Zach's First Bass

iphone_pic, a photo by ...olson family... on Flickr.

Catching your first bass in this family is a critical milestone. Zach has arrived! A trout magnet under a bubble gave Zach the critical edge to land this little largemouth - plenty exciting when you are four and fishing with an ultra-lite.

Way to go Zach!

Poppers

iphone_pic, a photo by ...olson family... on Flickr.

It's worth elaborating on popper tactics that have been really good for me over the last few years. My basic premise is that poppers are good during certain windows: sunrise, the secondary morning bite window, the mid-evening bite, and sunset. There are other times when conditions point to poppers such as off color water, and in some cases , windy conditions.

My color selection is dictated by light conditions. I go dark on dark and bright on bright. If it's cloudy or the light is low I go for a dark, usually a solid black popper. If the sun is high and bright I start with neon yellow (aka chartreuse) and may shift to white or softer light colors. Water clarity should also be accounted for. Clear water requires a natural presentation such as an olive green frog pattern. If the water is dingy an obnoxious bright color or solid black works. Calm conditions may require more subtle approaches employing smaller poppers or sliders. Good popper targets are weeds, brush piles, and rocks.

Poppers do not yield bites all of the time. They are often called a 10% solution and applied at the wrong time they are inferior to streamers and other sub-surface flies. I have found that sound popper tactics applied at the right time,place, and conditions are hard to beat.

South Park Lakes

iphone_pic, a photo by ...olson family... on Flickr.

In my view, the best trout fishing in the area is found in South Park's lakes. Spinney, and Antero Reservoirs are awesome fisheries where every hook-up could be a trophy. The size limit at Spinney is over 20"!

I had the opportunity to hit both reservoirs on Sunday morning. I started at Spinney fishing a streamer trailed by a damsel nymph from my float tube. This was worth a solid 17" rainbow that fought unbelievably hard. Needing a break from the tube, I loaded up and hit Antero for a couple of hours. I had two lost hook-ups -- one was a genuine monster.

In all, I got what I came for. I just want to land one trout when I hit these lakes --anything you can net will likely be huge. Trout in the 3-5 pound range are consistently caught at Spinney. Antero produces a disproportionate number of 5-10 pound trout. Your chances are always better if you stop in at Angler's Covey or Ghillies and get word on the flies the guides are using. I take a couple hot flies and focus on changing depth until I find the right range. I found that a dropper four feet off the point fly gets the fly down in the zone. I talked to anglers who were going with 20' leaders with an indicator over using a sink tip. Next time I will try a sink tip, but adding droppers and shot to extend the leader seems to work.