|
Learning to enjoy life again
BOND, COLO. - The trout rose and sipped a mayfly off the surface of the Colorado River. Joshua Williams caught the small disturbance on the water from the corner of his eye. Standing in a drift boat, he raised his fly rod and the trout rose again and gulped in the artificial fly on the end of the line.Suddenly, Williams was in trouble.He'd done this a hundred times before on the rivers and creeks around his home in Virginia, passionately throwing a fly at rising trout, holding the long rod in his right hand and gently stripping in the slack line with his left, a delicate two-handed operation.But on a recent Friday, the 22-year-old Army staff sergeant, who had spent a hellish year engaged in street combat in Iraq, had a problem.He didn't have a right hand.The trout surged into the current. Williams, holding the rod in his left hand, hung on.
Angling for change
When are anglers more likely to catch trout, and with what success? According to the commissions study, anglers caught slightly more stocked fish after opening weekend than during the first-day crush. The catch rate was 1.0 trout per hour opening weekend and 1.13 fish per hour afterward. On wild trout streams, fishermen caught 1.76 brook trout per hour on small streams, 0.51 brookies per hour on large streams, and 0.56 brown trout per hour on large streams. Ken Undercoffer looks at the state's wild trout and sees enormous potential. "Devoted trout fishermen pursue them from early spring well into the fall, and sometimes even into winter," said Undercoffer, a former Greensburg resident who lives in Clearfield and serves as president of the Pennsylvania Council of Trout Unlimited.
On the fly: Fish chix
Members of the Colorado Women Flyfishers made what is becoming an annual pilgrimage to the Pan, where some seriously dedicated anglers were in the river from morning til night and beyond.
Two guys returning to their vehicle on the upper river at dusk on Saturday night found more than a few women staking out a spot for the anticipated rusty spinner fall. The evening feeding frenzy was memorable on Friday night, club members assured anyone who wasnt there (this angler, for one).
The spinners, pale morning duns that fall dead into the water after laying their eggs at dusk, are apparently delectible to trout. The pockets of calm water along the bank can boil with glutonous fish during a spinner fall. (The mayflies turn a rusty color at this stage hence the name.)
The pattern with sparkle wings was the hot call on Friday night, but Saturdays overcast, rainy weather apparently put a damper on the PMD hatch earlier in the day, and the evening spinner fall as well.
|
|
|
|
|
Bookmark
(Ctrl + D) |
|
