DIY on The Blue River in Colorado

 

 The Blue River, Near Silverthorn, CO

 

Business trips to Denver are fantastic for a number of reasons, but for people like me, I get a chance to tack on a bit of fly fishing.  This trip in early June was no exception.  I decided to fly out very early on Sunday morning and head up near Silverthorn, CO to explore the famous Blue River.  The Blue River is a Gold Metal stream that flows out of Lake Dillon, right though the town of Silverthorn.  This is one of the few places on earth where you can actually park in an outlet mall parking lot, and let your family go shopping while you fish some pretty epic water.  

 

Blue River, in Silverthorn

 

For this trip, I flew with an El Jefe Packable 5 Weight which is perfect for The Blue River.  Packing my combo in my carry on luggage is fantastic.  I also brought my waders and boots in my carry on luggage.  From my experience, flying with waders isn’t the easiest, but I’ve got a great Patagonia bag I use.  In addition to my roller board suitcase that has all of my business clothing, this Patagonia bag stores my electronics, fly rods, waders & boots, as well as my Go-Pack Sling Pack.  This bag is great!  

I landed in Denver around 6:45am, picked up my rental car, and headed up highway 70 to the mountains.  The drive from the rental car facility to Silverthorn was about 90 minutes.  I stopped into a great place right on the Blue for an incredible breakfast, and it was time to hit the water.  The place was called Enza’s, and I had a breakfast bowl with super crispy home fried potatoes, biscuits and gravy, sausage, and a fried egg.  Tying this up makes me hungry again…

 

Breakfast on The Blue River

 

Fishing right in town can be pretty incredible if you know your way around the water.  I went up near the dam to start my morning and quickly realized that this place was VERY crowded.  In addition to the crowds, the water was very low.  I was able to connect with a small handful of fish up here.  Fishing is very technical, these fish see a lot of angling pressure, and a lot of anglers.  You need to size down your flies and size down your tippet.  I started out fishing with 6X tippet, as I frequently do to increase the odds of strikes.  I also chose to ignore the advice I got from the fly shop I stopped in.  The advice was to use size 24 midges.  I do appreciate the fact that the fish will eat size 24 midges, but if I can’t see them to tie them onto our tippet, it’s a bit of a waisted conversation.  Come on son, people over 40 can’t see a size 24 midge, yet tie them onto small tippet!!!  I’ve been through this before, and know that if you make a great drift, a size 18 or 20 will also get hook ups.  

 

 

Midges for Breakfast

 

After connecting with a couple of rainbows and three browns, I decided that it was time to explore downstream and hopefully get some river to myself.  You can drive north out of Silverthorn, and the Blue River follows the highway.  Every little pull off or parking area for miles outside of town offers some really great looking holes.  I chose to keep driving until I didn’t see any cars in the parking areas.  Finally, I came to a pull off area where it was going to be a heck of a hike down a cliff to the river, and there were no cars.  That was game on for me.  I could see some pretty impressive holes down there, if I could only get to them.  I grabbed my gear, and started down.

 

Brown Trout on The Blue River, Colorado

 

This was an incredibly pretty spot, and I was fortunate to hook up almost immediately.  My rod was set up for nymphing, and the water was pretty deep.  My nymphing rig was set up with a pheasant tail with some CDC up top, and I fished a black zebra midge down below.  I also needed to add some weight to the rig to get these flies down.  I generally tie on tippet to build out my leader.  I do this for two reasons.  One, adding the tippet decreases the diameter of the tippet and I think the flies drift better.  Two, I like the knot above my tippet because it keeps my spit shot secure so it doesn’t move town to my fly.  This is a technique I learned a long time ago, and it works very well.

 

Brown Trout, Colorado

 

I fished for a couple hours down in this little canyon, and was really careful climbing in and out because I didn’t have cell coverage and I was angling by myself.  The fish down here weren’t very big but they were really pretty.  I know there were probably larger fish in some of these deep holes, and I look forward to checking it out again with some different tactics to target larger fish, like streamers. 

 

 Brown Trout, Blue River, Colorado

 

There’s something very satisfying about exploring new places and connecting with fish.  I’ve never fished on this section of The Blue River, and it felt great to connect with some fish.  

 

Brown Trout on the Fly

 

Until next time my friends, tight lines!

Jeff

 

El Jefe with a Colorado Brown Trout