A recent three-boat float from Radium to Rancho del Rio on the upper Colorado River gave opportunity for old friends and new to test their rods and fly choice against the mustard yellow brown and pink-flanked rainbow trout that bring guides back to the river on their day off. We are coming into fall rapidly. Schedules are opening up, giving people who have focused on the intensity surrounding the river time to slow down and enjoy.
One boat stayed true to the calling summer reinforces and threw only double dry flies for the majority of the float. Going through different patterns and bugs from white post parachutes to bushy, high-riding hairballs -- all in an attempt to attract fish to eat in the air rather than under the water. Dry-fly fishing is the finest way to tempt trout.
Refusals on mayflies despite the overcast skies spurned fly changes. Caddis were sporadically popping through the film. Little moths were bouncing, skittering and flexing their newly-formed wings in the soft margins between the heavy river current and the soft bankside water where pace slowed.
Soon, a pattern of working flies developed. An Elk and Pearl followed by the greatest caddis emerger ever invented -- the X-caddis -- began turning heads. A stumbling skitter and change of speed when pulled across the surface imitated the unpredictable cadence real caddis exhibit. The net remained wet from repeated dipping through the rest of the trip.
Chubby chernoblyl flies tethered to droppers with the weight of a dime dangled beneath rod tips in another boat. Covering the surface and some depth, a dry dropper is an effective approach to covering a lot of water. Bushy dry flies leashed to tungsten jigs look like dog walkers pulled along by anxious puppies. The splash from the heavy-beaded nymph lands beyond the frayed white wings of the Chubby.
Hoping for the August hoppers that ring the dinner bell, a Chubby floats and kicks like a drowning grasshopper. Random eats on the big bugs reinforced belief in the large flies. Eager subsurface brown trout slapped at the nymph occasionally and would land in the rubber net, flipping and flopping with the tenacity of an electrified toy. Dries and droppers were bringing fish to the boat.
Streamers were bolted to the end of old, tapered leaders that had been chopped short from repeated use. The short, tapered, monofilament turns big, heavy bugs over with more efficiency than a straight piece of heavy line. But make sure to cut it back to strength or add a piece of heavy tippet. The brown trout preparing for fall are flashing their fangs and will sever a line. It is best to bulk up when throwing streamers. Trout are not line shy when caught up in the chase and focused on an articulated streamer that looks weak in the water.
Autumn Splendors, Sex Dungeons and olive buggers stripped around boulders and chucked up under cutbanks. Swift water held greater numbers of fish. In broad, current-less sections of the river the deep, center channel held fish willing to give chase out of the depths. Some followed and committed to a strike at boat side. In the tumultuous canyon section, streamers turned fish on every cast. While not quite fired up the way autumn browns react, the action was heated from both browns and rainbows looking to crush a haphazard, baitfish fly caught up in the strong currents and looking disoriented or injured.
The illusion strong currents help impart to your streamer is an asset to be employed in your retrieve. Strong, healthy fish -- whether large or small -- swim swiftly in any current. Weak, injured and disoriented is a target predatory browns and opportunistic rainbows can't resist. A floating fly line used for dry flies can provide adequate streamer presentations. But a designated intermediate or sinking tip fly line will help cast heavy flies with dartlike precision. When incorporating streamer specific fly lines, the line becomes a key component in how the fly looks and the action of the fly during retrieval. Changes in direction, pace and depth are all triggers for successful streamer fly fishing.
What's going on along the Colorado River? Anything you want to throw. Dry flies, droppers and big hunks of metal with hooks and flash will bring honey-colored browns and cherry-cheeked rainbows to the boat.