The Rocky Mountain Way .... Colorado Lifer Fishing

[Johnsfolly]

I was out last week in Denver for a business conference. I had planned on a couple of days of fishing after the conference was over. This was my first trip to Colorado. I definitely wanted to catch a fish in this new state and was hoping for a Lifer to boot. While researching target species, around the Denver area I found that folks have caught longnose suckers in Boulder creek in downtown Boulder. Ham had a trip with a Lifelisting fisherman, Jonathan, from Colorado and I asked if he had ever tried to fish for those fish in Boulder crk. Turns out that he had caught that sucker from that creek.  Jonathan lives in Denver and he became a great source of information about species to catch in and around Denver. Some of the species that he suggested, plains killifish, longnose suckers, fathead minnows, were ones on my target listing, It also turned out that some of his locations were ones that I had also found and planned to fish. He threw me a bit of a curveball with a small mountain stream that has a good population of cutthroat trout. I showed Jonathan photos of my jigs and flies that I intended to use and he thought that we should meet and he would give me some flies that he felt would work better. 

He and I met at Cherry Creek at a spot where he has caught creek chubs and longnose dace previously. I don't know the name of the flies, but they looked like a combination of tunsten bead midge with a small San Juan worm. It didn't take long, in fact the first cast, to catch a creek chub from Cherry Creek. This was my first fish in CO and the 32nd state that I have caught a fish 😉.

Ten days prior to this trip, the weather was going to be clear but cool. That degraded to rain/snow coming in Friday afternoon and most of the day Saturday. I took a chance an ran up into the mountains for the cutthroat stream to beat the storm there and then head back to Denver in the afternoon.

The stream is a very small and tight fishing would be needed. I orignally did not plan on fishing such a small stream. Could not beat the scenery!

I was very excited about seeing my first American Dipper (by the rock in the center of the photo). Though it's not a great photo it is not hard to id a thrush sized gray bird that dives under the water to find aquatic insects.

This creek has had some improvements made in the past with wooden cribbing to created plunge pools. I saw that there may have been greenback cutthroats stocked into this creek which was part of its native range. I blew out the first two holes that had one to three trout just figuring out how to get the best drifts with my fly and indicator to put the fly in front of the fish with my spinnign gear. Also to figure out what fly to use. I did find a #20 nymph (possibly a green back drake?) in my fly box. Once I had the drift right the trout would agressively turn on this fly. I hooked two trout from different holes but both came unbuttoned quickly. I did hook a willow that bit hard and broke me off 🙄. I found a #16 emerger fly and fished that fly. I enticed a trout to hit and fought that fish. I needed to get it over a log to be able to net it and it popped the hook as I lifted it above the log and didn't get it netted.

Just for @snagged in outlet 3 here is a picture for the fish sulking under some rocks after it came off (gray fish tail from the brown rocks).

I fished that creek for a few hours. The weather went from partly cloudy to the front of the storm coming over the mountains.

I drove through the rain in the mountains and hoped to get ahead of the rain that afternoon and fish Piney Creek. The target species would be plains killifish and fathead minnows. The spot that Jonathan mentioned where he caught/snagged plains killifish was devoid of fish 😒. I eventually found a large school of fish in a channelized portion of Piney Creek.

I drifted a #26 Tanago hooks with tiny piece of chartreuse and pearl Gulp bait off of a 1 inch minnow and a bit of red worm under a small float. Most of the fish did not respond to the bait as it drifted by. I extended the distance between the float and bait so that it would drift right above the bottom. I started to get samll bites and I could see fish responding to the bait. I finally got a fish hooked and instead of the lifer plains killifish, I caught a lifer that I did not expect on this trip, a brook stickleback😁! As soon as i got through with my photos, the skies opened and the rain drove me back to the hotel.

The next day I was again playing the weather odds and chose to fish locally early in the day then head to Boulder to fish Boulder creek for the longnose suckers. I went to Sand Creek to fish a spot that Jonathan has seen large schools of fish that might be fathead minnows. I fished that spot and there may have been fatheads that I did not hook. The fish that I did catch were just western mosquitofish.

Before I left for Boulder, I fished the boulder/rip rap under a walking bridge. I put the bait in between the cracks of the rocks. I got a few bites. I even puleled a possible male fathead minnow or juvenile green sunfish. It got of the hook and I could not get safely to the fish before it flipped into some cracks and I could not find it again😒.

I ran up Boulder to fish Boulder creek. The holes that intended to fish was just downstream from the fly/lure section of the creek. I opted to use bait.

I never did get a sucker in the holes that runs that I fished. I did land a few brown trout and a couple of nice creek chubs. 

I did fish fatheads in another small pond that had a fair number of transients that kept me from fishing it until dark. I didn't get a many lifers or the ones that I targeted prior to this trip. I did land a cool Lifer and had a great time.

[BilletHead]

Great trip report!

  Congratulations on a new lifer. #falselittlemackrel. 

[tangledup]

Thank you for the update! I have a work trip to Denver coming up in a couple weeks and plan to tack on a couple days at the beginning for some fishing. I’ve been researching different areas to figure out where to go so this was helpful information. 

[Quillback]

I thought Pete was the expert on turning a "Business" trip into a fishing trip, but JF is giving him some serious competition.  😃

Looks like fun, I bet those browns you caught are not stockers.

[Johnsfolly]

32 minutes ago, Quillback said:

I thought Pete was the expert on turning a "Business" trip into a fishing trip, but JF is giving him some serious competition.  😃

Looks like fun, I bet those browns you caught are not stockers.

Pretty sure that at least the smaller ones were stream bred.

I still have a conference in Austin TX in Nov.. I have plans for some fishing there as well.

[Johnsfolly]

I found out yesterday that Jonathan used my information to catch one of those Brook sticklebacks on a fly. Said that there were a couple hundred in the school. He had lots of bites but just the one hook set. Takes just one😉.