Keyed Off

View from Colorado Springs

Wednesday night the stars were on fire and our feet were numb. The elevation was 7,995 feet, so our heads hovered just above 8,000 feet shivering in the Colorado February darkness. We were stranded and the temperature kept dropping. Our fishing had abruptly ended hours earlier; our minds quickly worked to devise a plan that avoided the four of us sleeping in a Rocky Mountain canyon in the dead of winter.

Lake George lies at the mouth of the canyon, and the town has dotted the map of Colorado since 1891.  If you have ever seen the opening scene of Disney's Frozen, then you could picture men harvesting ice blocks hewn from the frozen Lake George in the winter. Lake George was created to supply ice for the railroad and Colorado Springs area.  The Sunday before our Wednesday night shiver-fest,  I had fished in the same area, but the temperature was mild and the fishing was medium. Today, our guides jammed with ice accumulation and we couldn't find the keys to unlock the tailwater puzzle of the South Platte in Eleven Mile Canyon. Oh yeah, we couldn't find the keys to the rental suburban either.  As daylight began to fade behind the canyon walls, we were keyless and without cell signal; the slow fishing took a back seat to the reality that we needed extraction from the canyon.

Eleven Mile Canyon

On Sunday, the parking lot was full, the weather was balmy, and the river was crowed. Despite the pressure, a patient-dead-drifted-nymph rig would regularly ply a rainbow from the gin clear shallow waters of the Platte. On Sunday, we we slid in the water with 6x tippet and an array of size 22 midges and beatis emergers.  Black beauties, purple juju bees, olive sparkle wing rs2's, and some tiny fbpt's made it into the rotation, and all produced at least one fish. On Sunday, the best setup was drifting any number or combo of tiny flies behind a San Juan worm. The fishing was never hot, but I never went an hour without landing a rainbow.

A run that produced fish Sunday and Wednesday

Cookie cutter S. Platte bow

Three days later, on Wednesday, everything was different aside from the clear water, hundreds of visible fish, and the massive dam that dominates the upstream landscape when you reach the end of Eleven Mile Canyon Road. On Wednesday, a fresh blanket of snow covered the landscape as we drove through the deep scar created by time, gravity, and water towards the dirt lot at the end of the road.  My excitement was palpable as we cut the first tracks into an empty parking lot below the same ominous dam that held back the straining force of Eleven Mile Reservoir. On Wednesday, we were past the cold front with colder temperatures; a classic recipe for sucky fishing. Low fishing pressure overpowers barometric pressure, I thought. I hoped. (The parking lot was empty after all.) But after staring at hoards of fish happily ignoring our presentations, my hope dwindled. We couldn't find the keys to unlock the river riddle that day. I fooled a few, landed two, and lost a brute, but the fishing was down right slow.

The excitement picked up however as the day closed.  Tom started asking me, EJ, and Matt if we had the keys to the suburban about 45 minutes before dusk. I had just switched from a white football indicator to a orange thing-a-ma-bobber so I could actually see my indicator in the quickly fleeting light of the gorge. When I left the river to go look for the keys, I was certain I would be back in the water to get a few more drifts, and maybe one more fish before I had to call it quits on my only fishing trip in 8 months. 8 months. That surpassed my previous fly fishing dry spell of 2 months in the past 18 years. We really don't know what happened to the keys. We scanned the clear waters of the South Platte. We retraced the foot prints and packed snow trails we made over the afternoon's fishing. We turned waders, the suburban, and bags inside-out in search of the keys to be denied around every twist and turn to turn up empty-handed on a day we we often empty-netted. 

