also spends some time writing about the materials for tying small flies. If you can find a copy of this book I highly recommend it.

Over the winter I'm going to spotlight some of the fly patterns in this book. The patterns in this book are examples of simplicity in tying. Most of the material are all natural furs and feathers.

The first fly I'm going to spot light is the Muskrat Nymph.

Hook: TMC100 size 20 - 26, I tied the pattern on TMC101

Thread: 8/0 gray

Body: muskrat fur, very sparse

Build up thorax with tying thread, sparsely dub thread, and wind onto hook. Whip finish and cement.

 Here is the muskrat nymph I tied