My First Fly Fishing Trip

[dale.m]

A few weeks ago I went to Colorado with my father and brother. Before I get into the fishing stuff, may I say that Colorado is the most beautiful place I have ever been. After this trip, I am seriously interested in moving to Denver just to be close to the beautiful mountains! We drove up two that were over 14,000ft and it was incredible.

Ok back to the fishing....

We decided to go fly fishing why we were there and got an outfitter lined up to take us out. We fished near a town called Deckers in the South Platte River. We strapped on our waders and got ready for a great day of fishing.

The type of rig the outfitter set me up on was called a Nymph rig. It consisted 3 separate flies and a strike indicator. The amount of leaders really surprised me! Fromt the rubber floating line, there were three sections of mono that connected to the strike indicator. From there, there was another 3 leaders of flurocarbon that connected all the flies to the line. The leaders tapered down all the way from 10lb mono to 3lb fluro! The rod also had an extremely light action compared to the bass rods I am familiar with.

The rig may of confused me, but once our outfitter told us about how the trout fishing we were doing was all sight fishing, I was in my comfort zone. I love sight fishing when it comes to bass, so I knew that I was going to love this. Trout are very hard to spot in a rushing river. They almost look like a grey ark that you would see on a fish finder screen. After learning how to cast, I found my first trout and threw it up the river about 10 yards away, I let the flies float by and the trout struck it instantly!

I totally missed the strike completely!!!

The speed in which trout strike took me by surprise! You have to be quick on the hook set with these pesky fellers. After a few more casts to various other fish, I finally caught a rainbow trout.....all be it, it was probably 6 inches long!

I was determined to catch a larger one though. Finally, after spotting a few upstream, I made a perfect cast and hooked into a nice 14 inch rainbow. The fight was on! Because the line is so light, you can't really reel in. Instead you have to fight the fish until its close enough to you to net it with out reeling in when there is tension on the line. I swear I fought that dang fish for 4 minutes. It got stuck under every dang rock and log in the river but I finally got it over to my outfitter where he could net it! It was the most beautiful fish I had ever caught! What a rush!

My brother ended up catching a nice 13 inch brown trout and a sucker fish which is kind of like the catfish of Colorado rivers. My dad unfortunately got skunked, but he still had a blast enjoying the beautiful mountain scenery and amazing weather.

All in all, my first time fly fishing was a huge success! I had a ton of fun and I am considering buying a fly fishing rig and fishing some of the rivers in the mountains of North Carolina. I still love bass fishing more than anything, but it was a lot of fun exploring a new realm of the sport that I have never tried.

I'm still waiting on the outfitter to email the pictures of the fish we caught to us, but we did get this picture before the expedition began. As I get the pictures in I will upload them here.

And of course...Colorado!

[I.rar]

great pictures , sounds like you had a blast.

[fishingkidPA]

beautiful pictures. I enjoy fly fishing for trout so much more than bass fishing.

[gr8outdoorz]

Congrats on your first trout on a fly! You may have just started a new addiction! Im opposite of most on here. I grew up with a fly rod in my hand and just started bass fishing about 5 years ago. Bass fishing is fun but, IMO there is nothing like picking apart a cold mountain river sight fishing for trout! Enjoy your new addiction!

[CoBass]

Sounds like you had a great time. Who was your guide? Deckers is a great area to fish for trout, lots of big fish come out of there. If you decide to take another trip out here pm me and I can give you info on other great trout waters to try.

[ClackerBuzz]

nice post!

[flyfisher]

Great trip!!

I have had the pleasure of fishing out west a few times with my favorite being chasing golden trout in the sierras.

There is so much more to trout fishing than the catching part which is why i like to take a break from the bass every once in a while and head out to the old blue ridge moutnains chase the only native trout (well char technically but we won't get into semantics:) ) on the east coast....the brookie. Most beautiful fish out there in my opinion.

[RyneB]

I dont have any trout waters near me, but i suggest you get yourself a 3 Wt fly rod and some spider flies and fish for bluegills. It is a blast. If you have smallmouth creeks or small rivers in your area, you will have a blast with that fly rod. I have caught a lot of bass on a fly rod also. There are days when a popper type fly in the scarce weeds will out fish any regular bait i have. I have Hobbs Creek combos and they are a great combo for the price. I tie my own spiders amd dahlberg divers, both are very easy to tie and will catch most things that swim.