In The Spot Light!

When I first moved to Colorado up in Winter Park I found that there really wasn’t a lot to do once the sun went down. The snowy nights were by far my favorite. Whenever the snow was dumping I loved getting in my car, cranking up “The Wall”, and cruising the highways. I would turn on the high beams and the enormous snowflakes would visually become straight lines coming at me, it was kind of like the “Hyperspace” clips in the old Star Trek shows. My complete focus was on the visual tunnel in front of me made everything else just fade away. So often I get that same tunnel vision while fly fishing.

Thursday was a fun but very different day for us on the water. One of The Drift’s great friends and customer has been working on a new “Top Secret” video project and had asked Alex to help him out. The plan for the day was to do some video for the project as well as a promo for the shop. With Cat and my tinkering with the videos over the last year it was both nerve racking and exciting to be in the presence of a true professional in the industry. Sam has made a few top notch A+ videos that sell the shop; “Colorado Cane” and “Designed to Deceive” are a few of his best.

Cat and I met Sam and Alex on the water at about 10:00 and Cody showed up just after that. Alex jumped in and started hooking fish very quickly; we didn’t have a lot of room so I went up around the corner and started tossing bugs. I got five to the net in just a few minutes and I thought I better head back down. Alex had just finished some of his takes and I was up next. I was definitely nervous since I don’t have the same ability to edit Sam’s clips. First cast and it was money, the fish hammered it but after a quick fight he spit it back at me. In just a few minutes I landed a couple of others and so I felt like I was off the schnied. We moved up around the corner and when Cat decided to finally ignore me, I was trying to tell her where to fish, she moved into a spot she liked with and started to hook fish (proud hubby). It was about that time that I started doing something that I never do. I started watching Alex, Cody and even Cat as to their technique. Like I said in the opening, I get very tunnel minded when I am on the river. What I saw yesterday however was Magic! Alex and his long line nymphing, Cody and his stealthy, no indicator nymphing and Cat’s sweet sweet flow of her casts. We hooked several in that spot and Cat and I decide to head up to the Glory Hole and see if it was open. We were very surprised, but completely happy to see only one person standing way at the bottom section. Cat and I moved into the upper run and waited for the rest of the crew to show up. It was the longest and toughest ten minute wait I have ever experienced in my life. Standing over feeding fish and not picking them off while my mind was telling me that every shadow was the 25 incher was exhausting. Well the crew finally got there and was ready to roll, second cast and it was sad, good take but only about a 12incher and I knew it had raised the threat level of the bigger fish to code red. We fished that spot for about an hour with a good number of hookups and a fair number of lands.

Thoughout the day I think we had all asked Sam if filming was driving him nuts and offered to allow him to fish for a while but he continued to politely decline. Sam’s battery had finally run down and Alex talked him into going ahead and fishing a little. I had just broken off so I decide to sit down and watch. I could see Sam was a little nervous and before casting was making excuses about how Alex’s rod felt strange and I felt a little nervous for him. The next thing I saw blew me away, Sam stripped some line out and with one perfect loop tossed one of the most beautifully, tight casts about thirty feet up that landed like butter. It was like I was standing on number 18 tee box and after letting my caddy hit my tee shot, I realize it was Tiger Woods. Yep, I felt a little silly that Sam was filming us all day long. I don’t remember if it was the first cast or the second but it was money. How could any fish deny the perfect cast. We fished for a while longer and then we all had to go.

I was thinking about what an enjoyable day I had fishing with the whole crew. I tend to think my way is the only way but Thursday I realized my way is not the only, just the best(hehe). We saw a few more bwo’s come off Thursday but the fish still didn’t seem to really key in on them. As the hatches intensify over the next few weeks, the fishing should explode off the charts. I will stick with my usual saying that fishing is very good but not easy right now. Fish were mostly on small black midges on the cloudy days and the True Blood and Egg patterns on Sunny days. As always, thanks for reading, Connell, Cat, Winston, The Drift Fly Shop and Also a big thank you to Sam Ebersol…..