South Platte River - Deckers, CO - 3/20/2011

The rainbow that wouldn't quit running.  Watch this!

South Platte River - Deckers, CO - 3/12/2011

Nice sunny day in Deckers.  Highs of 55deg, winds 10-15mph.  On the water from 8:30am-noon.  Tough day of fishing.  I only caught one one a egg-dropper (palamino midge).

View of the river downstream 1mi from Wigwam club.  Great camp sites.

The only rainbow that decided to take on this blue sky day.

Testing a deep run.

Deckers is a scenic area with lots of cool rock formations.

Fence line of the WigWam Club.  Most exclusive private fly fishing club in the world.

Yellow/Orange (worked best), Pink/Red, or plastic orange (Alaska style) Egg (size 14-16) trailed by Palamino Midge (size 18)

South Platte River - Deckers, CO - 3/5/2011

This day turned out being a trophy rainbow fest.  I now understand why Deckers, CO gets so much hype over large population of trophy fish.  Three rainbows netted in just over 3hrs that were all +20".  All were caught on an egg-palamino midge dropper setup on 5X leader with 6X tippet.  The ambient temp was approx. 20deg when I hit the first riffle around 8am.

At 9:30am, I hooked up with a 25" SLAB and took video footage of the fight and landed fish.  See below!  This experience taught me the convenience of a GoPro camera with a chest mount.  It's tough to finesse a large fish on a fly rod while trying to capture video footage with the left hand!  In the end, I'm glad I took the risk as this is not just another "fish tale."

Went up river soon thereafter but had to cut the day off short due to 30mph wind gusts that made casting nearly impossible.

Video 1 - The Fight

Video 2 - Landing the 25" Beast.  Largest fish netted to-date in CO.

This is the location of the run where I caught the 25" beast along with another fat 20"er within 20min apart.  9:00am MST.

Another fatty.

Girth!

Gorgeous colors.

Yellow/orange Egg (size 14-16) trailed by Palamino Midge (size 18)