----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 12:05
PM
Subject: Rocky Ford Report 3-9-2004
I fished the Ford
from about 12:30 pm - 3:30 pm yesterday. When I arrived it was dead
calm and midges were hatching. I crossed the foot bridge at the
South end and talked to a few guys fishing there who said they were doing okay
using tiny Pheasant Tails. Just downstream of them I spied quite a bit
of obvious tiny-midge-sippin surface activity on wind-free water - it
was like glass.
I tied a #22 midge
emerger (top-secret racoon-variation) on an 11-foot 5x leader. Within 5
minutes and a few subtle rises I hooked up and landed a nice hard-fighting 20"
fish. A few casts later I had another one on for a few minutes
(LDR). I lost another shortly after that right after the hookup. I
had a few more rises there but was missing the hookups and the wind was
starting to come up so I wandered on down toward the fast water at about
1 pm.
Below the
diversion dam I found that fish were also working the surface but a little
differently. After a couple minutes I saw a lone baetis adult fly by
me. By their behavior I had guessed they were sippin baetis
emergers and seeing the adult confirmed it so I tied a #18 cdc baetis emerger
on my 5x. The wind had come up now and it probably took me 15 casts or
so to get my fly right were I wanted it, but once I did, I hooked the
alpha-buck in the first run I had chosen. It fought nicely for an old
buck and once to hand I figured it to be 24 or 25 inches. After about
another 15 casts or so I got the fly in front of the hen that had been sitting
next to him... hooked and landed that one too. Pleased, I worked
downstream and picked up more fish this way fighting the wind the whole
time.
After coming back
upstream I tied my #22 midge emerger back on and picked up
one more fish on it. Three hours of sunny weather and nine or
ten nice fish (all on dries) had me feeling pretty good but the wind was
up and not showing any signs of improvement. I decided I didn't want to
put with it any more so I packed it up and drove on home. It was a
nice day on the Ford, not crowded at all, and pretty much everyone I
talked to did well.
-tight
lines-
Jim
