To Front Range fly anglers, the stream reports were reading like obituaries.
The Big Thompson was “muddy and unfishable,” said the Colorado Division of Wildlife, and the Cache La Poudre was “blown out” and “dangerous to wade.”
So after years of drought when stream fishing would be well underway by now, Colorado anglers still had limited options for stream fishing as June turned toward July.
What’s a fly fisherman to do? Well YourHub.com user and fly-fishing aficionado Paul Egges of Louisville turned toward Lily Lake on June 25, which is located just south of Estes Park.
“You probably could have fished in Cheeseman Canyon (the South Platte River), but it didn’t look that good either,” he said. “But I hadn’t fished Lily in a couple of years, and I’ve got this new belly boat, …”
Lots of other people had the same idea, but Egges said there were not that many boats out on the small lake, which is just within the confines of Rocky Mountain National Park off the Peak-to-Peak Highway.
“There were a lot of people, but not that many people fishing,” he said.
And there was other company as well, such as the elk that came down to drink just about 10 yards from where Egges was out on the lake fishing.
“I didn’t have my camera with me,” he said. But fortunately for him Keith Greenwell of Arvada was fishing across the lake and had brought a camera.
“Fortunately he was fishing, so he was around for a while, and I got him to email those pictures to me” Egges said. “It was a great afternoon, even though I only caught one fish.”
Which is pretty much the take of renowned fly tier and trout novelist A.K. Best, who is renowned for his pictures of the insects that fly anglers try to imitate.
“Always, always bring your camera, because you don’t know what you are going to run into,” he recently told members of the Boulder Flycasters, a local Trout Unlimited chapter.