High Water

With the flows of many streams on the rise fishing tactics must change accordingly. Water is high and off color but many times still fishable. As recently as yesterday we caught a lot of fish on the Big Thompson, with a flow close to 500cfs. Fish will often move out of steep areas and onto flatter terrain wher the currents are more moderate. The use of larger, flashier, brighter flies will help fish to see your offerings in the faster, stained waters of run off. Large rubber legged stones and san juan worms are two of my favorites this time of year.

An area still not yet tainted with run off is the South Platte River system. The Dream Stream, Elevenmile Canyon, and Cheeseman Canyon all have good tailwater flows, but these will almost certainly increase before the end of June. There has been good dry fly action on olives, midges, and a few caddis in hotter days.

If you want some killer dry fly action head to Grey Reef. With lower flows @ 600cfs the waters are producing some awesome dry fly fishing using midges, olives, and some pmd's. This is a rare occurrance as thes big rainbows rarely make it to the surface, so try to get there in the next two weeks before the flows come up. Pods of rising, happy 20 inchers sounds good to me.