a quick rocky ford report

[johnny costanza]

I fished Rocky Ford this afternoon from about 12:00-4:00 pm.  I figured 
mid-week there might be a small number of fisherman there, but I was wrong.  
Not a weekend a crowd by any means (at least from what I hear as I never 
fish here during winters on a weekend), but for a wednesday afternoon it 
seemed a bit crowded.  I parked at the third parking lot and walked 
downstream as far as I could until I could see no other anglers.  This 
section had the smallest number of people fishing it today.  This "faster" 
water stretch was pretty low, and the fish were really podded up in big 
groups.  Fishing was at times too easy, but mostly consistent with a few 
stretches of no fish being caught.  I noticed a lot of guys fishing the 
slow, wider sections of the creek with what appeared to be streamer patterns 
judging by the way they were fishing.  Not being a big fan of stripping 
streamers, I stuck pretty much with subsurface midge and mayfly patterns 
(with a few scuds and egg patterns thrown in for good measure) and sight 
fished most of the day.

I cannot say that I found a particular pattern to be "the" fly being keyed 
on by the fish.  Some appeared to be actively scudding, others were taking 
what appeared to be the adult midges (20-22 although there were some larger 
than that) coming off, but my guess is an emerger or pupa in the 
film/subsurface would be the stage more fish were feeding on with respect to 
the midge hatch.  Not being a very good midge fisherman, I can only tell you 
that of the number of midge patterns I fished today, a size 18-20 blood worm 
was the most effective.  Not that it necessarily matters, but the profile of 
this pattern was much slimmer than that of the other midge patterns I was 
fishing.  I tried other red patterns in the same size but could only take 
fish on this pattern today.  Small (size 20) pheasant tails were also fairly 
productive today as were pale orange scuds (14-18).

All in all, a good day at Rocky Ford but the fish were absolute slugs.  I 
cannot remember when the fish fought as meekly here as they did today.  
Playing fish was not really exciting, but seeing them take the fly always is 
somewhat of a thrill.  No huge fish today, but caught a lot of fish in the 
16-20 inch range with a couple going to 22-23 inches.

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