Rocky Ford Creek Report: The Last Fish of Winter

Winter has retreated to the high country. There it will make its last stand.

Down along the creek it's already spring even if the calendar says it's winter for one more day.

You've brought your new ties, and over the afternoon each pattern--PMD, Lady McConnell, and Adams variant--brings trout to the net.

You bring one in on a black humpy and discover a nice little mayfly tie broken off in the corner of its jaw.

The afternoon goes from breezy to breezier, in the great tradition of March. The pelicans sail over now and then tilting like kites.

The best fly of the afternoon is the little yellow and quail soft hackle. You trail it in the meniscus behind a high-floating stimulator for awhile.

The sun angles lower. On the last trip, this was the time for a lively evening rise. This time the fish stay down.

You change tactics and present the soft hackle with a brisk strip. It works.

It's on the strip that you catch the last fish of the day and the last fish of winter.

You get home and the moon has a halo around it. Looks like a change in the weather.

Fly Tying: Rocky Ford Dry Pack

In search of the "right fly": Lady McConnell's, PMD's, and a couple of Adams variations.

Rocky Ford Report: A Leap Day Tradition

You see your wife at lunchtime. "We get a whole extra day this year!" she says. You hadn't thought of it quite that way. You think to yourself, "What would you really like to be doing with a whole extra day?"

Ten minutes later you're heading down the road for Rocky Ford.

It's mild and breezy. Fish are working and you show them a few dries before you find the right one.

A big, beautiful rainbow, one of Rocky Ford's best, comes up and takes a renegade, of all things. Why did you even tie it on? Because things like this happen.

A few minutes later you have a one-winged spinner on. Because you can. First cast and a little fish hammers it.

A little later, after trying out a few more dries, you settle on a Lady McConnell.

Another beautiful slab of a fish takes it practically at your feet.

You just leave the Lady McConnell on. The breeze is blowing steadily, and the little shellback fly cuts an enticing wake across the riffles.

A third beauty follows it and sucks it in.

The breeze cranks up a notch and changes direction. Blowing downstream, or blowing upstream, you can handle. Now, though, it's blowing directly in your face. That's rare, and it creates it's own challenges. You keep punching out casts.

A final fish plucks the Lady McConnell out of the riffles.

The light is going. You tie on a muddler dry. It casts easier in the wind, and you want to see if there's a chance the fish might go for something bigger--like a mouse, for instance. But...they don't. The wind keeps blowing in your face, the fish go down, and you decide to head for home.

It was the shortest trip of the season--and one of the best. You've caught more fish before, but you haven't caught more quality fish.

As you hike back to the truck you have to wonder where you'll be on the next Leap Day four years from now. Wherever it is, you decide, you'll be fishing.

A tradition is born.

Rocky Ford Creek Report: You Have Time

The afternoon is like my kind of restaurant: no jacket required.

The creek is big and beautiful, and to your great delight the first violet-green swallows of the season are swooping over the water. You can hardly wait to get a fly out there.

Little light-colored mays are coming off, slowly but steadily. All you've ever read about PMD's says they don't hatch in February, but these are a good imitation. You tie on a little light may imitation of the imitation. It's not long before you catch a bright little fish.

You get more hits on twitchy strips and slow retrieves.

Then another hookup.

That gives you confidence, so you set up the tripod and camera and start another video. The fishing slows down. You try some different flies. Eventually you tie on a Lady McConnell. You get a take and a hookup. The fish jumps and you get it in the net. And it's all on video.

You keep rolling, but you can't hook another fish. You get hits but you miss them. Then you hook a good fish and it comes off. Then you miss some more fish.

You're convinced. There's a video jinx. You turn the camera off and get back to fishing for fishing's sake.

You tie on a deer hair comparadun style mayfly and cast it out. All the fish so far, caught and missed, had come to a strip or slow retrieve. Now, as you sometimes do to test the waters, you let the fly drift.

Up comes a big nose, the fly disappears, you time the set perfectly, and you're hooked into one of those prime Rocky Ford Rainbows. A gorgeous fish, and one of those moments that defines the fly fishing existence.

You think this fish would have looked good on video, but only if you could have gotten a close up of that big nose coming up out of the water. Then again, if the video had been on you probably wouldn't have caught this fish in the first place.

You leave the comparadun on and catch a couple more fish before evening.

At dusk you tie on a new muddler dry and see if you can get a fish to chase it down. You get some follows and bumps, but then the fish back off and the creek quiets.

You leave the mouse in your fly patch this time and call it a day.

Tomorrow will be another day, and it will be longer than today. The day after that will be even longer than tomorrow.

You have time.