Dentry: At last, fly lines float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Fly-fishing tackle is about as versatile as any on the water and more versatile than most.

Giant bluefin tuna, tarpon, sharks and marlin have succumbed to big streamer flies.

Until a few days ago, big streamers and nymphs were virtually the only ticket to trout in cold, runoff-swollen rivers in Colorado. Streamers and nymphs, forced to the depths by lead weights, could do the job when trout weren't "looking up."

Fly rods can cope with slinging all that weight, but they aren't good at it. As versatile as fly tackle might be, it was designed, centuries ago, to cast almost weightless "lures" using the momentum of a heavier line.

It is impossible to approximate the graceful image - from the movie A River Runs Through It - of a gossamer line floating like angel hair above a stream if there is a wad of lead flying around. About the best you can hope for is not to whack yourself in the head.

Which is why trout fishers celebrate the return of summer.

Runoff is toning down, clearing. River currents are warming. Finally, after the long wait, aquatic insects of the summer persuasion are on the rise, and trout are eating them.

To witness the change in action, pick a few rivers at random on the Colorado Division of Water Resources Web site, www.water.state.co.us, and check out some hydrological graphs at "Real-time Streamflow."

Flows in every river that isn't controlled by man-made releases from a dam are represented by declining sine waves. The peaks and valleys of each wave are the daily and nightly fluctuations in snowmelt. But the overall trend during the past week or so has been ever downward, as if each river were walking downstairs.

Now, most trout rivers are entering or have entered that manageable phase, when people can wade without scuba gear, and trout are seen rising to ever more abundant aquatic insects.

It is dry fly-fishing time. Eureka, relief at last.

Typical of fly fishers who've been weighted down for months and suddenly feel liberated, now hear Brian Bell, of Almont Anglers in Almont. Two and a half weeks ago, when the water was still high and cold, he went fishing up the Taylor River with a friend, but he refused to strip another streamer.

"I told him, 'I've been throwing streamers all spring. I'm tired of it,' " Bell said Tuesday.

"Back then, the fish were just starting to look at the dries. But now they are taking them."

What the fish are eating on the East, Taylor and Gunnison are summer insects, mostly lighter-colored flies than you'll find the rest of the year.

"You have caddis through the day, then golden stoneflies, orange stoneflies in sizes 12 to 14, and little yellow Sallies," Bell said. "I've got (green) drakes down at Gunnison and moving up each day. I've got pale morning duns, hoppers, whatever you want."

But does he have trout rising to munch on those pretty morsels?

"Oh, yeah. It's been fishing real well," Bell said of the Gunnison River. "But it's a complex hatch."

The challenging part of complex hatches is trying to figure out which bug and which phase of that bug the trout are keying on. To hedge some bets, Bell suggests a two-fly rig.

"The dry/dropper or double-dry is the way to go right now," he said.

That advice would be standard for practically every river that is coming into its own with the approach of July. Instead of a strike indicator, tie on a big, bushy, floating fly, such as a grasshopper, Royal Wulff, Humpy or Stimulator.

Below that, on a dropper tippet, tie on the "point" fly - a PMD emerger, Pheasant Tail Nymph, San Juan Worm or another dry fly - say a Green Drake.

While fishing a small Front Range stream a couple of days ago, a gaggle of anglers with whom I fished encountered some even later-summer flies: red quill mayflies and even a handful of Tricos, bantams of the mayfly world.

The same tale is being told in rivers all across the state. At last, light-colored bugs are hatching, complex hatches make for intriguing puzzles, trout are slurping at the surface and fly lines are graceful and easy again.

Delightful, now that we've gotten the lead out.

dentrye@RockyMountainNews.com