North Park Anglers Fly Shop

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Scott and Jason are great guys up there so make sure to stop by and ask what flies to use!

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Various Patterns to use

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Lakes: South Lake, North Lake and East Lakes


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Total Distance: 180 miles from Denver
I usually get to Walden in about 2:30 and Delaney another 10-15 minutes

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Lake Report

Chironomids have been hatching like crazy throuhgout the day at all the lakes. Look for surface feeding fish in calm water. For those dry fly fishers, try small midge patterns on the surface like Griffiths Gnats or Birtchells Hatching Midge in sz. 16-20. Also throw chironomid pupa 8-12 inches below an attractor dry to fish cruising near surface.

Most chironomid success is either near surface or deeper water (6-10 feet). For deeper water suspend midges under an indicator and adjust your depth until you locate fish.

Reports of good Calibetis hatches are coming in daily. The fish have yet to make the switch to them but look for that to happen soon. For now try Gilled Nymphs, BH Anatomical Callibaetis Nymphs, and rubber legged Copper Johns in 14's and 16's in Gold or Red.

The other alternative is stripping big streamers, try Olive, Black, Orange, Brown.

        
 
"People always ask me, why do you drive to the Buttes so often to fish, what's up there? Hmm...Nothing really I tell them!"

                                

We had one heck of a weekend to say the least! I don't think we had a shortage of fish caught and from as soon as we got there Friday night the bite was on up until I left at 10pm on Sunday (due to a nasty hurricane like storm that was on top of us) I had 4 takes on my last 4 casts.


  

                        

That's the kind of wknd you hope for and despite North Park's well known rain, wind, a few mosquitos, and few crowds by late Saturday. My buddy Brian flew in from Minneapolis and our other friend Tony from Arizona also joined us for a wild weekend!




                           
                          

 Whether we fished the morning time, middle of the day, dusk or dark, someone, mainly Stillwater master Brian, always had a rod bent over and a fish on. The Cutty you see in the picture taken was actually one that cruised by me on the shore I missed and the next thing you hear, Brian yells "Fish on and it's a goody" he brought it over and I knew it, he caught that fish! The picture almost didn't happen as well seeing how she jumped out of his hands and he got lucky and grabbed her bent over head 1st into the water, nice job.

                 

Catching Cutty's between beer breaks at the campsite, doesn't get much easier than
 this when you're at South Delaney right on the water.



                     

Tony getting ready to head out and get after a few with  the Callibaetis Hatch going off in the distance

                                                     
                         

Man that looks tasty! Monster steak, Rainbow trout (cover your ears Trout lovers) sauteed in onions, butter, lemon, seasoning sitting next to a fatty chicken filled with a lovely filling and wrapped in bacon. Don't forget about our asparagus, big pepper with cheese and butter melted, cold cocktails and finished it up with a Pan amanian cigar with the moon shining overhead! Forget about the fishing, it was about the experience we had that night for sure.

                              

                                     Troutdawg's go to Dead Chicken  Fly 



                             
                                    
                                     The boys Hanging out at the campfire
                                                        

                                 

We caught some very nice fish from 16-22" rainbows in South Delaney, Snake river cutty's that were gorgeous, to big browns over at North Delaney. The small trout at 16" put on a show and fought a bunch more than they should have. We also lucked out by not catching all of the cookie cutter 8" they had stocked so that was nice.



                            
 
Many of the big fish we caught pictures weren't taken due to no camera, no one to take it or just because, well no need to really you knew what you had and it meant a lot! Did I hear someone say break offs? Oh yeah we all had quite a few and more than we had hoped for. Par for the course of this way and I can still remember a beast that I had on that worked me good and busted my 4x in a second. I also had some freight trains hit me so good that it brought back memories of my Tarpon trip last month.

                               

My new Troutdawg! Didn't take long for her to fall in love with this place! I have a feeeling she'll be back again soon chasing brids and pointing out cruising Cutty's.


                               

Stillwater guru Brian with another one on and here is a double we had with Brian and by buddy Stan in the background also with one on he got from a Blue winged olive pattern.



                                  

No matter what it was fish on and all in I averaged we had caught fish on about 20 different flies total for the weekend so next time you better have a little of everything to fish up this way.



                                   
                                         
                                              Stan the man was into good all day


      
 
Finishing the night at Delaney is always a treat, no one is ever on it at night and why do you think the fish get so big in there, everyone's at South and East! I love this place and can't wait to get back again this Fall.