June 9, 2020
Flows: 92 cfs.
Water Temp: Not recorded.
Water clarity: Gin clear with a bit of stain at the creek inlets.
Air Temp: 41 @ 9a – 61 @ 4p.
Hatches: Suspected midge hatch about 3:30p. No other hatches evident.
A view of the mountains around Deckers.
We had a late spring storm Monday night and into Tuesday morning – with snow accumulation above 7,000”. So the pass over Rampart Range was snow covered, and it was a cold 41F and overcast, when I arrived in Deckers at 9a.
Perfect fishing weather!
Rampart Range summit.
And it turned out that way. Even with the flows at 92 cfs, which is about 85 cfs lower than the historic average for Deckers. Brian had his 1st fish in the net at 6:30a and had 14 more when I arrived! Wow – what a start - and it didn’t slow down much the whole day.
With the low flows the water was much warmer than usual - I had forgotten to record it – but it was evident that the fish were stressed as there were a few dead ones floating in the water near us. It also meant that the fishing was best in more narrow parts of the river and where boulders created midstream pockets and channels. That is where Brian set up. He named this run Hebrew’s Best – not sure where he came up with that! It is downstream of Rays Run and feeds into the Bridge Hole. It is filled with smaller boulders and few larger ones that create pockets, channels, seams, and riffles. It is also pretty easy to access – and that is what I was looking for as I’m kind of hobbling around with a bum toe.
The sucker hatch is still a full go and they were schooling in the deeper pools. It was pretty amazing to see so many of them sitting in the Bridge Pool. There must have been 30 or so just in that one pool. In that area they are easy to identify – but once they move into the riffles and pockets – which they did in the afternoon – they aren’t.
The smarter trout – or maybe the less hungry ones - hang out in the slow water. At these flows it's very difficult to get them to take your fly there – as they can inspect it for quite awhile before deciding to refuse it. The trout also seemed to be moving from the slower water into the riffles – and back again - only to repeat this mini migration.
Brian used a stomach pump on one of the fish that he caught in the morning – revealing a diet exclusively of baetis. That’s somewhat surprising as there a tons of midges in this river – but they were keying on the baetis which are a little bigger and therefore offer more nutrition for the effort. Brian mentioned that he was fooling a lot of fish with the Flashback Barr Emerger.
Baitis nymphs.
He was fishing on the south side of the run. So I began working the north side and decided to rig up a #16 Pheasant Tail as the lead fly, followed by a #22 Stalcup Baetis and a #20 Flashback Barr Emerger. It wasn’t long before I had a fish in the net on the Barr Emerger - thanks Brian! I ended up only using these flies for the whole day - and caught fish on all of them.
But this was Brian’s day. And it was an epic day for him as he ended up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 fish in the net! Wow!
The following are some of the 30 fish - all caught on the south side of Hebrew's Best Run..
This is a slabby female 18" rainbow.
A nice 15" female brownie.
A 17" male rainbow.
Photos provided by Brian Kenney.
Most of the fish he caught were rainbows in the 14”-16” range with a couple 17” and 18” – but there were a smattering of brownies in there too. Brian used various setups throughout the day, but the #18 to #22 Pheasant Tails, #18 to #22 Chocolate Thunders, and #18 to #20 Flashback Barr Emergers were most effective – with the Barr Emerger the hottest fly of the day for him.
It seemed that Brian got to the point that he was tired of catching so many fish – and he invited me to his spot to see if I could hook up a couple of rainbows that were nymphing in the shallow water near him. Or maybe he was beginning to feel sorry for me?
Anyway, his side of the river fished much different than my side. From my side (north) – the water had a lot of smaller boulders with fish hanging out in the channels between them and the pockets behind them. They were hard to spot – but if you took your time you could pick them out. Then the water became very slow feeding into a deep channel. A lot of fish were in this area, but good luck fooling them.
On Brian’s side (south) there was shallow slower water near the bank, then there was a very large boulder just past it creating seams on either side and a large pocket behind it. The pocket fed into a deeper channel. And the fish were easier to spot in the shallow water as they kept migrating in to feed on nymphs.
Getting back to the two rainbows – I did hook both of them up! The first one broke off and I wasn’t sure if he was foul hooked or not. When using three flies – if the fish hits the lead fly, the trailing flies sometime get tangled around the fishes body making appear and act as though it is foul hooked. So I wasn’t sure since he broke off. But I did land the other one, a nice 16” rainbow - he hit the Barr Emerger. So we ended up switching positions working the entire run throughout the rest of the day.
I hooked up this 16" female rainbow in the shallow water on the south side of Hebrew's Best Run.
1st fish of the day for me. A 13" female brownie - she took the Stalcup Baetis in the pocket water from the north side of the run.
In the afternoon the suckers even migrated into the riffles and seams. At first I mistook them for browns and hooked up a couple. They are not much fun to catch and they are disgusting to look at. So I try to stay away from catching them, but they’re easily misidentified when in the riffles. I ended up catching four of them and Brian had a few too.
I think there was a decent midge hatch at around 3:30p. It wasn’t very obvious – as I couldn’t see any in the air or on the water. But the birds were swooping along the river and the fish were starting to rise. So my assumption is that it was a midge hatch causing all the activity. As this was happening, I was too lazy to switch up to dries, but Brian wasn’t and he was rewarded with a nice 12’ rainbow in the net. It took an Elk Hair Caddis.
Last one of the day for Brian. A 12" rainbow who took an Elk Hair Caddis.
Photo provided by Brian Kenney.
So an epic day it was. I was happy with my 10 to 13 or so trout in the net, but Brian set the bar. One we can only hope to approach on our future outings.
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