From: bc@col.hp.com (Bryan Call)
Subject: Colorado Fishing Report
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 15:30:18 GMT
Organization: HP Colorado Springs Division

Sunday, Aug 9, 1992:

South Platte River - Below Spinney Mtn Res:
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Dave Fleck, Greg (my son) and I managed to get out for the morning
Trico hatch on the river.  The male Tricos were waiting patiently on the 
grass near the bank when we arrived at about 7:00am.  Dave went up
toward the dam while Greg and I wandered down stream a bit.  We saw
a few fish but couldn't get them interested in anything we had.  The 
female hatch got started and the swarms began but we saw no surface
activity.  After a couple of hours of tossing everything we had in 
the fly box we finally gave up and hiked up to find Dave.  Well we
found him alright.  He was standing thigh deep in a nice pool at 
a big bend in the river casting to rises everywhere.  A couple of 
insightful questions gained us the information that the fish had
been rising since he arrived and he had already landed four nice
rainbows.  After overcoming the strong urge to drown Dave right then
and there, we found a couple of spots upstream with rises and got 
rigged up with spinner imitations.  My blacks didn't seem to get 
any attention.  I even tried a gnat, which Dave said he had gotten
one on, with no interest shown.  I finally got a couple of short 
strikes on a small green dry but nothing seemed to work on these 
fish.  After a while it became apparent that they were now feeding 
on something else since none of us got any hook ups for the 
remainder of the rise.  Once the fish quit rising we switched to 
nymphs and tried a variety of these with little results.  I finally
managed a couple of stirikes on a #22 brassy but only managed to 
hook one of these.  He ran around a good bit and jumped a couple 
of times before he finally spit the hook.  Dave and Greg said that
he was snagged anyway.  That made me feel a lot better.  We had to 
leave at noon due to some other comittments but I did manage to get 
a really good "rats nest" after a missed strike just before we 
pulled out.  This was the first time I've ever gotten skunked on 
this river.  I guess you need some of these days to make the others
more meaningful.  Any ideas out there on what to use during a spinner
fall when the regular imitations don't seem to work?

Poacher Alert
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The day was marred mid way through the morning when a family (about six)
of pochers tried to take a fish out just down stream from us.  They were
spinner/spoon fishing but also had along a six foot, wide mouth, nylon
landing net.  We didn't seem them actually catch the fish but they were
walking up and down the bank with the fish in the net.  It almost took 
a fight to get them to put the thing back in the water.  They mishandled
it so bad that there is a good chance that they killed it anyway.  Dave 
was closest to them and stood them down until they finally put it back
in the water and left.  They kept saying to "mind your own business",
and "we got a permit".  There are no permits on this stretch of C&R 
water.  They had just come up to poach a big fish.  The parking lot is
full of signs stating the regs.  They had no intention of following any
regulations.  They were just some of the scum who believe that laws and
regulations don't apply to them.  If we don't figure out how to stop 
people like these we will lose what little really good fishing we have
left.  It is folks like them that make slot limits and selected harvest
regulations impractical.  They would not hesitate for a minute to keep 
an undersized fish and from a distance it would not be possible for other
fishermen to tell.  C&R areas are self policing.  It would be much harder
for a poacher to take out a fish from this river and live to eat it.

HELP STAMP OUT POACHERS  


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Remember:  Fishing is NOT a matter of life and death.
              It is much more important than that!
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Bryan Call (719)590-5772  |All opinions expressed here are mine & mine alone.
Hewlett-Packard Co.       |  But then, I've never let that stop me before.     
Colorado Springs Div      |--------------------------------------------------
P.O. BOX 617              |    Many men go fishing all their lives without 
Colorado Springs, Co 80901|    knowing that it is not fish they are after.
bc@col.hp.com             |                                         - thoreau
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