Chad Pettrone

5/28 P.M. Big T.

• By Chad Pettrone
• 29 May, 2013
• 1 Comment

I had a couple of ringers in the afternoon.  Jim and Mike didn’t know each other before the trip but were happy to share some water together.  They are both from the Denver area and have fly fished before.  I set them up with nymph rigs and we got to work.  Both Jim and Mike continued to practice a down-river hook set which pulls tight to a fish without pulling too hard as to pull the hook out of the fishes mouth.     We caught double digit fish and had a great time.

Jim broke the ice catching this brown on a beaded green flashback hares ear.

A variety of flies were working for us in the afternoon Jim kept taking fish on the soft hackle sow bug as well as the juju bee midge and green hares ear.  The best working fly for Mike was a natural pheasant tail.  We lost some fish, lost some flies, and still finished the afternoon with a great number of fish.  I think Jim might have doubled the number of fish Mike caught; but Mike also told me that he had caught more fish in the first 2 hours than he’s ever caught in a full days fly fishing.  Jim said he enjoyed fly fishing the Big Thompson more than catching 50 grayling in Canada…..that says something about how great these wild fish are on the Big T.