A Day On the Dream Stream

Yesterday I went out on the South Platte to see if I could intercept some lake run browns from Elevenmile reservoir. When I showed up at around 1 pm almost every parking lot was full, so I knew I was in for a real treat.

Not exactly what you want to see when you roll up to the river

There were a fair amount of Kokanee in the system and a few lake run browns below the Spinney State Park fence line, but boy were their a lot of anglers. I tried to cover a lot of water just looking for some big fish, but I only managed to spook a couple. I did try a black sex dungeon at a few likely looking spots as I made my way down to the reservoir, and I managed two decent resident cutt-bows. My plan was to try and spot a big fish or two and come back at night when there would be less people around (or so I thought).

High winds make cool clouds, making my way down to the reservoir

After sundown I headed back to the truck and refueled, then went back out on the water around 8:30 or so. I fished under the full moon until around 1 am, and to my dismay there were still around 30 anglers out there. Everyone I interacted with was very cordial and inquisitive, and most found it odd that I thought no moon periods seemed to be better for brown trout fishing. I managed one fish (a rainbow), and when I was packing up back at the rig I had a hell of conversation with a guy named Jay. It seems as though you always meet the craziest (or coolest depending on your definition) people night fishing.

Another fucking sunset, happens every day

Before unloading some seriously incoherent wisdom on me, Jay warned me that he had been known to smoke weed from time to time.

"Fishing is a total mind-fuck. On the one hand your supposed to catch the fish, I mean what are they fucking here for? On the other you've got to do it the right way, and they're always telling you what you can't do. Do this, don't do that, use flies, catch and release, blah, blah, blah. Fish can be delicious on your fucking tongue sometimes."

"Maybe 1% of the people know what they're doing out here. Maybe it's 10%. You seem to know what your talking about. I see guys raking fish of off redds all the time, very few of the big bobby browns get caught in the mouth out here, especially during the day. When was the last time you saw a big brown that wasn't trying to hide during the day? My buddy caught a 31" down by the lake on an RS-2. In the mouth. A fucking RS-2."

"They need to shut this place down during the spawn. Actually close it for two years. It would suck for the guides who make a living off of this place, but there's other places to fish. I guess we are here during the spawn, so what the fuck am I talking about? Yeah, shut it down during the spawn."

"Anyone that comes out here to challenge themselves and try and catch a fucking fish is alright in my book."

I wish I could remember more, but I know there was some serious wisdom in some of his words, as well as a brain full of THC.