Greenback Kinda Day

I received a message on facebook the other day from a good friend of mine saying that we were going to pursue some Greenback Cutthroat when he got back from the IFTD in New Orleans.  We made a plan to meet in the parking lot at 10 A.M Saturday morning.

The lush vegetation was incredible!

Casey and I before heading out in search of trout

 Vincent brought along a friend of his, so he and I decided to hike ahead of the other three guys.  We hiked pretty far up, and fished about a mile and a half upstream from where we started. It was a breathtaking place full of great scenery. clear water, and tons of Greenbacks.  We started off the morning with ant dries, and switched later to attractor dries with unweighted emerger dropper patterns.  It was amazing to see some of the takes.  One of us would spot the fish, and then the other would cast to it.

Discussing tactics in order to fool that particular fish

Can you spot the fish?

Super clear water, and rising cutties. Nothing gets better.

Not huge, but beautiful as can be!

Greenback!

I was a bit upstream of Casey, and spotted a nice (for this area) greenback feeding heavily on emergers, so I decided to try for him.  I put one cast over him, and he came up to check out my dry, but refused it.  On the second drift, he kicked over to the side a few inches, opened his mouth, and I set.  The reward was a beautiful cutthroat.

Trying to Indian Hand Grab  a monster Rainbow in the stocked pond

 We ended the day with eating at a local pizza place is estes park, and had some fun messing with the huge trout that reside in a stocked pond there.  Overall I had an awesome trip, and will definitely be heading back soon!

Terrestrials, Cutthroat, and Old Memories

I was fortunate enough to make a trip up to estes park with my dad the other day in pursuit of rainbows below olympus dam. We also met up with some family friends that were in from virginia, making it a great experience!  After brief conversations, and many handshakes, we hit the river with high expectations.

I have fished below the dam at lake estes several times before, and unfortunately for us, these fish are super smart for the Thompson.  They get fished to so much that they become super picky, in turn making the catch rates start to dwindle. The upside? Well, it is now dead in the middle of summer (at least for me), and ants, beetles, and even hoppers are starting to show up on the surface of the water. This meant that we could fish big buoyant dries to rising fish.  Well, after several missed attempts, we finally got into some fish, but nothing worth writing home about. Frustrated, we decided to hit up Village Pizza for some lunch, and then we decided to head to Lily Lake in  search of Greenback cutthroats.

When we arrived at Lily lake, the parking lot was full, and people were crammed into, and around the lake.  I suppose this makes sense seeing as it is the most accessible lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, and its beautiful scenery is unparalleled.  Braving the crowds, we grabbed our gear, and walked the shoreline on the lookout for cruising fish. We didn't find any cruisers, but we did find quite a few fish that were willing to engulf our ant patterns, making for an excellent day on the water.

Greenback Cutthroat

I was blown away by the colors on some of these fish...

Now, on to the old memories part of this post. I was looking through some pictures, and found a few good shots of some nice sized bass that I caught a few years back. I thought that they were good enough to put up, so without further ado...

Nice largemouth from a few years back...

Bassin' at night...what a thrill!