Behind a myriad of chain link, barbed wire, and a hatch of 'no trespassing' signs, a slice of civilization held hope for us on the opposite side of the river.  After wading across the river several times, watching my waders and wading boots freeze and unfreeze, and busting some Entrapment-inspired Katherine Zeta moves through fence and wire, Todd and Caroline were home. Todd is the caretaker of the dam, and he and his wife Caroline let us in their house and kindly allowed us to use their phone.  It was Todd's birthday. We ruined his evening I'm sure. I would imagine we weren't the first idiots to knock on that door, stranded in the canyon.  After calls to Enterprise, Rodney the Rescuer, and a tow company, Todd kindly drove back out the nine miles of gravel round that snakes along the banks of the river in the grand and beautiful ditch that is Eleven Mile Canyon. He dropped us off in Lake George after conversations of Matt's Family Feud fame, the many mountain lions that Todd encounters in the canyon, and about a millions apologies from his keyless passengers.  On the way out we passed the tow truck that Tom had arranged to lug the suburban back to the Springs.  As we pulled our frozen gear from the back of Todd's truck in the frigid rocky mountain cold we laughed, we cussed, and we shivered until Rodney and Chad plucked us of the side of the desolate, dark highway. Chad and Rodney had accompanied me earlier on Sunday, and had the distinct privilege of performing the extraction on Wednesday since they were familiar with the canyon and the river. 

We still don't know what happened to the keys (I mean, we know Tom unknowingly dropped them in the snow somewhere, but for Tom's sake, we've let him run with the theory that a passing drifter stole the keys and nothing else form the suburban that was parked 50 feet behind us).  The day will be etched in my memory as the day when both the keys to fishing and the keys to the car eluded us, leaving us keyed off, cold, nervous, and slap-happy. I'd never been so stoked to cuddle up next to frozen waders and wading boots in the third row of a cramped Mitsubishi Outlander car, leaving the celestial brilliance of the Colorado night sky to burn at our backs as we faded into the noise and light pollution of the city. 

Soon, if not already, the buzz and blur of civilized life will leave us longing to escape to the natural places, where solace, beauty, and danger more acutely connect us to the One who created our wild souls and the ever fading wilderness.  The convenience and abundance of resources and shelter can rob us of the very awareness of our mortality, leaving us to think we are gods that control our future with dollar bills, furnaces, pre-packaged food, and experience. In the wild, we are left to wrestle with our own frailty and we are reminded of our need for a Great Provider who will lead us to a redeemed creation, where the South Platte runs free, and in my mind, fat trout rise to drifting green drakes all the day long. I'm not sure that there will be fly rods in eternity, but I have a hunch that Jesus is a fly fisherman who builds his own bamboo rods, ties his own flies, and gracefully condescends to share his favorite run with me...and you, and any other willing to follow him into the reality of wild freedom. He holds the keys.

"A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy.  I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of."  -Jesus Christ, The Gospel according to John

Strike Indicators - reviews and scenarios

Bobbers. That's what strike indicators truly are. However, in the hierarchical flavor of many pretentious fly guys, the term "bobber" is reserved for the bait fishing basement dwellers of angling society and the pompous flingers of fur and feathers refer to the baby bobber as a strike indicator. This blog entry is intended to review different styles of strike indicators, cover some basic strike indicator placement, and to stop bobber bigotry. Bobbers are strike indicators too.

Just add batteries for night time brown poaching

What Indicators to Avoid... like for real, don't use these
Personally I feel that putty indicators, sticker indicators, and big yarn indicators with rubber o-rings all suck.

Not my favs. Clockwise from the top: Stickers, putty, o-ring yarn.

Putty leaves residue on your leader, doesn't float well, and doesn't work as well in the cold when you are most apt to use an indicator/bobber/nibble detector/eat-meter.

Sticker Indicators are wind resistant and cause drag when casting, leave sticky residue on your leader, and don't float well. Burn 'em.

Yarn Indicators with rubber o-rings are also very wind resistant and hard to keep floating.  Too much silicone applied to them and they sink from the weight of the silicone and rubber o-ring. Too little silicone and they sink from water absorption.


My 3 favorite Strike Indicators ... (money makers) 
My go to strike indicators are Lightning Strike football indicators, Thing-a-ma-bobbers, and Lefty Kreh's indicator yarn. None of these are perfect, hence the reason I have three favorites. I use these in different scenarios.

