Dream Stream 02/02/2010

This morning around 7:30am my buddy Dan and I headed to the Dream Stream section of the South Platte. We drove through wild mountains and rolling hills looking out on warm, blue skies. It's a short trip from B.V. to the river, maybe 45 minutes. I found myself thinking it could be warm out there. It was almost warm when we got to the river, probably a balmy 7 degrees or so. There was just enough breeze to make the exposed skin on your face feel like a Japanese midget was swatting you with a reed. All in all it was a perfect day for what we wanted to do. It's Tuesday and cold, so we won't have to worry about fighting for the primo spots. At a place where, in the summer, you just might walk up on an old man shitin' in the bushes, today we saw only one other fisherman the whole time we were there. We had it all to ourselves, and the bright clear sky made it perfect for spotting big rainbows in the crystal clear water.
Both Dan and I started with similar riggs. A grey Ray Charles up top and a small (sz. 24) midge running as dropper. The biggest difference between our setups was that one of us used a big white thing-a-mabober as an indicator, and the other did not. It was shown, again, that the use of an indicator for small stream fishing is not an efficient way to detect strikes. Don't get me wrong, Dan is an exceptional fisherman, and all but the purist nymph fishermen have caught fish using an indicator, but you don't have the line control or the ability to detect strikes as well. We both caught plenty of nice fish and it will only get better over the next couple of months. The Ray Charles with the red midge worked all day for me; where we found fish, we caught fish. It goes to show that we trout fishermen put so much emphesis on fly selection, when really that's only a part of the equation. All in all it was a dandy of a day out there.
I typically use a gray Ray Charles to imitate the dead sow bugs that are drifting down stream. Other colors work as well, but gray is the color you should start with.