Tag: flyfishing

  • Nowhere, Alaska

    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…

  • Fishing With a Time Machine

    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…

  • Happy Hour

    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…

  • Signs of Spring

    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…

  • A Day on the Water

    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…

  • Hunting Wild Rainbows

    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…

  • Changing of the Seasons

    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…

  • Winter Break

    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…

  • January Fishing

    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…

  • A Winter Poem

    A Winter Poem

    Cold hands The gurgle of water beneath a frozen Three Mile Creek descends into the mighty Fork below Life American Dippers bob and weave in search of an easy meal Winter warm The Sun does its job, if only during the heart of the afternoon Water Frigid temps keep bug activity to a minimum, but…

  • A Friday on the Eagle

    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…