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Two flies are much better than one
Anglers use two flies to effectively reduce the time in finding out what insect and what stage of it that the trout are feeding upon. The nymphal or larval stage of an insect is typically the stage that fish feed on the majority of time.
As a result, many anglers fish a large dry fly as an indicator. This fly takes the place of the yarn or hard bubble type of indicators. From this fly a nymph is suspended with a length of leader material. Some anglers even will add a split shot to get the second fly deeper. Doing this requires a very large and highly buoyant dry fly. Too much weight will obviously sink the indicator fly.
Anglers attach the second fly by tying the leader of the second fly off of a tag end of a line splice, this is called a dropper, or by directly tying to the bend of the hook on the indicator fly.
Hopper time
I put on my waders, my felt-soled boots and a fleece vest because it felt a little bit cool when I got to the Oldman River. The sky was cloudy, threatening rain. A chilly breeze was sweeping down the valley from the west. But within 20 minutes I was sweating like I was in the tropics, the breeze had stopped and the sun had popped out from behind the clouds. I should have known. Summer might be winding down, but it ain't done yet. I'd come down to the Oldman River below the Three Rivers Dam to try a bit of late-afternoon grasshopper fishing. No, not fishing for grasshoppers. I mean using big flies imitating grasshoppers to fool some trout into playing with me for a bit. It's the time of year for grasshoppers along the river banks to start leaping and flying around looking for mates.
Fish stocking near Rollinsville Pass
Driving down from the Forest Lakes area on the Rollinsville Pass road, we were lucky to come upon a Colorado Division of Wildlife truck that was about to stock Yankee Doodle Lake recently. The truck had driven from the Rifle fish hatchery that morning and driver welcomed our interest and help with the fish delivery. Rifle Falls Hatchery is the largest trout production hatchery in Colorado. Yankee Doodle Lake is a beautiful spot surrounded by wild flowers. She brought 2500 Rainbow trout that were up to 10 inches in length. Nearly every fish was safely delivered and the driver noted that it was common for them to arrive safely. Since the lake has a steep bank, a tube was fashioned for the actual delivery. Many of the fish upon arriving at the lake actually tried to swim back upstream into the tube and had to be encouraged to "explore" the lake.
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