June 9, 2021 – Deckers (Fishermen’s Run & Between the Islands Run)
Flows: 145 cfs – increasing to 188 cfs at 11a.
Water Temp: 50F
Water clarity: ~6 before noon, muddy with debris after.
Air Temp: ~67F @ 9a, 87 @ 2:30p.
Hatches: Midge: 9a to 11a, Light BWO: 11:30a - 2p, Caddis: 9a – 2p.
Flies: #10 Chubby Chernobyl, #18 BH Pheasant Tail, #22 Stalcup Beatis, #24 Purple Juju Beatis, #24 Top Secret Midge, #24 Flashback Black Beauty, #22 Rainbow Warrior, #18 Puterbaugh Caddis, #22 Sparkle Dun.
Top producers: Black Beauty, Top Secret Midge.
Carlos fishing Fishermen's Run.
The last day of the Denver elementary school year was about a week ago. This gave me the opportunity to take Carlos - my oldest grandson - out for a day of fishing. I’m planning to have him and his younger brother - Roman - out at least a few more times this summer. Carlos is now 11 years old and Roman is 8 and they both have expressed interest in going out fishing with me. Can’t ask for much more than that!
The plan was for Carlos stay over Tuesday night, we'd fish on Wednesday and have a cookout back home afterwards. This gave Keeny and I more time to spend with Carlos and enjoy his company.
We left the house at about 8a – not really an early start, but I didn’t want to get to tz he river any earlier. I was concerned about crowds and not being able to find my preferred spots to fish – but I was even more concerned about the water temperature. Carlos doesn’t have wading boots or hip boots – so he was going to have to wade with just his sneakers on. Getting there a little later would give the water a chance to warm up a bit.
There were fishermen all along Platte River Road as we drove towards Deckers. Yes it was going to be crowded today. Surprisingly, we found the river was open from the Bend Hole all the way down to the Bridge Hole. The Bridge Hole and Fishermen’s Run were two of the spots I had earmarked as places to try. Both are pretty easy to access and wading into the water is only necessary at Fishermen’s.
We parked at the Resort and after gearing up, we walked over to the south side of the Bridge Hole. The water was murky but we could still see about 4’ into it. And we spotted a couple of fish. There were some midges hatching and I had one of my rods already set up with midges. After some instructions on casting, drifting, and mending technique – I handed the rod over to Carlos.
Carlos found Stonefly husks along the bank. The Stoneflies crawl out of the river to molt into adults.
The casting technique that I explained to Carlos is called the roll cast - which he mastered pretty quickly. Mending the line is a little tricky and requires experience to master, but Carlos followed my instructions and did a good job of keeping the flies on a dead drift. Even so, there were no takers. I had my spare rod set up with in a HCD configuration – and after tying on some midge pupae – I gave it to Carlos to try. But there were still no takers.
So we moved up to Fishermen’s Run. There we spotted some rainbows. There are redds along this part of the river and some of the fish were in one of them - obviously in the act. And there were some rainbows sitting behind the redd feeding. In a previous conversation with Brian, I had said I would avoid the fish below redds moving forward because I couldn’t be sure that they weren’t just there waiting their turn to get on the redd – and a lot of times they didn’t seem too interested in feeding.
But in this case we only had a limited amount of places to fish. So I casted to the fish below the redd. I wanted to show Carlos the technique – as far as targets for dropping the flies and drifting them to the fish. The water is pretty shallow in this section, but it’s best to wade into it a bit to help get a drag free drift. The water was about 50F and was too cold for Carlos to stand in for more than a few minutes.
Carlos with Fishermen's Run in the background.
So I continued to cast to the fish. It didn’t take long and I had a nice rainbow hooked up. I moved back toward the shore and handed the rod to Carlos so that he could fight the fish. I would net him. This was training on the fly. Earlier, I only briefly told him what to do if he got a fish on – so I had to give him more details as he was fighting a pretty decent size rainbow. This is not an easy task – especially for the beginner. So not surprisingly the fish was able to break off.
Carlos – courteous and the gentleman – apologized for losing the fish. I laughed and told him that we’d get the next one and then explained the techniques for fighting the fish in more detail. On the next hook up – I gave Carlos the net and fought the fish to it. After a few tries Carlos netted him. It was a 17” rainbow – the first fish of the day. He took the Top Secret Midge. After getting the fly out of his mouth – and getting the camera set up – I handed the fish to Carlos. Or I attempted to. The hand-off didn’t go well --- and the fish jumped out of our hands and into the river.
I was able to get about four more fish on – but only one other one to the net. Carlos netted him too – but the same thing happened when we tried to take a picture! That one was a 16” rainbow - he took the Black Beauty. After that I gave the rod to Carlos to try. He was still standing on the bank and getting a good cast and drift into the target area was difficult. It would be so, even for an experience angler. He did an admirable job – but the fish didn’t seem interested anymore.
Carlos found this live Cranefly larva near the bank of the river.
With that, we decided to break for lunch. As we walked along the river to get back to the easiest exit point – we looked into the river to see if we could spot any fish. We saw a couple just upstream of the Horse Creek confluence. But after a few casts they scattered. So we continued up the path to the car. It was hot and sunny and we enjoyed the break – eating our lunch in a shady spot.
When done, we decided to drive upstream. I wanted to check out the Between the Islands Run. This is another area that could produce trout and – in some cases - wouldn’t require wading into the water. When we got there we noticed that the water was now running muddy. And there was debris floating in it too. Dang it – they must have increased the flows.
Making matters worse – we were now closer to the dam so the higher water didn’t have as much time to dissipate and clear up as the water downstream from us. Even so, we saw a couple of fish that came to the surface – and with the higher water – they were closer to shore. But we couldn’t get them to take. Carlos fished the HCD rig and when that didn’t entice a hit – I had him switch to the nymph rig. Still nothing. I then tried a standard dry fly rig and still - no one showed interest.
I was thinking of crossing over the river to the lower island so that we could fish the Lower Island Run. But the water was flowing a bit too high to chance it. So we walked along the river to the run that leads into the Mini-Canyon. I gave it a few shots with the HCD but it was pretty much hopeless.
I have caught a bunch of trout in Deckers during high flows. Even flows way higher than what Carlos and I were experiencing. But the flows then were at a consistently high level. Meaning they were high for a continued amount of time before I fished it. In my experience, when the flows are first cranked up – it takes the fish a while to acclimate to the now higher flows. During this period of acclimation – enticing fish to hit is pretty fruitless. The amount of time it takes the fish to acclimate depends on how much the flows have been increased and other factors – but it usually seems to take about a day.
Muddy water running out of the Lower Island Run.
So we gave it up a bit early. I was hoping that we would get into some rising fish in the afternoon – but that wasn’t to be. It was a little after 2p when we headed to the car.
A couple of rainbows in the net. Spending a day on the river – grandfather and grandson. I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer and more days like this.
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