Featured Photo: Streamer Eater on the Clinch

Featured Photo: Streamer Eater on the Clinch

Monday, May 20, 2013

Final Sprint

The marathon that is also known as the 2012-2013 school year is almost over.  We are now in the final sprint to the finish line.  That does not mean I haven't had time to fish, but not as much time has been available to blog.  I do have a couple of trip reports from the weekend to share coming up in the next day or two.  Some nice fish were caught and, while I haven't looked at them much yet, hopefully some pictures came out well, both of the fish and the scenery.

A word of caution to those that check local fishing reports: not all local fishing reports are updated in a timely fashion.  I headed up Boulder Creek on Friday afternoon only to discover that Barker was pushing a LOT of water (anyone have a LINK to water releases from Barker?).  By working the calm pockets on shore (few and far between I might add) I was able to avoid the skunk but just barely.  The water was almost to the top of the spillway and upper Boulder Creek through Nederland is roaring.

Runoff conditions exist for the most part although some streams are staying clear enough to be worth hitting.  The Big Thompson is good both above and below Lake Estes.  South Boulder Creek below Gross Reservoir is high but fishable if you work the pockets hard.  I did not fish it but did hike down to the river at Walker Ranch Saturday afternoon and spotted a fish holding in a calm pocket.  If I had my fly rod that would have been a caught fish...

The northern Colorado mountains are picking up a bit more snow which is awesome.  The latest maps from the Climate Prediction Center show a small area centered over north-central Colorado that is finally drought free!!!  That is great news for the summer fishing.  Everything is currently greening up nicely, and I have very high expectations for the summer and fall fishing this year.  We are not too high on snowpack so while I don't foresee any dangerously low conditions, fishermen should be prepared for normal low and clear summer flows by mid-late August unless we get an unusually strong monsoon that lingers.

If you want to get out now, generally you should focus on tailwaters for the next week or two although there are a few freestone streams that are barely hanging on.

4 comments:

  1. David
    I can remember the days getting out of school and fishing most all summer—hope you have a great summer and land lots of fish—I have notice you have the ads as all of us do at the top of your blog and some of the words in your post have links—do you know what is going on?

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  2. Bill,

    I'm not sure about the words in my post with links. Does this post have links? I link to stuff in quite a few posts. Also, I have ads enabled for my blog. Its a way to make just a little money off of the blog...

    David

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  3. Hey David, school getting out is a good reason to celebrate as soon as run off is over. I'm learning which web sites have accurate reports and which don't. The message I've picked up is stick to still water.

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  4. David
    Don't worry about the links in your post, I found out that I contracted a virus on my own computer. I am having to reformat the hardrive.

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