Eagle River Report

The fishing on the Eagle has been solid all winter. I have found myself using bugs and buggers more than egg patterns this winter. Maybe the odd weather has something to do with it. Rainbow trout can still be found in the runs, but most browns are either still paired in super shallow water, or in deep slow pools. Best to sleep in on cold days as the fishing gets better with the warming water. My best action has been on size 16-18 prince nymphs, and size 18-20 black beauty's. Black or olive wooly bugger should do the trick with slow strips in the morning, and faster more erratic strips in the after noon. My guy Ryan caught this fellow right in front of the Westin, with views to  Beaver Creek and the gondola running behind us. He was getting lots of chasers that wouldn't commit to his Krystal Bugger, instead of changing flies I had him speed up his retrieve, then dead stop his fly in their face. I think the results are obvious. 

Doesn't Get Much Better

We had chili dogs too.... sorry no picture of the chili dogs!

Back In Action

I had some small computer problems happening lately. Kept getting strange user names popping up, so I kept deleting them and shutting off the computer witch ruined any unsaved information they may have had. Well who ever "they" were eventually deleted me! So I fixed their wagon, I had "The Computer Guy" reboot their ass... to the tune of 250$. O well, now I can keep y'all up with the latest. Ice fishing at Turquoise Lake. 

 That's my daughter's Christmas present trying to keep warm so I can fish. You can see that he chewed on my rod butt. My wife's pink reel, a duck taped tip, and it still rips lips.

Dry Flies On Ice

Taking the Denver Broncos Fishing

I had the pleasure of taking Kyle Orton and Chris Kuper from the Denver Broncos fishing last weekend. They were cool guys and had a great day. The fishing was decent, they landed 10 trout out of 20 strikes, some action on dries most on nymphs. The Broncos had a bye week and the new NFL rules state that players need at least four consecutive days off. So if any other NFL'ers, or anybody for that matter, wants to go fishing my schedule is wide open for the next couple weeks.

Wisconsin River Pike

The family flew back to Wisconsin last week for a wedding, and I got to squeeze in a few hours of pike fishing. We've never had too much luck with big pike on the Wisconsin, (a few 35 inchers), but plenty of little guys. I got my wife her first toothy on the fly. My pops always does well with the spinner/dinner rod. I caught an even dozen and picked up a couple bonus smallmouth. A bucktail fly with a barred rabbit zonker strip did most of the damage. A pure white bunny leach also worked well and was easier to cast. Sometimes I add a little spinner for extra action, (Macks Smile Blades), they are light, easy to cast, and always work great.

Crushing the Colorado

My buddy Nate and I had a great day fishing on the Colorado River the other day. Anyone who fishes knows there are good days and bad days on the water, we definitely had a good day. We caught mostly brown trout on a variety of techniques. We started nymphing with small midge and mayfly patterns. That's how these two were caught.

Some clouds came in so we switched to dries. A few missed strikes from some bigger fish were quickly forgot upon seeing tenacious little brown trout do back flips out of the water for our flies.

Then we switched to streamers and busted the biggest browns of the day. Casting at the bank and giving the fly a few short strips followed by a pause drove the fish nuts

Beautiful fall colors on the trees and trout, a great friend, and fishing! fishing! fishing! A great day crushing the Colorado.