wild basin - ouzel lake

Finally I took a trip up into RMNP. This time instead of going to Sandbeach lake I headed to Ouzel lake, which is about 4.7 miles in from the trail head. The hike up was broken up in to nice sections due to the number of falls on the way and forks in the trail. It was not that hard and the lake is an amazing site. Both Griffith gnat's and small mayfly emerges worked well. The trout were very spooky, but there is nothing like walking around a rocky bottom lake and being able to sight fish. Both green backs and brookies were in the lake and meant to be in the several rivers on the way up, but we ran out of time to stop and fish the rivers as the clouds started to roll in.

Bass and Classics

Just to show that something does happen on this blog. Here is a range of bass that I have been getting on some blue gill flies that I have been tying. Also, I have been trying to increase my ability to tie classic flies so I have added in a couple of patterns that I have been working on.

Bass Time

The sun is out, the weather is perfect, and the bass are in close. Finally, started the 2013 warm water fishing season with a bunch of blue gills and a nice looking bass

A couple of flies

I have been back working on classics and these are two that are straight out of the book "Twenty Salmon Flies: Tying Techniques for Mastering the Classic Patterns". They both on size 0/2 hooks instead of the 0/5 that are used in the book.

Back at the bench

 

It’s the last day of March and tomorrow is the first day of the new fishing season. That has also meant I have been at my tying vice making flies. The majority of the flies have been pheasant tail nymphs tied the traditional way with just copper wire and pheasant tail. Additionally, I have tied some blue wing olives, midget larvae, and green humpies. To get over tying small flies I tied up some yellow Dorothy’s, a streamer that I found highly successful in New Zealand. Additionally, I have been getting back into salmon flies, both for fishing as well as display. The two small salmon flies are Green Highlanders and the larger fly is just a practice fly of my own making.

The good and the ugly

My trip to New Zealand is looking like it will becoming to an end, so time to hit the rivers while I have the chance.

I decided to stick to rivers I had the best lucky on and ones that were close. Heading out the sun was shining and then as I got closer to the river the sky turned to low cloud. On getting to the river I set up and put on a streamer with a trailing nymph as nothing looked to be rising yet. I headed straight for the intersection of the main stream and a small feeder stream. On getting there, there was a reasonable trout in the shallows, but it saw me as soon as I started to false cast. I headed to a nice ledge, which also was were a fork was in the river. Right below my feed was a massive trout (7-8lbs at least). Not really thinking about what I was doing I put a nice cast out in front of the trout and as the streamer went past the fish bolted, should have gone with just the nymph but I was not thinking at that stage. There were a few trout further up the stream feeding on nymphs so I put another cast out further. This time I had a chasing trout and it looked to have taken the nymph, however I just had to much line out to get any tension before it spat the nymph out. The trout in the main river started rising, more like jumping. I ran the streamer down the side of the river and was surprised by a trout hiding in the weeds that chased the streamer, but did not take. A second cast down the same line and the fish was fighting to get the streamer out of it's mouth. Just my lucky, as I tighten the line I helped pull the streamer out. Already I was two fish down and two that did not want to play ball. Changing to just a nymph and casting to the rising trout I finally got a couple of trout for dinner. The bigger of the two was a really good fight and was running and jumping for about 5 mins, both were over 35 cm. Possibly the last trout I will catch in New Zealand.

Lost

I went out today for a short visit to another dam. The first one I went to I had a walk around and saw a nice trout in a side stream and then a few jumping trout out in one of the ponds. By the time I had started to set up, another group of anglers had arrived and started to fish the pond. They seemed pretty excited about seeing a fish, but missed out. Then they started to work the dam wall from the bridge. I did throw out some casts, but nothing seemed to come in the short period I was there. To make matters worse a family turned up and one was spin fishing while the others waded in the water with a dog, so I called it a day. I decided to see what was on the bridge and when I got there the two guys had a trout on and were trying to play it to a safe landing spot. After talking to them it seemed like they fished here quite often with the same process, usually dry flies but were using a bead head pheasant tail today. The trout they caught was ~35 cm the exact min. size limit.

I then moved to another dam, but one I had been to before. Not much was happening so I swung some streamers. Finally, I spotted a trout feeding heavily on the surface and sub-surface. So I put on a midge larva and after a few casts I got it to take, but then it all when wrong. After the take the trout decided to head straight for a rock and I was not going to have any of that so I slammed on the breaks by grabbing the line and lifting the rod. All that led to was the hook coming out and the fishing racing to the deep.

After my failed fishing for the day I picked some blackberries and headed home.