Rocky Ford Creek Report: Honey Hole

It's spring in the cattail marsh.

It's spring on the water. You strip in your newest soft hackle and hook a heavy fish. The idea is to get a photo or two of the first fish of Spring jumping and leaping. It's a bad idea. The fish takes the fly and the tippet and jumps and leaps away.

You have another soft hackle and tie it on, but it doesn't bring another hit. You switch to the ever-faithful Lady McConnell.

 After a time you bring in the first fish of Spring. The photo waits until the fish is safely in the net.

Things are slow. The fish are there, but they are hesitant to poke their noses out of the riffles. You try several different dry flies, but you get more hits from swallows than from fish. It's a compliment from the swallows, but you would prefer fish.

Time to go below. On a whim you choose a #12 blood midge to suspend under the indicator. You have caught good fish on this pattern in the dead of winter. Would it work on a pretty Spring day?

The fly is hanging a good 18 inches below the indicator. You fish it dead drift. It slowly drifts from 10 o'clock to 1 o'clock. You've been tempted to pick it up since 12 o'clock, but you stay the course. At 2 o'clock the indicator plunges. You work in a gorgeous deep-bodied slab of a Rainbow.

That's the exact spot you hooked the first fish you caught here on the blood midge. It was a big fish, too. You revive the theory of the honey hole lying just off that cattail island.

Back you go. The indicator drifts slowly to 2 o'clock and, right on cue, plunges again. Another heavy fish, better than the first one. It begins a ponderous run toward the main channel. You're with it all the way, giving line, keeping pressure on, until you get it on the reel. The drag is set light, but your handfeeding of the line was lighter. The slight increase in tension is enough for the next lunge to separate the 5X tippet from the leader.

You have one more blood midge. You tie it on 4X this time, and go back to the honey hole. Yep, at 2 o'clock the indicator dips and another heavy fish is hooked. You're kneeling with the net in your hand, just leading the fish into it, when the hook comes out. You almost jump in after that fish.

Again. Another good fish hooked. This one jumps off the hook.

And again. You've just knelt down and reached for the net when this one rolls off the hook.

Four fish in a row hooked and lost. What are the odds? You stay on your knees for awhile. Time for some soul-searching.

You go back to the honey hole one more time. Amazingly, there's one more fish to grab the big red nymph. This one is smaller, and you manage to get it all the way to the net. Redemption, but of a diminished sort.

Six fish out of the honey hole. Could there be more? You go back for a couple more drifts. Retrieving the line for another cast you get the fly hung up in the cattail island. There's no help for it--you have to break it off.

That was your last one. Time for a change. You try the big soft hackle under the indicator. Then the small soft hackle. Then you go back on top with another selection of dries.

Still slow on top. You dig deep and find a lone San Juan worm. You drift that through the honey hole and the indicator jumps again. But it's another little fish.

That's all for the worm. So you decide to go dry the rest of the way.

It's still slow, but you trick a little guy with a deer hair PMD.

You go back to the Lady.

And she comes through again. You net one fish.

Then you lose another one--decent, but not a slab--when you try to get a photo of it jumping. You miss, but you'll keep on trying. That's the only way you'll ever get the shot.

Evening falls. You tie on a pretty little stimulator.

You have to work for them, but you get a couple of bumps.

Just as you begin the usual inner dialogue ("This is the last cast...OK, this is the last cast...wait, just one more cast...") you get a splashy take. Another feisty youngster, but much appreciated.

You aren't positive, but you're pretty sure that fish hit the fly just as it was drifting right over the honey hole....

Rocky Ford Creek Report: You Can Hardly Wait

Two long weeks since the last trip. Now, finally, a break in the weather and your schedule. It has been overcast at home since forever. Driving south again you escape its gray grip and enter into dazzling sunlight. Your eyes take awhile to adjust to the unaccustomed glare.

Down here in the banana belt the January thaw that has begun at home has already transformed the landscape. Last time it was snow-covered.

Now the ice and snow are almost gone.

You start with the mouse left in the hook keeper from the last trip. It's a good casting warmup, but it has no noticeable effect on the fish. You put it away for later.

You screw on an indicator and hang a big blood midge off it. Down goes the indicator, up comes a trout--emphatically. It jumps at least six times before you get it into the net. You figure we're all feeling good today.

You stay with that big red nymph for awhile and get plenty of entertainment from it. You miss some takes and catch some more fish.

The afternoon wears on and the big red nymph wears out its welcome.

You try a scud, and the fish like the change.

Soon a scud, too, ceases to get any attention. There is more activity on top now, as the light wanes, so you try a little may, with no luck, and then a smaller griffith's gnat.

It takes some coaxing, but you finally get a take and a hookup.

The moon peeks over the eastern ridge. You're delighted. You haven't seen the moon for weeks.

It casts its spell over the water, and day flees and evening settles in. I hear what I think at first is a fly reel being reeled slow. But it's a precocious frog. It croaks a few times, and then is silent. At the same time I hear a familiar conk-a-reeee from the cattails across the creek: red-winged blackbirds. What are they doing here? Then again, what are any of us doing here?

You know what you're doing here. You knot a deer hair mouse onto a stout tippet and begin mousing.

You work that mouse hard. Mostly it's ignored, or followed with not even a bump. But two times you get a heart-stopping take and hookup. You feel the pull and then the slack as the fly comes out. You ponder that. Is the fly too big? Or are the fish too small? There are smaller fish cruising in pods and you figure it must have been a couple of those reckless youngsters who grabbed the fly.

You fish in the dark for awhile, and have to force yourself to quit. You hike back to the truck in the moonlight. You're thinking--and you're still thinking--that there will come a day when the time is right and a big old trout will come to that mouse, not to play, but to kill. 

You can hardly wait.