Category: Fly Fishing
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Catch More Fish in 2026 (and Other Musings)
Happy almost New Year! 2025 was a year of normalcy for some and anything but for others. I was probably sandwiched between the two, although it was another year spent reveling in the great outdoors. What will the New Year hold? Many of us try a positive reset in January and then we usually reset…
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Nowhere, Alaska
I’ve been nowhere for a few hours and gone a day or two without a shower, but that’s about it. Alaska was different. My compatriots and I talked for months about how we’d feel when the float plane took off and left us to our own devices in the Alaskan wilderness. It was surreal and…
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Compliments and Kindness Don’t Cost a Thing
Why do some people hold back on giving compliments? Do we just not think about giving them or do we keep them to ourselves? Does it diminish us to build others up? Complimenting others makes me feel good. Building people up is oh so important for kids, middle aged folks (like myself) and retirees alike.…
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Back “Home”
I don’t have any immediate family left in New York State these days, but I have enough people that still feel like family. They’re the type of friends you fall back into rhythm with like a musician picking up an old guitar that’s been in a dusty closet for a year. It takes a few…
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Fishing With a Time Machine
If I had a real time machine I’d probably return to a few scenes of fly fishing failure and try to make amends, but that would be cheating. Instead, I prefer to capitalize on the bipolar weather/elevation change in Colorado and use it to my advantage. The flies that worked so well in March have…
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Happy Hour
During the Prohibition era, the concept of drinking before dinner evolved, with people hosting “cocktail hours” or “happy hours” at speakeasies before eating at restaurants where alcohol could not be served. What a novel idea! Since then, happy hour has evolved and discounted food/drinks can be enjoyed (and served) at bars and restaurants without the…
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Signs of Spring
“All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.” – Marie Curie My father and I visited Cheesman Canyon last week in search of trout and nature. It’s a Front Range fishery near Denver, so the days tend to warm more rapidly throughout the calendar year compared to other…
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A Day on the Water
No alarm set, but I still wake up early. I get to go fishing today. My coffee tastes just a little bit better because it’s Saturday. My truck is ready and willing to take me to the river and starts without a fuss. The wind is supposed to gust over 30mph later on so the…
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New Year, New Angler
Happy 2025 all. What are your goals for this calendar year? Do you want to catch more fish, bigger fish, or are you after a namer (a trout 24 inches or larger)? The Gregorian calendar tells us it’s a new year, but I see life (and fly fishing) in terms of seasons rather than months.…
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I Got Fall On My Mind
The nights and mornings are slowly cooling down and we just hit peak fall foliage here in Eagle County. I wonder if J. R. R. Tolkien ever visited Colorado because when the sun hits the leaves just right, it looks exactly how I picture Lothlórien. Fall is a reminder that everything ends, but it’s a…
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Moving
Most of us have moved at least once in our lives, but many more of us have packed up our belongings (including the things we should have thrown away) to relocate more times than we care to count. After my initial cross country venture to Colorado, I’ve loaded up my life three more times to…
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Hunting Wild Rainbows
Not all rainbow trout are created equal. There are dumb stockers throughout the United States that will eat almost anything and they don’t care about a mediocre drift. They’ll eat something flashy, thinking it’s their last meal and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not a challenge and that’s not why I fish. Wild…
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Changing of the Seasons
The past few weeks I have worn shorts, sandals, my raincoat, a beanie, warm socks, pants, a t-shirt, my STARSET hoodie, and my favorite fishing hat, which is becoming quite rustic I might add. I’ve written about this before and some people know how much I love the shoulder seasons in Colorado, but to actually…
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Winter Break
When I started this post it was sunny, and now it’s snowing again. That’s winter in Colorado for you. It was surely a memorable break with plenty of fish caught (and lost) on my home river and the Roaring Fork. I’ve talked to friends with even more stressful jobs than my own and they’ve said…
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January Fishing
How about that cold front that whipped through two weekends ago?!? Vail received 37 inches from that storm, which has us back above normal snowpack for this time of year. Hopefully there’s a great deal more to come. Prior to that rapid weather change, I fished the Fryingpan on January 6th and did pretty well. We started around…
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Happy New Year!
2024 is here and it’s frigid out there. After I spent a week with family down in the Denver area cooking, relaxing, sipping and sleeping; I drove back out to Eagle County in perfect weather. That’s a blessing and a curse. We need snow, but I didn’t mind a quick trip home either. Although it was sunny, the week…
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A Friday on the Eagle
Due to the relatively mild winter in Eagle County (so far) there was actually less ice than when I last fished a few weeks ago. Gypsum still has more people (and fishing pressure) on the weekends (I always include Friday as part of a weekend) and although I did start there I ended up further upstream. There…
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December Fishing
My last time out was on my home river, the Eagle, and winter fishing is officially here. There’s ice above Gypsum (in some areas) on the banks and it’s slowly expanding, but as the weather fluctuates so will the ice, so be careful out there. Other areas are already completely iced over, but those spots have…
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Welcome to Mayfly Musings!
Hey, I’m glad you’re here! Check out all the pages listed and the links that correspond with them and don’t forget to subscribe. My goal is to discuss where I’ve been fishing and what flies I’ve been using along with other useful (hopefully) musings, writings and maybe even a little poetry about the natural world…
Mayfly Musings 