Friday, June 15, 2012

Yampa June 14 2012

I had the pleasure of floating the Yampa last night. It was a float trip with a couple from Colorado Springs who bid on the trip at a Project Healing Waters fundraiser. We are a month or so ahead of schedule this summer as far as run-off. The flows down in Milner are close to 500 cfs. This is low for us down there but doable. Last night the river went off like I haven't seen in quite awhile. We had a little shower roll through around 4 which put the caddis and sallies down. They were coming off pretty good, and the fish were up on them. It was good, and steady, and they were catching fish. If we didn't catch another fish at this point it would have been a good day. We waited out the sprinkles, and about an hour after the shower the wind totally disappared. The air had a real, real still feel to it, and the temperature came up a little bit in the last of the sunshine. I don't know all the reasons, but this made for a perfect situation for pmds, caddis, sallies, and two colors of a big drake to come off in thick thick numbers.The fish responded. My passengers aimed at the slurpers. I can still see a big bubble the size of tennis ball on the water's surface after a big head slurped a Drake off the top. The bubble traveled down the foam line for a second or two when a little brown literally leaps over it to snatch a Caddis out of mid-air. Everywhere there were fish lining up with bulging backs, slurping heads, and mid-air theatrics... It was a circus!!!