Photos Of The Week Update

Photos of the Week has been updated. I've put up one more from Garden of the Gods and a shot of a charging Grizzly I took on a wildlife shoot in Utah.

Blue Quill Angler Fly Fishing Extravaganza 2011

It’s over 70 miles from my home to Blue Quill Anglers. The day’s schedule listed the showing of “Eastern Rises” DVD at 9 am and I didn’t want to miss a minute of it, so I hit the road at 7:45. The back road to Evergreen from Woodland Park goes north to Deckers, over 4Mile Hill to Buffalo Creek, then follows the North Fork of the South Platte to Pine, then up to Pine Junction, Conifer and eventually Evergreen. As I drove past the parking area for the trail to Cheesman Canyon I was surprised to see about 30 cars in the lot! “Not a good day to be on the river.” I thought.

“Eastern Rises” was amazing. The scenic beauty of Kamchatka and the size and ferocity of the areas fish will have you shuffling the order of your bucket list to put this place in the number one spot. This film is not a pretentious gear snob film, and the guys in the film are regular fly guys that I would be happy to share a river and a beer with. I’ll be buying this DVD.

Kerry Caragher’s presentation on “Fishing Clear Creek” was a hotspotters delight. I’ll give him credit for future relief of pressure on other popular areas since the hoards will now be descending like vultures on Clear Creek.

John Barr passed around his fly box and discussed what and why he uses the flies and streamers in it.

Steve Parrot’s presentation on “Chech Nymphing Techniques” was informative and enlightening. He discussed the techniques history, rigging, and presentation in simple understandable terms.

I missed Bob Dye’s presentation on “Fishing the Upper Colorado” because I was casting some of the great Sage and Orivis rods that were there for the trying. I likes me some-a-dat Zaxis stuff, but $700 for a fly rod is not on my priority list right now.

Trying to read the screen in the bright sun was tough

Another interesting thing there was the Sage Casting Analyzer. This gizmo attaches to the butt of a rod and a Palm Pilot and records the motion and speed of your forward and back cast and is transferred to a computer that compares your data with that of an expert caster. Luckily for me the things batteries died while transferring my data to the computer, sparing me the embarrassment of having to see my results.

Steve Schweitzzer

 Next up was Steve Schweitzer’s presentation on “Fishing Rocky Mountain National Park”. This was great and well worth twice the price of admission. (free) His book is full of great color photos, charts and information. In his presentation and his book he breaks the Park down into 8 sections and discusses each one and what type of water and species of fish you will find there.

Landon Mayer

Landon Mayer’s presentation was called “Timing is Everything: Trout Hunting Colorado’s Four Seasons.”  As usual Landon did not disappoint. He is a great speaker and of course an incredible fisherman. His slides and descriptions of how to find the big fish was well thought out and presented.

The finale for the day was the raffle. BQA gave away some really nice stuff, including 2- $250 gift certificates for Simms products, a Lamson Litespeed reel, an Orvis Access reel, a Brodin Platinum Gallatin net, a Sharkskin line, and a Sage Trout rod of your choice.

My friend Steve was going to leave early and gave me his raffle tickets, but I talked him into sticking around, so I gave him back his tickets. Trouble is my tickets and his tickets got all mixed up so we decided we would split any booty if we won a prize. First ticket pulled was one Steve had, a baggy with an assortment of fluorocarbon tippet and leaders. I’ll take it thank you very much.  

It was a fun day and the weather was spectacular for the event. If you have never been, don’t miss it next year.

Big Shindig at Blue Quill Anglers Tomorrow

Raffles, casting contest and get hooked up to Sage's "Casting Analyzer" to improve your casting.
Some great prizes in the raffles including 2, $250 gift certificates for Simms products, a Lamson Litespeed reel, Brodin net, Orvis Access reel, and the big gun a Sage Trout rod of your choice valued at $600+. See ya there!!! 
The fun starts at 9am and goes till 4pm. Call 1 800 435 5353 for directions.
Speakers and presentations include:

Frank Smetherst:Showing of Eastern Rise DVD 
Kerry Caraghar: Fishing Clear Creek  
John Barr: What's really in my flybox
Steve Parrott:  CZECH Nymphing Techniques 
Landon Mayer: Timing is Everything: Trout Hunting Colorado's Four Seasons 
Pat Dorsey: Fly Fishing Colorado's Best Trout Streams    

Moments in Time: Photography Tips

I've finally figured out, that this is the only way that you all can post comments on this page of my blog. So if you like the Photo Tips page you may now post comments. The second part of the series "What Ya See Is What Ya Get" will be up next week. I'll blog when the update is loaded.
Moments in Time: Photography Tips: "“How to Get the Most Out of Your Digital Point & Shoot Camera. Part I” A photograph is a visual, two dimensional, frozen moment in time. No..."

Moments in Time: Photos Of The Week

Photos of the Week update
Moments in Time: Photos Of The Week: "Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO


Mt Lion Mama (captive animal actors)"

Arkansas River Report May 1

Fishing wasn't great. We fished from just up river of Parkdale to Pinnacle Rock. With the weekend cool down and snow in some areas, the air and water temps took a hit downward. Water temp was 44* so very few Caddys poppin. This week warming temps will bring the hatch back online big time. Ideal water temps for the caddis hatch need to be in the mid 50's.

The legged larva

The foam wing Blue Wing Olive

Weather was nice, then not so nice, then nice...early May in Colorado. Got a few on larva (the chartreuse legged larva w/super hair). Late in the afternoon some BWOs cam off and got a couple on my foam winged BWO.

Wish we'd seen more of these

 Caddis should start coming off in numbers this week as air and water temps start to rise. The river is looking good. Get down there and get some-a-dat.

A Great Vid of the CMF Fly Swap

Jon Hill is an up and coming videographer and writer. He used a Hero GoPro cam to record this vid.