St. Vrain Angler News & Muse

May 1, 2006: Do you know where your fly rod is?

Greeting!

I hope this finds you well this fine Spring day. It is May Day. Young children will be ringing doorbells and leaving flowers on doorsteps to surprise people and to remind them that youth and new life are good inventions.

Life is dandy and fly fishing helps us all better understand the portent of loveliness, delight, frustration, laughter, camaraderie and much more. The struggle to stay alive? We observe it when we see wild trout in shallow water. I wonder how they made it through the harsh winter months. How do they do that? Then there are the insects - aquatic and terrestrial - that are there once again to feed trout and birds. The deer and birds that made it through are fat and sassy and seem pleased to find green grass growing.

Geese and ducks are paired up and ready to make nests; soon goslings and ducklings will be following ganders and hens as their flotillas make it along waterways and try to avoid predators. The predators want to stay alive, too, and that means they'll do all they can to shorten the flotillas.

During the trips I've done at Boxwood over the past few weeks there have been three young does running around and eating grass. The other day John Hagen said, "You remember the three does that have been around here? Well, yesterday and the day before there were only two of them."

I had just mentioned that I'd found a deer carcass that looked like it was being eaten by a mountain lion. The kill was pretty fresh; most of the meat was gone with the inedible portions lying about in a pile under a bush right next to the river.

Ah, life.

I'm hearing good reports about fishing. The Big T is fishing well; the South Platte in Cheesman, on the Dream Stream and so on are doing well, as is Spinney Mountain Reservoir. I met a young man at the Cutthroat Cafe in Bailey on Sunday. He was on his way to Spinney and said, "My friend was up there yesterday and boated one hundred fish." (Without being too irreverent, I wonder how anyone would know they boated that many fish; why count? And wouldn't ninety-seven be enough? I don't know. I thought scoring was for golf.) The caddis on the Arkansas are up to about Salida - I'm thinking of going there for a couple of days this week. The flow on the Colorado near Glenwood is very high right now; I'm not sure about the Roaring Fork.

Please check this link: Stream Flows and follow the links you'd like to know what the water is doing; it helps make decisions about where to go.

Under Tips there are various helpful articles and so on. If you go to that page, take a look at April Fishing. There's lots of useful info on the Tips page. Hope you'll take a minute to read a bit.

It's time to read a few Solutions Booklets, too. Caddis are active right now. The book talks about the life cycle of the bugs, how to rig and fish under various conditions and how to tie the flies that will work. Presentation talks about rigging and where to put the fly to hook fish. Matching The Hatching is about putting bugs and flies together in order to make sense of flies and when and why to use them. Have you read your Solutions Booklet lately?

I've been guiding about two or three days a week. The trips have been a blast. Folks are learning casting and fly presentation tips as well as reading the water and finding fish. It seems the best thing they learn is where to the put the fly and how to make it drift. We're having a lot of fun, too. So far no one has said, "Gee, I sure wish I was back in the office instead of being out here fly fishing."

You? When you are ready please check this link for Trips Now! I'm going to keep the available dates listed there so you can take a look and sign up. On the Guided Trips Page you'll find Reports and Stories. I hope you'll take time to read a few to find out how other folks are doing on their outings. Several of the trips have been father-son events and they've been fun. Read all about them on the Trip Reports & Stories link at Guided Trips.

Joe Arguello is still building bamboo fly rods and they are coming out fantastic! You'll read about the maiden trip for the first of many rods to come on the Reports & Stories section of Guided Trips. Also, take a look at Bamboo Fly Rods. If it's time for you to own one, the time to order is now so you can fish with your rod this year.

The other day someone was gabbing with John Hagen. It was someone who knows me and the person asked what I was doing. John said, "I don't know. Right now he's somewhere between writing and opera and guiding fishing trips."

So, as you can see, I'm still a mess. Everything is great. My friend Dale Travis is singing at Opera Colorado - performances on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday of this week at the new Opera venue in Denver. The opera is lovely and Dale is wonderful! If you can go, by all means go! What a great date!

When Dale is here we talk about fishing, family, music, mothers, opera and food - not necessarily in that order. Each year when the music/opera topic comes up I talk about writing one. This year the topic became very clear. I wrote a synopsis; Dale read it. He took it to the person who was Directing Opera Colorado for this performance. I got my hopes up. I'm not sure the person even read it, but the idea that someone like Dale thought the topic legit and so on has gotten my creative juices going.

Maybe I am between writing and opera and guiding fishing trips.

Are you interested in either? Please let me know by dropping a line to angler@peakpeak.com

As you can see I'm still working on the new format for the web page. There are lots of changes on it and I continue working on it almost every day. Soon the site will be a blog of some sort, full of info that I'll update regularly as I continue to strive to help you fulfill your fly fishing dreams.

I hope you are well.

I hope you go fishing soon!

Dale Darling

303-651-6061

angler@peakpeak.com