Colorado Fly Fishing - Bait Huckin' vs. Fly Fishin'

It was one of those fishing trips. You know,the bows of their boats (hmmm, are they just
everyone catches fish but you, you loose six orrubbing it my face, or are they tenderizing the
eight of your most expensive streamers, it rainsmeat?)Questioning my decision to become a fly
buckets, and you sink the boat. That's right; I gotfisherman, I head over to the dock to pick up my
skunked at Steamboat Lake over Memorial5 year-old son and a fresh styro of night
weekend.crawlers. I'll let my son fish the meat before I
I was determined to show those meat huckerscrumble and load one up on the spinner myself.
(worms and power bait) that a well chosen andSurprising, no luck with the meat either, and hear
strategically placed fly was as effective ascomes the rain. I throw my arms up and ponder
anything a conventional fisherman could load on amy karma activity of the past year.
hook and hang under a bobber. Well, no such luck,We charge for shore as the lake turns to white
I got stomped.caps. The rain and lightning moves in fast. Did I
The fish were rising like mad on a midge hatch,mention that we got the boat for free and have
and I threw everything in the box at them. Ino clue what to do in the rain? We pull the boat
could swear I saw a hefty rainbow nudge my flyup close to shore near our camp, outside of the
to the side to eat the natural laying onlyno-wake zone. We leave all of our gear and head
centimeters from my damn near perfect replica.for the soggy camp.
As we watched the group of 12 year olds addWell, apparently it's best to leave your boat in
another 18" fish to their stringer (full loaded, Iprotected cove in the no wake zone. From what
might add) I decided it must be a lake thing. Iwe could tell, our boat was hammered with 300
don't fish lakes often.to 400 gallons of water from the waves and
I usually have good luck with a streamer in fasterboat wakes from boaters rushing back to the
moving water, so I head for one on the severaldock. Yes, it sank in 18 inches of water. I didn't
tributaries hoping to get the boat up far enoughrealize a boat could sink in 18" of water! All of our
to make a make a few good casts. No such luck,gear is floating around the shore. The gas tank
here comes the wind. Determined and frustrated,and gear which included an Orvis waste pack with
I proceed to lose several of my best streamershmmmm, some 500 plus flies. Every box any fly
in the dense shrubbery surrounding the mouth ofhad to be opened and dried on the dashboards of
the creek (can't retrieve them since the current isour trucks.
too strong to get the boat any further up theWe bail the boat, load the truck and haul our
creek).soggy gear and crippled egos back home.
On the way back to camp we are passed by aNext memorial day, it's back to the river!!!
couple of boats with stringers of fish crashing off