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Got the heads up to check out the 11 Mile stretch of the South Platte. Got to the access road around 730 am. There were 3 cars ahead of me and 3 behind at the self serve parking pass booth...oh boy...this is going to be a "sh*t fight". We all barrelled up the road and one then two then all the cars dropped off...I was headed to the upstream stretch anyways and breathed a sigh of relief.
Hit tunnel 3 and pulled over. Huge pool right next to the car with big rocks and boulders and deep slots. Could see a fish or two flashing, big smile. Rigged up the indicator rig with a tungsten prince and a mercury rs2 #22. Roughly the third or fourth cast and was tight. Nice wild 14" bow came with a pretty good fight. In that pool every third or fourth cast had at least a take. Took 5 all around 15" but wild and headed down to a little riffle that spilled into a drop-off. Hooked up there twice. One landed one LDR. All the hits were on the rs2 but the last fish took my last mercury version so I tied on a Dorsey Top Secret Midge about the same size. Had even better luck on that little thing they really seemed to like it. The whole morning was really really good. They weren't easy but if you dialed in the weight on the leader from pool to pool you were going to hook up. MOJO Mud (not sure if they are carrying it out east) is awesome for dialing in weight. You can easily add or subtract weight and the stuff gets warm and pliable in your fingers making it really easy to change it up. Once the putty hits the water it hardens and sticks pretty good to the leader. I mold it behind a #6 shot and its a nice setup. If you havent tried it...try it...its like $10 but my little container has lasted me since last spring...very reusable stuff. Had lunch and a water and headed upstream. Hit a nice little riff and then a pool and took a few but missed on just as many.
Across the river from me saw famous Guide Landon Mayer. He is pretty well known in these parts and has authored two books....he is a sight fishing machine and he dialed into a sizable riffle just upstream of me. He pulled 4 20" fish out of one little section that just blew me away.(he did ask if he could fish there and I said yes, duh, i wanted to watch him fish). He is good very good...and we chatted a little about the flys we were using...same on his rig too but he was only fishing the Dorsey midge...no heavy fly in front("the big ones know that game",he said)...He seems like really nice guy and it was a treat to watch him for 30 mins...I headed upstream and re-rigged to a long 6x flouro tippet with only the Top Secret Midge...walked the bank and spotted a nice fish just ahead of a log jam...snuck down and tightlined the midge 4 times with out a bite...he couldnt resist drift #5, hook jawed brown trout absolutely gorgeous...measured to 19" on my net. hit a couple more spots upstream and took a couple 15 inchers and called it a day....fun day best by far this year for me...I have not been able to fish as much as I wanted due to work commitments but hopefully that can taper off some (im a commissioned salesman so we dont want it to be too tapered off!)....11 mile is the place to be right now...
04-25-2010, 09:23 PM
frankm205
Re: 11 Mile Canyon
Sherpa,
Sounds like great day! I need to get out west one of these days.
