Rocky Ford Trip Report

darryl@dfnetresearch.com

I wish I had more of an exciting trip report. Long and short, one fish to the net, but likely about ten or so follows, grabs, and fish-ons, including one that would have been my best fish ever if it had not broken off.

A better fisherman would have done better.

I got there about 11:00 AM Friday 3/5/2021. No issues with weather or the pass – bare and dry. There were maybe two dozen vehicles across the three parking lots, including possibly 6-7 campers. I didn’t feel crowded. I fished downstream of the last bridge – I had never explored that area. Thanks, Bill.

The weather was great – no jacket required – what I like to call “nothing” weather, where the weather feels like nothing. I did wish for a bit of wind to provide a slight chop. Pretty grey, but not threatening. And a bit of sun now and then.

What did I use? Everything. I always start with the classic tiny scuds but quickly lose patience and almost always with streamers. In terms of streamers, anything black that wiggled. The fish below was caught on a damselfly nymph in black. My “fish of a lifetime” was lost on a 4” bunny leach.

I did hook a great fish on a B&W Dolly Llama. Thanks, Joe. That one was interesting – two trout buddies were swimming side by side in the current. No amount of Dolly Llama enticement was of any interest – they just looked annoyed at best. But then a third trout rocked up from behind and immediately grabbed it—just another Rocky Ford mystery.

Oh, and here’s my new favorite fly – the Miyawaki Popper. I fished that for a couple of hours. No solid hookups, but extremely entertaining. Lots of splashy grabs and a couple of giant V-wakes right at the fly that made it worth it. I’ve decided that if I’m not going to catch fish, I would like to not catch them on a Miyawaki Popper. It combines my two favorite techniques, streamer, and dry fly fishing.

I plan on tying up a bunch of RF variants.

Here are some photos. Why is it that fish always look bigger in person? The one to the net was a decent, bright, healthy RB.