6/14 A Family Trip from a Guide’s Perspective

Matt Schuber and I shared a trip today and went to the tailwater section of the Big Thompson, below the Estes Lake Dam. We guided a family of 5 that offered a couple of seasoned professional guides a big challenge. The family had never been fly fishing, 3 of them were children, one had brought a push button spoopy pool, and we fished a kid friendly walking/wading area that is known to have high fishing pressure and picky fish.

We lived up to the challenge. Right away the daughter Emily hooked a trout, had it on the line for a couple seconds, but pulled too hard and it popped off the size 22 hook. I quickly moved over to help the youngest son as I know this water doesn’t give up many chances. We held the rod together, cast together, got some good drifts, and set the hook on a nice rainbow. Matt came over to help as we kept the fish from jumping by keeping the rod tip low to the water, and worked the rainbow right into Matt’s net. Matt then moved across river to work with the Dad but was unsuccessful in getting him on a fish in the first location. We relocated and boom, first cast the wife was into a fish and we quickly got it into the net. I apologetically kicked her out of the hole so that the daughter could get a shot at the hole before the pod of fish caught-on to us. The daughter jumped into the same hole after mom, hooked one right away and we got it into the net. We worked the hole and hooked another one but the fish popped off the hook just before getting it into the net – WATCH THE VIDEO. As we were doing this Matt was still working with the Dad unsuccessfully in a second and third location. So we switched turns and I took the father.

The father was a saltwater fisherman, and I had a difficult time getting him to take it easy with these light-tackle trout. We broke off numerous hooks, and lost numerous fish, but finally came through in triumph as captured in this photo. This shot captures the essence of being a fly fishing guide. We worked really hard to get this gentleman to catch ONE fish. While I was spending about 2 hours trying to get him to land 1 fish, Matt had got the wife to catch 3 more, and the youngest boy to catch 3 more, including a big brown trout, and then had time to come over and net this fish for us like a superhero. All pictures were taken with the family camera, so I apologize for the lack of photos. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the 4 year old with the snoopy pole….you would have guessed that pole had the plaque the way we stayed at least 50 feet from it : )