I likes the white footballs for their bubble camo qualities

Lightning Strike Football Indicators are the indicator I fish the most often. Most of my fishing is for wily wild trout or over-pressured big trout.  I only use the small white one. I think these small white football indicators spook less fish when they hit the water and are more apt to look like a air bubble when they float over the head of picky fish. The best thing about these indicators is that you can slide them up and down your leader to adjust for depth without taking it off or kinking your leader, making these little indicators worth their weight in wood duck flank feathers.  This bitty bobber is not invincible though. The small ones don't float great with heavy nymphs or strong currents. Also, the white air bubble theory works reverse on the fisherman, because it can be harder to see than the fluorescent glowing beacon indicators out there.  They can also be a little tricky to get on your leader; like wrasslin a greased pig.

the industry standard fly bobber

Thingamabobber embraced the obvious about 10 years ago when their products stormed the market
and became the industry standard for fly fishing bobbers by calling a spade a spade. As it's name suggests, it's a bobber people. These things float high and they are easy to see and easy to use. Nuff said. Although these bright balls aren't aerodynamic, their heft allows them to punch through the air better than their light but clumsy yarn counterparts.  If you get the bright colored ones, nothing is easier to see on the water. The kryptonite for the Thingamabobber is that it's loud to hit the water, can be easy to spot by educated trout who have previously felt the sting of a hook after watching the popular Thingamabobber float by, and they leave a sharp kink in your leader when you take them off or move them.  I like to use these indicators when teaching people to nymph, fishing stocked trout with mush for brains, or when fishing deep water that needs and indicator to float high and keep your flies from snagging bottom or dropping deeper than where the fish are feeding.

best yarn indi if you go yarn

Lefty Kreh's Strike Indicator Yarn is a super solid product.  I use it for heavily pressured or spooky trout, particularly in low water situations. It dispenses in two twisted strands out of the top of a little cylinder, and I usually separate the strands and just cut a small piece from on strand.  Just a tad of silicone will keep it riding high for a while, and this stuff floats really well, especially compared to other yarns out there. If you use both strands, you can float a heavy leaded nymph no problem. When it hits the water, it's as soft as a #18 adams dry flying laying down on the surface. It's the Ninja of bobbers.  It's weaknesses are that you need a knife or scissors to cut a piece off, and the little girth hitch leaves a kink in your line. Also, you'll have to switch it out for a new piece a few times if you fish it all day.  The plus side is its freakin' Ninja skills have helped me stick some big, smart trout.

Other strike indicators are out there for sure, and a lot of it boils down to personal preference.  Czech nymphers use a piece of fluorescent amnesia type material in their leaders as an indicator. I haven't tried this style of strike indication yet, but I can see the merit in it.  Fish Pimp makes a football type indicator as well that looks sexier than the lightning strike football packaging and product, but I haven't tried those either.

Bobber Basics
The simple rule of thumb is that you estimate the water depth, multiply by two, then place your indicator that distance from your lead fly.  If the water is 3 feet deep, place your indicator 6 feet up your leader from your fly.  This is assuming you are trying to get your fly to the bottom of the river. Another rule of thumb is if you aren't occasionally get hung up on the bottom, you probably aren't deep enough.  Add weight or adjust your indicator.

The biggest variable in the twice-the-depth-of-the-water formula is current speed.  If the water is ripping through a run, you need to place your indicator further from your lead fly to allow it time to sink deeper (If I am fishing two of three flies, I consider the fly that is closest to my fly line the lead fly).  Counter to fast water, in slow water, you may need to slide your indicator down closer to your rig to prevent it from sinking like a rock and hanging up before your drift even makes it to the feeding lane.  Beware! In slow water the fish are more wary and have more time to examine you flies, and an indicator closer to your set up may be enough for educated or spooky trout to move into the lock-jaw state, and kill your chance of an eat.

There you have it.  Josh Jones' bobber bonanza. Remember these are only my opinions, and if you don't care for the opinion of a dead sexy, expert fly fisherman with chiseled abs and credentials to make anglers around the world blush...then your in luck, 'cause I'm just the local idiot. Happy bobber fishing rednecks.