It is an oft noted that the passage of time accelerates as we age. I fight the perception but it is very real. It would be easy for me to slip into a funk about getting old but maybe Calvin hit it pretty good when he exclaimed: “Aagh, It’s a half-hour later than it was a half hour ago! Run! Run!.” [url]http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2010/08/16/[/url] For me it is “Fish! Fish!”
Every summer it seems that the window for fishing in Colorado seems to “slip through my fingers like grains of sand.” I find that the trip has become a necessity to my mental well being.
But timing a successful two-week trip to Colorado can be difficult–too early and you are in the middle of run-off–too late and you hit the monsoons. This year our timing was impeccable–we arrived the same time as the monsoons. 
This summer’s monsoons seemed to be heavier than normal. As typical, they were spotty but for most of the time I was in southern Colorado we were under a flash-flood watch—or in my case a blown-out stream watch.
This constant rain limited my fishing to relatively accessible streams. I reported on one of those trips where my wife discovered flyfishing for brooktrout: [url]http://freestateflyfishers.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3230[/url]
Still most of the time I fish alone. I couldn’t see hiking 6 miles back into a stream just to find it blown out, so I stayed close to the cabin and ventured out for 2-6 hour trips no more than 2 miles from a road. The water conditions also dictated that I not rely on dry flies so much which is at least 75% of what makes flyfishing small streams so special.
For me the measure of a successful fishing vacation is the discovery of “new” water. It’s the new water that helps me ignore the “grains of sand.” There’s more water in So. Colorado than can be explored in two lifetimes but I’m trying–even if I did get a late start. With the rain I wasn’t too successful this year. I was restricted to “tried and true” streams that were a pleasure to fish but not as rewarding as getting back to the more inaccessible “undiscovered” streams where I could fish by myself all day and not see anyone.
Of course it’s not all about fishing.
When fishing the monsoon season, I try to get out and get my fishing done by 2 o’clock because that is when you can count on the storms arriving. This year was different. The storms would build up by 11 in the morning and then rain off and on all night and into the next morning. Finally, though on the next to the last day the forecast was for late shower buildup. I went to bed thinking I’d get up and hike into the backcountry. It was not to be–it again rained most of the night and it started raining hard at breakfast. I had to change plans. I decided to fish a section I’d only visited once before–well-known to the locals but not well advertised. I left town in a downpour hoping that somehow a watershed up the valley was not getting the same storm. I drove through several miles of rain but just as I got to my destination the rain let up. More importantly, the storm had apparently skipped this watershed. I parked at a normally occupied site and hiked in to this stream.
It was a bit off-color but very fishable.
The day before the flyshop folks had worked hard to convince me to switch to streamers so I gave it a go—good choice.
I caught several on streamers in these pools.
Later, I nymphed the riffles for a few more. On my way out as the sun appeared, I came across a hatch that had about 3 species coming off at once. The fish were lined up in the foam line next to the bluff.
I switched to an parachute adams and proceeded to wrap up the day with about four more before I spooked the pool with this high-flying rainbow.
All in all, a great day. Parting storm clouds, not another fisherman in site, fish caught with nymphs, streamers and dries.
BW