While Angus Drummond was busy backing his drift boat down the ramp and into the Lower Colorado River, I walked a short distance along the bank to where an angler was busy landing a fish.
“That’s a pretty nice brown trout,” he exclaimed as he carefully removed his lure from the trout’s mouth and released the fish.
By the time I’d witnessed the trout’s return to the river, Angus had the boat in the water and John Gierach was readying himself to climb aboard. I motioned him to move to the front seat of the boat and headed to the rear seat.
I took the bank angler’s success as a good omen for our day of fishing. This was a leap of faith because when John and I arrived in Silt the day before and walked down to take a look at the river it was definitely off color. You might even say dirty. Several other more descriptive “potty mouth” words were uttered, but I won’t go there.
The condition of the river wasn’t a total surprise. When I talked with Angus a week earlier, he said that there had been some mudslides over the past several years and the off-color water had become close to a permanent feature. However, it was fishable in the early season and tended to moderate and become fishable in the later season. Nonetheless, it was still a shock when we first saw the water.
Initially, I was hoping to repeat a memorable trip I’d taken with Angus before the pandemic. We pounded the banks with grasshopper imitations for the better part of the daylong float. It was dry fly paradise.
This time around Angus let me know about the impact of the mudslides, which at one point actually precipitated some fish kills. He said that we might still catch some trout on the surface, but we’d probably want to suspend a nymph or two below our dry fly to up our chances of success. In addition, we should come prepared to fish streamers, too.
“You’ll catch trout, but it may not be exactly the way you hoped for,” he said.
When we first saw the river, I briefly wondered whether we would catch any fish at all, but quickly reminded myself that you have to trust your guide and I trusted Angus. A number of years ago we’d worked for the same outfitter guiding fly fishers on the South Platte River. He was already a superlative guide then. I told people that nobody gets a better drag-free drift whether fishing a dry fly or nymph than Angus, and nobody can teach that skill better than he can.
Over time Angus got more and more interested in floating anglers on the Gunnison River and eventually moved to Newcastle on the Colorado River where he opened his Colorado River Fly Fishing Outfitters guide service.
I did let John know what Angus told me about the river conditions and we agreed that we’d still do the trip. We’ve both been at this long enough to know that when it comes to guided trips, or for that matter any fishing trip, it’s one day out of 365 days and you take what comes your way.
Before we pushed off into the river, Angus suggested that we should try to cover all the bases in regards to fishing techniques. One of us would start off fishing streamers and the other would go with a dry fly and two droppers. John’s fly rod was already rigged with a sink-tip fly line to which he knotted a black streamer to the tippet. I went with a big Chubby Chernobyl look alike dry fly with a beadhead pheasant tail nymph and Zebra midge nymph as droppers.
Angus headed to river left to start us off and John hooked up a rainbow trout on his first cast. After that the off-color water didn’t seem quite as menacing. I fished the dry fly dropper rig for a while, but after John hooked up again I switched over to a streamer. We managed to land several nice trout apiece during the morning and had a bunch of follows and “near-takes” before things slowed down.
We then went to dry fly dropper rigs and fished the foam lines near the banks. Angus kept us focused on getting good drifts on the edges between slower moving water and well-defined foam lines. He also made sure we fished any gentler riffles near the banks.
We didn’t catch one fish after another, but I’d say for the most part the fishing was steady. We caught mostly brown trout with a few rainbows.
A day of fishing comes in all shapes and sizes. There are those perfect days when the hatch comes off and you catch trout right and left. There are other days when it’s all you can do to hook and land any trout at all. I like the in-between days where things may seem a little grim, but the river surprises you. Maybe the weather is horrible, but the fishing is great. It might be that the river is off color, but the trout are pounding streamers.
Then, on a day when conditions seem most difficult, come signs of hope. You witness a shore fisherman catch a trout before you even put the boat in the river. Your pal hooks up on his first cast. A nice brown trout takes the large dry fly you’re drifting down a foam line.
As the day unfolds, you’re still catching a trout here and there. By the end of the float, you realize that you’ve caught your share under trying conditions and say to yourself, “That’s miraculous!”
Visit EdEngleFlyFishing.com to see Ed Engle’s blog, “The Lone Angler Journal.”
IF YOU GO
Angus Drummond guides float trips on the Lower Colorado River, Roaring Fork River, Gunnison River Gorge and the Lower Gunnison River. For more information, check out coloradoriverflyfishing.com.
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