Fly Fishing Colorado

3/17/13

Today I fought the battle of the Google android developer console again. I still use XP Pro and IE8. Up to  Google’s switch to the new version of the console, all was working ok. Then bingo, I get a message about using an unspported browser.

To solve this issue I had to Google how to contact android developers. Where I ended up was on a page for the Android retail customer service with a call back feature. This service worked well and I talked with a rep named Nick who was quite helpful in sending me how to contact the actual Android Developer team.

On that page was a contact form and links to several other help pages. One of which was Known Issues. On that page was a “fix” for the IE8 problem by installing Chrome Frame. Chrome Frame puts an HTML5 “canvas” tag in the browser headers as I understand it. Or it adds the tag to the pages being viewed. In any case, this fixed the issue with being able to login to my developer’s console using IE8.

The point here is a message could have been put on the unsupported browser page about how to fix this or a link to the “Known Issues” page.

But in typical BoonGoogle fashion, that would require forward customer service thinking. Which is not a Google standard.

In case any of you readers are having this or similar problem, here is the link to the Known Issues page.

http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/2922603?hl=en

Marshall, Editor
www.fly-fishing-colorado.com

3/16/13

I have not written many posts since last summer since the water conditions were so bad in Colorado. Even though many fly shops said it was a great fishing year, I had to go to Wyoming for my great fishing.

As of the last update in March, the Colorado snow pack statewide was at 77% of normal. This is up 6% from February and is due to some good March snow storms. The Animas, San Juan, Delores and San Miguel and the south west corner of the state are at the best condtions around 83% of normal.

The Yampa, White and North Platte Basins are around 78% and the Colorado at 76%. While not great, these conditions will provide reasonable runoff water.

The South Platte basin is the worst at 69% of normal with the Arkansas basin not far ahead at 73% of normal.

Bear Creek which is headwatered from Mt. Evans is going to be a low water year again this year. Mt.Evans does not have much snow at all. And there is not much time left to get a couple of big storms before we get into the April warming temperatures.

These are current conditions as of March 15, 2013
ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/CO/Snow/snow/watershed/daily/co_update_snow.pdf 

Tight Lines,

Marshall, Editor
www.fly-fishing-colorado.com/flyshop/  
www.successfulflyfishing.com

3/16/13

Landon Mayer and Pat Dorsey will be the speakers at the High Plains Drifters club meeting March the 20th.

Pat and Landon will speak on fishing in Colorado and specific fishing techniques and flies. This is one of the clubs most popular meetings. 

If you live in the Denver Metro area, this is a must attend event. Pat and Landon always provide a wealth of fly fishing knowledge in their presentations.

Red and Jerry’s at the West Oxford and So. Santa Fe 6:00 to 9:00 P.M.  Fantix Room

Tight Lines,
Marshall, Editor
www.fly-fishing-colorado.com
www.successfulflyfishing.com

Monday dawned clear and hot early on. We arrived at the Trumbull – Swayback improvement area about 8:30 and wer on the rive at 9 AM. The water was gin clear, the sky was clear and the air temperature was already at 80 degrees.  From the bridge, we could see a pod of 6 fish hanging over a medium yellow sand bar at the edge of a run with moss on the bottom. They were moving around like they were feeding but nothing was coming off the water.

This pretty much summarized the trip. Low clear water, water temps in the high 40s and lethargic fish was the norm as we worked upstream to Deckers.

After lunch we went bug hunting at several places along the river.  The picture below is a good example what we found. There is one Golden Stone, I think. The most light yellow stone may have just molted and shed it previous exoskeleton. The large black stone could be a Black Stone or a Golden ready to molt. But just look at the size of that crane fly larvae. We also found a number 8 Pat’s Rubber Legs fly stuck to a log in the same area. So who says you have to fish microscopic flies on the Platte. Not so true anymore. It has taken a while but the 2002 Hayman Fire changed the So. Platte in areas from size 22 bugs to size 8 and 10 bugs.

Some nice Mayfly nymphs

So the next time you fish the So Platte toward Deckers, take some time to bug seine and think larger.

Tight Lines,

Marshall, Editor
www.fly-fishing-colorado.com
Fly Fishing in Colorado information

This year is my 43rd fly fishing season. Up to this High Plains Drifters trip, I didn’t really care about fly fishing this year. Burned out, some would say. But a 40 to 50 fish day on Sunday April 22nd completely turned my attitude around. An exciting day where the smallest fish was 14 inches and only a couple of those. 

I watched one HPD member who was using a rust brown size 10 pine squirrel leech catch a fish almost every cast for an hour. Fortunately Doug had a spare leech for me. The leech was one of the most productive flies in our section of the river below Alcova dam that day.

Another member Mark nailed some 75 fish on Sunday and another 25 or more on Monday morning. 

Yes it was one of those magical days when the fish were hungry and ate most every thing we thew at them. Number 12 blood worms tied with red D rib. Small root beer bead head tan biot midges in size 22. Small green midges in size 22. Parachute adams dry flies in size 20. The way the fish were eating, you would have thought it was fall and winter was just around the corner.

Water clarity was good at 3 to 4 feet in this section of the river. The pool we fished had a lot of moss in the runs at the heads of the channels with a drop into the pool at the end of the runs. The fish would wait just under the moss and dart into the pool to get the food channeling into the pool. Drift a fly down the clear channel between the moss to the drop and you could get a fish about every other cast.

Water clarity at the Miracle Mile on Sat 4/21 was about 3 feet and clear. There was a fair amount of moss in a lot of the river and the flow was high. You could wade but only 3 or 4 feet off the bank in a lot of the river above the bridge. I caught only one rainbow that was 19 inches with an 8 or 9 inch girth. A couple of the guys, one from Wyoming, went upstream about a half mile above the rest station to a large pluge pool. Fishing the pool above the plunge structure, they caught a number of fish over 20 inches. This was after the 40 mph winds died down around 5 pm. Also around 5 to 6 pm there was a huge BWO hatch in this section all the way to the reservoir downstream. The hatch was so large, the BOWs looked like smoke off the ends of the branches by 6 pm.

If you have not fished the Grey Reef, Alcova, Miracle Mile stretches of the North Platte River, I suggest you make plans to do so. This year 2012 is going to be a low water year all over the South West. Dry Fly fishing should be very good along with small midges and pine squirrel leeches in certain sections of the North Platte.

If you like to fly fish with great companions and you don’t belong to High Plains Drifters fly fishing club, we meet the 3rd Wednesday of each month except July and December at Red and Jerry’s South Santa Fe and Oxford in Englewood, CO. Meeting and presentation starts at 7:00 pm with food and drink at 6 pm. Come check us out. We fish.

Wishing you good fly fishing,

Marshall, Editor
www.fly-fishing-colorado.com/flyshop/
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