The Rise of Fly Fishing in Colorado

Written by Bailey Reker

“Everyone should believe in something; I believe I’ll go fishing.” Henry David Thoreau

With fly fishing, you will need to have a lot of patience; more than if you were just fishing normally. I also would recommend doing a good amount of research on where the best places are to fly fish in Colorado before you head out. There would be nothing worse than getting all of your gear and learning how to fly fish only to go to a place with little to no fish. You also need to decide from where you will be fishing, i.e. from shore or from a boat?

Find your line.

If you are just starting with learning how to fly fish, people recommend using a clear intermediate sinking line or a floating line (This will probably vary depending on who you ask).

Match the hatch.

When you are fishing for trout you want to ‘match the hatch‘, meaning you want to look where you want to fish, see what is above the water, and match your bait to that. So if you see flies flying around, try your best to imitate them. You also want to vary your retrieve speeds, so go from slow to fast always changing the speed, this will help to entice a bite.

Know where the rod needs to be.

There are quite a few common mistakes that can be made when learning to fly fish. One of these common mistakes is rod placement. You want to try to place your rod just above or barely touching the water. A common mistake is having your rod too high above the water, if you do this you will have a very difficult time feeling any bites on your line.

Lead the fish.

Another mistake is slapping the water with your line, this will cause any fish in the area to flee. Try instead to stop your cast so that the line can gently drift towards the water. Don’t cast your line right above where you see the fish try to put it a little ahead of the fish so that they can see your bait and come towards your line.

Research your spot.

Remember when I said to research where you should go fishing? To add to that once you find a great location try to find the right spot by looking at where the fish actually are. This seems like common sense but is actually often overlooked. If you don’t see fish in the pond or area of water where you would like to fish maybe go down or upstream and try to visually see some fish!

Well that is about all of the advice that I can give based on my research! If you are very interested in trying out fly fishing go to http://www.kirksflyshop.com/blog/fly-fishing-colorado/common-mistakes-in-fly-fishing/. They have a lot of great advice and can take you on a fly fishing tour!