Fly Fishing Report for March 24th and 25th

   I was able to sneak to the river on Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours. The river bumped up into the 310 to 320 range on Friday and I wanted to check out the conditions myself. With the near record breaking temps, the river was packed with lawn chairs and rafts. Don’t think the swimmers were having as much fun as they thought they would. hehe. The nearer you get to the dam, the clearer the water will be. Fish can still be had, but it is the time of the year that you really need to think about your approach. While fishing deeper, churned up water, I went big and ugly (depth charge). I wanted to make sure they can see what I was serving up. A lot of the water in behind rocks was clear so I went back to my all May fly setup. I hooked several fish but only landed three. While I was on the water I watched a fly fisherman land a 21 incher. Be very careful while wading, if you do not know the section, go to a place you are familiar with. I don’t at all think that the fishery is done for the year. Last year the water came up and then went back down to the mid 200’s. Fishing was awesome into mid May last year.

  Today Cat and I felt the need to get out the pontoon boats, so we headed to La Veta. We are carrying a new Callibaetis pattern in the shop and I wanted to try it out. Cat and I landed close to 150 fish today with the biggest being landed by Cat at 18 and a half inches. The majority of the fish were measuring out between 11 and 14 inches and most had a gut resembling mine(tub-o-lard). Fish were hammering the Callibaetis and red Chrinomidges all day long. My best four were all between 17 and 18 inches. Tactics for the day were to set up in 6 feet of water and throw toward the shore, let it drift out deeper and they seemed to be munching all day long.

 We here at the Drift Fly Shop are passionate about fly fishing. There is still a lot of really good fishing left this spring before the major runoff. If we have not had the opportunity to meet you I hope you stop by the shop some time and say hello. Connell 719-543-3900.