By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

Runoff is in full swing in Colorado, so it may be the perfect time of year to explore other waters you have considered fishing and trek in to see what it is like, or fill up the belly boat to fish one of the many reservoirs that populate the great state of Colorado.

Currently Cheesman Canyon, Deckers, Arkansas, and the North Fork of the South Platte River are experiencing run-off coloration and levels. They are still fishable next to the banks and behind large structures, but why throw flies when you can’t see fish is my philosophy. If you do go, check the Colorado Division of Water Resources website for current flows. And use this scouting rig to find the fish: A standard two- or three-fly system with a San Juan worm, baetis, and emerger set-up. Give yourself 15 minutes in your starting position before changing flies or location. If you’re not having much luck, try seining the water or checking under rocks to see what bugs are moving, then imitate accordingly. [ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

Look at these!  Taken this past Sunday in Gore Canyon, Colorado by my good friend Jeff Rogers.
--Tim

[ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

But let’s not kid ourselves. Catch-and-release done wrong is selfish. It’s a simple issue of motive.

Jim Harrison offered the best perspective on the matter I’ve ever read. He said, “Catch-and-release is sensible, which shouldn’t be confused with virtuous. ‘I beat the shit out of you but I didn’t kill you’ is not clearly understood by the fish. This is a blood sport, and if you want a politically correct afterglow, you should return to golf.”

I advocate catch-and-release fishing, on the rivers, in the lakes, and on the ocean. But I’m not about to stand on this soap-box and say I haven’t kept a striper, or a salmon, or a redfish, or even a trout for a meal, now and then. And statistics will show you that mortality rates among fish caught and released are likely higher than you’d want to know, some say as high as 20 percent, depending on the species, and factors like water temperature. The guy who nets, manhandles, de-slimes, and half-suffocates 30 fish while his buddy fumbles for the camera -- but lets them all go -- is tougher on the resource than the guy who pops a couple... [ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

For the record, Creature might be one of the most decorated big game fishermen on the Atlantic seaboard, but his closet fishing passion is chasing trout with flies.

“How do you figure,” I asked, totally perplexed by the comparison.

And he explained: “Fish like changes.” Changes in currents, changes in depth, changes in water color, changes in structure. If you find a patch of sea grass floating in the open ocean, you’ll find fish under it. If you find a place where currents converge and bait schools, fish will be there also. Reefs, wrecks, and rock formations attract fish too.

So apply that thinking when you go to the trout river. Look for changes in currents, where swift water meets slow water, changes in structure, where rocks and trees create holding water, changes in depth, like shelves and pools, or changes in color, which usually signals a depth or structural transition. “It’s all pretty much the same,” Creature laughed. “You trout guys can walk or row a boat to find those changes, and we have to run a bit out here to find them … but that’s how you locate fish.” Find the changes, and you... [ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

So here’s the best tip I ever learned to straighten out the issue of going too far on the backcast. It came from Dan Stein, a guide on the Bighorn River in Montana. He simply suggests you keep your casting thumb in your
peripheral vision at all times. Lose sight of your thumb, and you’re going back too far. [ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

We graded each reel on a 1-5 scale in three areas:
1. Price
2. How the reel felt and reacted as the motorcycle sped away
3. How we like handling the reel

Then we made “judges deductions” for any beefs we had about the reels.

Price/Features
The Hatch Outdoors 9-Plus is the biggest reel the company markets … so far. There’s a bigger brother in development, but we threw this one to the lions. Retail is $800.
Score 3.5 out of 5

How it “Met the Street”
No warmup, no worries. We just tied it on and hit the gas. In terms of pure startup – that initial grab where the drag engages and the reel starts paying out line – this reel is one of the best. There are just no surprises. And that speaks very highly about the engineering of the drag.
Score: 4 out of 5

Functional Review
Aside from the motorcycle test, we recently fished Hatch reels down the length of the Baja and back. In the sand and the salt, and the grit … with all sorts of species pulling on them. The reels really perform well in terms of tolerance (no... [ Read Full Post ]