pull. I let off pressure as WHATEVER streaked off into the sunset downstream. In seconds I was into the backing, and seconds after that I knew my CFO III was running low on backing. Out there somewhere the fish slowed down to taking line in steady, six foot throbs. Then he was way down there where the brush and fenceline crosses the pond. Then he was gone. Your guess is as good as mine. My leader was broken off in the middle, and it was too dark to think about repairing it, so I just enjoyed watching bow waves until Dave gave up in the dark.
The next morning at 9:00 there was only twenty or so cars in the lot. It was much sunnier, and I had my polaroids. We hiked down to the bridge, if you could call it that, and immediately saw what I couldn't see the day before. Big fish kept ghosting into the shoreline, swirling here and there. The Worm did nothing in the still water, and Dave picked up two fish so I watched his technique for awhile. he simply used a little #14 partridge hackle nymph and kept teasing it in front of fish cruising towards him, much like bonefishing. The fish kept coming back to the same spots on the shoreline. Finally it became obvious that the fish had starting nest cleaning and defending along the shoreline, and really weren't much interested in feeding. Those hooked on the beds in that large flat were real dogs as fighters, too. But they were big, all 19-20". I took one with the same method, and it was time to go.
We did walk downstream to get a feel for the rest of the place, and it just got worse. A hundred yards below the bridge 80% of the water was drained from the creek to flow through a private hatchery. In the meager, ankle deep flow, "fly fishermen" stood shoulder to shoulder casting six feet to clouds of spawning fish holding in riffles three inches deep and three feet wide. It was awful. A hundred yards below that the water returned and the creek had a more normal appearance. According to Dave, the water extends for miles to the south, but the fish seem to peter out. This flow eventually runs into and actually is the inlet to Moses Lake.
  1. K., here's how I saw it. It is really not fair to compare Silver Creek in the summer or early fall to Rocky Ford in February. Real hatches and rising fish would have given the place a whole better feel. However, there is no real comparison anyway. The available water is so limited at Rocky Ford that you really feel as though you are fishing in a muddy hatchery tank. But it is the fishing pressure, and "ambiance" that suffers the most. Wherever you stand and step there is no mistaking that you are
the seventeenth to do so right there that day. 90% or more of the fishermen we saw were really beginners, drawn undoubtedly by the publicity and the large, visible fish. Hell, I would have gone
there too when I was learning. But it is too much, too crowded, too muddied and trodden down by the Note: no space for the text!
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