Chad Pettrone

4/12 Mamie and Arline

• By Chad Pettrone
• 14 April, 2015
• No Comments

We had a full day of fishing that started with some Stillwater fishing at sunrise for trout, and finished on the Big Thompson River.  The morning was a calm and beautiful day on the front range but weather turned cold and windy as the day progressed.  This actually worked out to our advantage at around 10am when clouds and wind came rolling into Estes Park, the blue wing olive mayfly hatch was fantastic.  I was a little unprepared for the immediate and continuous rising of fish, my dry fly box was in the truck and we ran back for some warmer cloths and BWO’s.  Fish were rising very regularly, but were still very picky to the fly selection.   I was able to get Arline’s 3wt rigged up with a green quill BWO and the consistent catching began! (Sorry for no pics Arline)  I changed Mamie’s flies to an elk hair caddis and a green BWO dry and wanted to show her a couple different holes in the river.  We worked our way up river and consistently were taking fish on both dries.  The Rides and Attractions hole was filled with rising fish aggressively chasing the caddis as we swang it across the main run…this hole comes equipped with all of your favorite 80’s tunes.

When the clouds dissipated and skies cleared, the BWO hatch was over and it was back to nymph fishing.  We took fish on a variety of nymphs: sz20 green juju beatis, sz22 copper ribbed RS2, sz20 pheasant tail, sz20 blue poison tongue, sz20 tan copper sawyer. We moved down river for lunch to find some more aggressive waters where we caught a couple on a size 16 jighead prince nymph, but still most of the fish were taking the smaller flies.  My reasoning for this is that the flows were still low, runoff hasn’t happened yet, and water clarity was very clear.

We headed back to the dam for a twilight opportunity to catch a nicer size fish.  Mamie threw a 5″ streamer with no lookers, then switched up and hooked a fish on the first cast with the nymph rod.  Following that action Arline decided to step up the excitement and took a dive head first into the river.  It was a fearful moment, as I hear Arline stubble and splash, I turned around to find what looked like a dead body floating down the river.  I quickly fished her out and like a true fisherman, Arline thought only of her flies that were getting wet, and wanted to dry them out immediately to avoid a rusty box of flies.  Then a very cold walk back to the car to change cloths and reheat.

This didn’t deter the strongly addicted flycaster Mamie.  We stuck around and persisted thru the cold, wind evening to try and get our big fish finish.  We caught one nice one, but as the evening crept on us, the wind kept us from getting a decent drift, and the fish got tight lipped.  I had to drag Mamie away from the river kicking and screaming, but she was O.K. when she was able to see all the fish pictures on her phone…which should hold her over until the next fishing trip : )  I love a good addict!