The Blue River – Silverthorne, CO

October 19th, 2015

What is it about fly fishing in the fall?!  It’s my hands down favorite season to fly fish.   And when you combo that with fishing with two long time buddies who are great fishermen and love to “team fish”… Well, it was just about one of the most fun fly fishing days for me ever.  Of course all of us catching big fish and me catching 3 trout over 22” had something to do with it.

Tom Young, Jeff Winkler and I have been fishing together in Colorado for a long time.  They are Coloradans; I am not.  We only hope to see each other 1, maybe twice a year.  We go all the way back to when i was still a greenhorn Fly Fisherman.  In the early years Jeff taught me a lot about how to fly fish on the middle fork of the S. Platte.  Over the years Tom has made me and my buddies custom fly rods.  We have missed some years due to family commitments.  But, these are the types of friends where you wish you could see each other more than once a year, but, appreciate the time on the water you do have.

On this day i took 5 separate trophy shot pictures.  i never do that anymore.  i always choose underwater release shots.  But, when you are catching huge fish it’s kinda’ hard to resist.  here are the 3 release videos of the monsters i caught on this day:

Check out the video of my buddy Tommy battling this huge monster.  this was the fish of the day.  It’s somewhat concerning listening to myself “coaching”.  It’s not like Tom needed any help from me.  He is an awesome fisherman.  I guess in my old age i have developed some annoying guide like traits.  🙂

The Blue River is a special one.  I have the privilege to fish private (and public) sections in Silverthorne, CO; close to Breckenridge.  The Blue has a huge mysis shrimp population that the wild trout gorge on.  and get huge.

Things to look for in the video below: i’m using a Winston Boron IIx 6 wt so it’s not like i’m using a cheap rod.  And you can clearly see that i’m getting “man-handled”.   My tippet was 5x so i could put some pressure on.  But, this is a huge fish capable of snapping me off so I was clearly unable to land him quickly.  But, the most important thing to notice is that i would have lost the fish downstream  if my buddy Tom didn’t prematurely hop in the river to try and net him.  That fish was headed down the rapid and i was too far away to chase him.  i would have surely had 100 feet + of line out before i could have crossed the channel to the edge to chase him.  and under that rapid is another run.  There’s no way.  But, i lucked out. Tommy got down river of the fish and it spotted him, was spooked, and ran back up river.  Team Fishing; i love it.

What a day!  I caught big fish; i caught small fish.   i caught 3 fish over 22″.  i caught an 18″ brown.  i love that Blue River.