Deckers – South Platte

5/17/17

Water is low and clear but the fishing has been awesome. Caddis are starting to pop off everywhere and the BWO hatches are starting to slow down. Look for the deeper water as you’ll find alot of fish holding deep all morning. By the afternoon you’ll find fish higher up in the water column looking for emerging caddis and the best way to get after these suspended fish is with a Mini Rig or a dry dropper with a Graphic caddis or a swing caddis dropped off an Elk hair or a smaller hopper.

5/3/17

The flows have continued to stay low for this time of year as Cheeseman reservoir fills up, however the fishing has been really good as of late. Fish are starting to take notice of some of the larger foam attractor patterns on the mini rig and the takes have been very entertaining.  With the flows hanging in the 70-90cfs range the “mini rig” is a very effective tool, however a normal in line nymph rig will typically pick up plenty of fish as well. The subsurface flies that have been producing the best results are (barr’s emerger sz20, rainbow warriors sz22, zebra midge sz 20, butt crack baetis sz 20, buckskin caddis soft hackle sz 18). Most of the fish have been on the smaller baetis and midge patterns, but you should still stick a few with the attractor flys (san juan, egg, and stone fly patterns, etc.).

The top water action has been pretty good depending on the weather, if you’re out there with some cloud cover and minimal wind you’ll probably run into plenty of noses. The funnest approach for these fish is to target them with a tandem dryfly rig. The first fly is usually a (hairwing caddis, high vis adams fly, stimulator in sizes 10-16) with about a 12’-inch trailer to a sz 20-22 (spent bwo, sparkle dun, parachute adams).

Please keep in mind that the rainbows are in full spawn and there are lots of redds in the river right now so please watch your step.

See you out there,

Levi Lambert