High Country Winter Wonderland

I met a fly guy through work who expressed interest in hitting a high lake with me. Since it rained during the end of the week in Boulder I expected a little bit of snow up high. I didn't expect snow drifts over a foot high. If I hadn't been up there before I would have been totally lost due to the snow covering the path.

Vaughn trudging through the snow and probably wondering why he is following this psycho through this place.


Breaking trail turned out to be just as exhausting as it ever was. I'm not gonna lie though, I enjoyed it. The air was super crisp and a perfect temperature for hiking.

Got to the lake and photographed some fish porn laying near the bank. The boils on its stomach is rotting flesh.


The fishing at the lake lacked. The water was glass with no hatches to speak of. Lots of small to medium trout sunning in 4 inches of water that would bolt if you farted within 60 feet of them. The water would boil with chain reaction spooks, very frustrating.

We both got broiled by the sun/snow. Should have worn my snowboard goggles.

Very beautiful scenery though.



I like to constantly stalk around the bank in search of trout when I fish high lakes. The deep snow really made that harder and way more exhausting.

The snow combined with the poor fishing made for an easy decision to pack out of there. Vaughn had a place in mind to go catch some kokanee salmon to shake the skunk.

We hike down down down and get back to the truck and drive drive drive to get into some kokes. He caught 3 nice ones with about 4 misses, and I just stunk it up with the ole' skunk. I even copied his rig... then stole his spot... then used his rod/rig in his spot, but nothin!

Didn't take any pictures of the kokes because I was bitter. It was a 16 hour day. I crashed hard when I got home.

Q & A

Q.
Hey Man, Nice blog! Love the pics too.
How do those black beauties and zebra midges do?
Where are they good at?

-Charles

A.
Hey, glad you like the blog.

The BB and ZM are good trailing under a dry fly on a dead drift. They simulate the broad category of midge, emerging midge, nymph... whatever. You can tie them in different color thread like olive, tan, and black depending on the food in a particular stream. They can also be pulled slowly through still water or just sat under an indicator for cruising fish. Even better when attached below a bigger nymph like a stone fly making a 3 fly rig.

-TANGLER

Write Me

If anyone would like me talk about a specific topic on the blog feel free to shoot me an email which is listed on my profile. Even if it's just comments about what you like/dislike, or would like to see more or less of, I'd like to hear from you readers.

Tying Flies

Here are some of the recent patterns I have tied up. My camera does not have a very good macro, but I did the best I could.

Black Beauty:


Zebra Midge Emerger:


Elk Hair Caddis:

This EHC is a breakthrough for me because of the tapered body. I used to struggle with tapering the dubbing and I am very proud of this edition. I have been killing it with these orange ones which double as a stimulator.


BH Woolly Bugger (hackleless):

This pattern is a cutty slayer. It caught the larger cutty in the Lake Dorothy thread and the 26 incher. The funny thing is that tying this fly sans hackle was originally a mistake I had made. None the less it went in the fly box and ended up making a name for itself. I now tie this coloration with and without black hackle and always have both in the box.

This particular specimen is a little embarrassing because of the lump in the midsection due to the wire wrap reinforcement. Oh well.



Other patterns I've been tying include brassies in chartruse, red, silver, gold, and copper. Also, miracle nymphs, and I'm always trying to keep up with czech nymphs. I'm still refining the complicated CZN fly so I can't post any pictures of them yet.

More to come.

**Here is my camera setup for taking photos of the flies which will also be getting improvements. First and foremost I need more lighting....

Where you been?

I've been slacking on the posts. I've gone through a period where I have only been posting detailed stories and got sidetracked from the fact that this is a blog. I've also been spending a lot of my free time tying flies. Been getting back into tying in a big way.

There is a guy who owns a fly shop in Arvada named Charlie Craven who came out with a tying book recently that I picked up due to an extreme amount of recommendations by tiers who know their shit. It's truly amazing! I have tied purely out of necessity the past couple of years and never really put in the time to get better at it. This book has opened up my eyes to some basic techniques that have vastly improved the quality of my patterns - specifically my technique with dubbing.

I'll try to take some pics of flies that I'm tying right now in the near future.

There's only a couple more weeks of high alpine lake fishing before they all freeze up so I've been hitting it hard. Maybe I'll have some stories to tell here soon...